An ODE on Beauty.
I.
Beauty, my soft transporting theme,
Assist my muse, and all my soul enflame;
With ev'ry grace, and ev'ry tender charm,
Exalt my fancy, and my bosom warm.
Thou canst the coldest breast inspire
With sacred rapture, and refin'd desire:
Not glory, friendship, wealth or liberty,
Attract and charm like thee.
The prince, the swain, the tim'rous, and the brave,
Thou, by a sov'reign title, dost enslave:
Thee, ev'n the saint and libertine obey,
And uncontroul'd and boundless is thy sway.
II.
By thee the holy hermit fir'd,
In ecstacies sublime,
Far from the sensual crowd retir'd,
Spends all his happy time;
While smiling forms, and glorious visions roll
Uninterrupted thro' his ravish'd soul.
III.
Nor human minds alone thy pow'r confess,
A kind of homage brutes themselves express;
Vanquish'd by thee, fierce lions quit their prey,
And harmless o'er the Libyan desarts stray.
IV.
With admiration, ecstasy, and love,
Thou fill'st the num'rous, shining worlds above:
There are thy triumphs shown,
For thee each heav'nly lyre is strung;
Thy force to no celestial breast unknown,
Is the perpetual subject of their song.
V.
The mighty Being whom we all adore,
Immortal Beauty, owns thy pow'r:
A whole eternity roll'd on,
While with his own supreme perfections he
Solac'd himself, immensely blest in thee.
And pleas'd with the bright images which shone.
In his own beatific mind,
He all things visible by them design'd,
And after those complete ideas wrought;
When from the black abyss of night
He drew the beauteous light,
And comely order from confusion brought.
He rais'd the sparkling arches of the skies,
And bad the sun in golden splendor rise;
He gave the moon her silver blaze,
And lent the glimm'ring stars their rays.
To him the morning owes her crimson vest;
His skill, with flow'rs, the smiling valleys drest,
And cloath'd, with various furs, the beast;
In shining scales he arm'd the finny race,
And gave the painted birds their plumy grace.
Nor here creation ceas'd;
With the great work th' almighty maker pleas'd,
Still from a brighter copy of his mind,
He man with godlike faculties design'd:
Surveying then the universe around,
The universe his approbation found,
In ev'ry part with perfect beauty crown'd.
