University of Virginia Library

ODE XVI.

Amid the deep'ning gloom of time
Your puny names shall scarce appear;
While those of kings, in characters sublime,
Shall, blazing, bid a world revere:
Their peerless acts, with ev'ry virtuous quality,
Shall grace the pyramid of Immortality.
There shall their glorious names be seen so bright,
As on a birth or coronation night,
Amidst the evening's honour'd shade,
Fast by the grocer's, or the chandler's shop,
Or lace, or pinman, or the man of mop,
By loyal thumb-bottles display'd!
That, burning with a rival glow,
Beam on the gaping multitude below.
Know, when we slumber, not so sleeps the king—
He watches!—yes, he ponders through the night!

207

To buried Genius lends a fancied wing,
And lifts him from his darkness into light:
Thus, nightly on the Mevagizzy shore,
When Horror breathes upon the heaving deep,
Amid the wild and solemn roar;
These eyes have seen the crafty heron creep;
Now dart his beak so sharp for fish's blood,
And snatch a wriggling conger from the flood!
Here differeth this comparison of ours—
The king preserveth—but the fowl devours.
 

A fishing-town in Cornwall.