The Poetical Works of John Scott

The Muse! whate'er the Muse inspires,
My soul the tuneful strain admires:
The Poet's birth, I ask not where,
His place, his name, they're not my care;
Nor Greece nor Rome delights me more
Than Tagus' bank , or Thames's shore :
From silver Avon's flowery side
Tho' Shakespeare's numbers sweetly glide,
As sweet, from Morven's desart hills,
My ear the voice of Ossian fills.

205

The Muse! whate'er the Muse inspires,
My soul the tuneful strain admires:
Nor bigot zeal, nor party rage
Prevail, to make me blame the page;
I scorn not all that Dryden sings
Because he flatters courts and kings;
And from the master lyre of Gray
When pomp of music breaks away,
Not less the sound my notice draws,
For that 'tis heard in Freedom's cause.

The Muse! whate'er the Muse inspires,
My soul the tuneful strain admires:
Where Wealth's bright sun propitious shines,
No added lustre marks the lines;
Where Want extends her chilling shades,
No pleasing flower of Fancy fades;
A scribbling peer's applauded lays
Might claim, but claim in vain, my praise

206

From that poor Youth, whose tales relate
Sad Juga's fears and Bawdin's fate .

The Muse! whate'er the Muse inspires,
My soul the tuneful strain admires:
When Fame her wreath well-earn'd bestows,
My breast no latent envy knows;
My Langhorne's verse I lov'd to hear,
And Beattie's song delights my ear;
And his, whom Athens' Tragic Maid
Now leads through Scarning's lonely glade,
While he for British nymphs bids flow
Her notes of terror and of woe .

The Muse! whate'er the Muse inspires,
My soul the tuneful strain admires:

207

Or be the verse of blank or rhyme,
The theme or humble or sublime;
If Pastoral's hand my journey leads
Thro' harvest fields or new-mown meads;
If Epic's voice sonorous calls
To Œta's cliffs or Salem's walls ;
Enough—the Muse, the Muse inspires!
My soul the tuneful strain admires.

alluding to Camoens, the epic poet of Portugal; of whose Lusiad we have a well known masterly translation by Mr. Mickle.

alluding to Milton, Pope, &c.

See Rowley's Poems, supposed to have been written by Chatterton, an unhappy youth born at Bristol.

See Mr. Potter's excellent Translation of Æschylus and Euripides.

See Mr. Glover's Leonidas, alluded to as an example of Classical dignity and simplicity.

See Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, alluded to as an example of Gothic fancy and magnificence.

University of Virginia Library

ODE XV. THE MUSE;

OR, POETICAL ENTHUSIASM.