SHOULD supercilious censors say "His youth is waining, 'tis not time For Aristippus now with rhime To while the useless hours away," I might reply, I do no more Than what my betters did before; That what at first my fancy led • This idle business to pursuc, Still makes me prosecute the trade, Because I've nothing else to do; But to the candid, Tom, and you, A better reason I could give, To whom a better reason's due, That in these measures I convey My gentle precepts, how to live, Clearer than any other way. For in the pow'rs of poetry, Wit, truth, and pleasure blended lie. As, in Italia's fertile vales,
On the same tree, whilst blossoms blow,
The ripen'd fruits nectareous grow,
Fed by warm suns and fresh'ning gales.
Divinest art to mortals giv'n!
By thee, the brave, the good, the wise,
The fair, the learn'd, and witty, rise
From earth's dull sod, and people heav'n.
Nor be't to thee imputed blame,
That ever-barking calumny,
And filthy-mouth'd obscenity,
Have oft usurp'd thy injur'd name!
Alas! the drops which Morning sheds
With dewy fingers on the meads,
The pink's and vi'lets tubes to fill,
Alike the noxious juices feed
Of deadly hemlock's pois'nous weed,
And give 'em fatal pow'r to kill!
Imagination loves to trace
Reason's immortal lineaments
In Fiction's necromantic face,
When Probability assents.
The fairest features Fiction wears,
When most like Truth th' inchantress looks,
As sweet Narcissa's shade appears,
In silent lakes and crystal brooks,
So like the life, we scarcely know
Where last to fix our wav'ring love,
Whether upon the form below,
Or on the real nymph above.
In each we see an angel's face,
Tho' for the substance breathe our sighs,
Whilst we the shadowy image trace
In the clear wave with longing eyes.
But should you ask me, why I choose, Of all the laurel'd sisterhood Th' inhabitants of Pindus' wood, The least considerable Muse.
The vi'lets round the mountain's feet,
Whose humble gems unheeded blow,
Are to the shepherd's smell more sweet
Than lofty cedars on its brow.
Let the loud Epic sound th' alarms
Of dreadful war, and heroes sprung
From some immortal ancestry,
Clad in impenetrable arms
By Vulcan forg'd, my lyre is strung
With softer chords, my Muse more free
Wanders thro' Pindus' humbler ways
In amiable simplicity:
Unstudy'd are her artless lays,
She asks no laurel for her brows;
Careless of censure or of praise,
She haunts where tender myrtle grows;
Fonder of happiness than fame,
To the proud bay prefers the rose,
Nor barters pleasure for a name.
On Nature's lap, reclin'd at ease,
I listen to her heav'nly tongue,
From her derive the pow'r to please,
From her receive th' harmonious time,
And what the goddess makes my song
In unpremeditated rhyme
Mellifluous flows, whilst young Desire,
Cull'd from th' elysian bloom of spring,
Strews flow'rs immortal round my lyre,
And Fancy's sportive children bring,
From blossom'd grove and lilied mead,
Fresh fragrant chaplets for my head.
The most, tho' softest of the Nine,
Euterpe, muse of gaiety
Queen of heart-soft'ning melody,
Allures my ear with notes divine.
In my retreat Euterpe plays,
Where Science, garlanded with flow'rs,
Enraptur'd listens to her lays
Beneath the shade of myrtle bow'rs.
This pleasing territory lies
Unvisited by common eyes,
Far from the prude's affected spleen,
Or bigot's surly godliness,
Where no coquettes, no jilts are seen,
Nor folly-fetter'd fops of dress;
Far from the vulgar high and low,
The pension'd great man's littleness;
Or those, who, prone to slav'ry, grow
Fit tools of others tyranny,
And, with a blind devotion, bow
To wooden blocks of quality;
Far from the land of Argument,
Where deep within their murky cells,
Figures and bloated Tropes are pent,'
And three-legg'd Syllogism dwells;
Far from the bubble-blowing race,
The school-men subtle and refin'd,
Who fill the thick skull's brainless space,
With puffs of theologic wind;
And all the grave pedantic train,
Which fairy Genius longs to biud
Hard with a comment's iron chain.
But, whilst such drones are driv'n away,
In my belov'd retreat remain
The fair, the witty, and the gay.
See Les Ombres of Gresset.
Here the soft patriarch of the Loves,
Honey'd Anacreon, with the doves
Of Venus flutt'ring o'er his head,
(Whilst ivy-crowned Hours around
The laughter-loving Graces lead
In sportive ringlets to the sound
Of Paphian flutes) the Muse invites
To festive days and am'rous nights.
Here tender Moscus loves to rove
Along the meadow's daisied side,
Under a cool and silent grove
Where brooks of dimpling waters glide.
Rapt in celestial ecstasy
Sappho, whom all the Nine inspire,
Varies her am'rous melody,
The chords of whose Idalian lyre,
As changeful passions ebb or flow,
Struck with bold hand now vibrate high,
Now, modulated to a sigh,
Tremble most languishingly low.
Horace, mild sage, refin'd with ease,
Whose precepts whilst they counsel, please,
Without the jargon of the schools
And fur-gown'd pedant's bookish rules,
Here keeps his lov'd academy;
His art so nicely he conceals,
That wisdom on the bosom steals,
And men grow good insensibly.
From cool Valclusa's lilied meads
Soft Petrarch and his Laura come,
And e'en great Tasso sometimes treads
These flow'ry walks, and culls the bloom
Of rural groves, where heretofore
Each Muse, each Grace, beneath the shade
Of myrtle bow'rs, in secret play'd
With an Idalian paramour.
From silver Seine's transparent streams,
With roses and with lilies crown'd,
Breathing the same heart-easing themes,
And tun'd in amicable sound,
Sweet bards, of kindred spirit, blow
Soft Lydian notes on Gallic reeds,
Whose songs instruct us how to know
Truth's flow'rs from affectation's weeds.
Chapelle leads up the festive band;
La Farre and Chaulieu, hand in hand,
Close follow their poetic sire,
Hot with the Teian grape and firè.
But hark! as sweet as western wind
Breathes from the vi'let's fragrant beds,
When baliny dews Aurora sheds,
Gresset's clear pipe, distinct behind,
Symphoniously combines in one
Each former bard's mellifluent tone.
Gresset! in whose harmonius verse
The Indian bird shall never die,
Tho' death may perch on Ver-Vert's hearse,
Fame's tongue immortal shall rehearse
His variable loquacity.
Nor wanting are there bards of Thames,
On rural reed young Surry plays,
And Waller wooes the courtly dames
With gay and unaffected lays,
His careless limbs supinely laid
Beneath the plantane's leafy shade.
Prior his easy pipe applies
To sooth his jealous Cloe's breast,
And even Sacharissa's eyes
To brighter Cloe's yield the prize
Of Venus' soul bewitching cest.
VOL. XV.
Than these much greater bards, I ween,
Whenever they will condescend
Th' inferior Muses to attend,
Immortalize this humble scene:
Shakespear's and Drayton's Fairy crews
In midnight revels gambol round,
And Pope's light Sylphids sprinkle dews
Refreshing on the magic ground.
Nor 'sdains the Dryad train of yore,
And green-hair'd Naiads of the flood,
To join with Fancy's younger brood,
Which brood the sweet enchantress bore
To British bards in after-times,
Whose fame shall bloom in deathless rhymes,
When Greece and Britain are no more.
Whilst such the feasts of fancy give,
Careless of what dull sages know,
Amidst their banquets I will live,
And pitying, look on pow'r below.
If still the cynic censor says,
That Aristippus' useless days
Pass in melodious foolery,
This is my last apology:
"Whatever has the pow'r to bless,
By living having learnt to prize,
Since wisdom will afford me less
Than what from harmless follies rise,
I cannot spare from happiness
A single moment to be wise."
TO MARK AKENSIDE, M. D. ΑΧΑΡΙΣ ΔΕ ΤΙΣ ΠΕΦΥΚΩΣ ΜΕΘΕΤΩ ΠΟΙΗΜΑ
ODE HENR. STEPHANI.
O THOU, for whom the British bays
Bloom in these unpoetic days,
Whose early genius glow'd to follow
The arts thro' Nature's ancient ways,
Twofold disciple of Apollo!
Shall Aristippus' easy lays,
Trifles of philosophic pleasure
Compos'd in literary leisure,
Aspire to gain thy deathless praise?
If thy nice ear attends the strains.
This careless bard of Nature breathes
On Cyprian flute in Albion's plains,
By future poets myrtle wreaths
Shall long be scatter'd o'er bis urn
In annual solemnity,
And marble Cupids, as they mourn,
Point where his kindred ashes lie.
Whilst thro' the tracks of endless day
Thy Muse shall, like the bird of Jove,
Wing to the source of light her way
And bring from cloudless realms above,
Where Truth's seraphic daughters glow,
Another Promothéan ray
To this benighted globe below,
Mine, like soft Cytherea's dove,
Contented with her native grove,
Shall fondly sooth th' attentive ears
Of life's way-wearied travellers,
LL
And, from the paths of fancied woes,
Lead 'em to the serene abode
Where real bliss and real good
In sweet security repose;
Or, as the lark with matin notes,
To youth's new voyagers, in spring,
As over head in air she floats,
Attendant on unruffled wing,
Warbles inartificial joy,
My Muse in tender strains shall sing
The feats of Venus' winged boy,
Or how the nimble-footed Hours,
With the three Graces knit in dance,
Follow the goddess Elegance
To Hebe's court in Paphian bow'rs.
Nor let the supercilious wise
And gloomy sons of melancholy
These unaffected lays despise
As day-dreams of melodious folly.
Reason a lovelier aspect wears
The Smiles and Muses when between,
Than in the stoic's rigid mien
With beard philosophiz'd by years;
And Virtue moaps not in the cell
Where cloister'd Pride and Penance dwell,
But, in the chariot of the Loves,
She triumphs innocently gay,
Drawn by the yok'd Idalian doves,
Whilst young Affections lead the way
To the warm regions of the heart,
Whence selfish fiends of Vice depart,
Like spectres at th' approach of day.
Should any infidel demand,
Who sneers at our poetic Heav'n,
Whether from ordination given
By prelates of the Thespian land,
Or inspiration from above,
(As modern methodists derive
Their light from no divine alive)
I hold the great prerogative
T' interpret sage Anacreon's writ,
Or gloss upon Catullus' wit,
Prophets that heretofore were sent,
And finally require to see
Credentials of my embassy,
Before his faith could yield assent,
Convincing reasons I would give
From a short tale scarce credible,
But yet as true and plausible,
As some which catholics believe,
That I was call'd by Jove's behest
A Paphian and a Delphian priest.
Once when by Trent's pellucid streams,
In days of prattling infancy,
Led by young wond'ring Ecstasy,
To view the Sun's refulgent beams
As on the sportive waves they play'd
Too far I negligently stray'd,
The god of day his lamp withdrew,
Evening her dusky mantle spread,
And from her moisten'd tresses shed
Refreshing drops of pearly dew.
Close by the borders of a wood,
Where an old ruin'd abbey stood,
Far from a fondling mother's sight,
With toil of childish sport oppress'd
My tender limbs sunk down to rest
'Midst the dark horrours of the night.
As Horace erst by fabled doves
With spring's first leaves was mantled o'er
A wand'rer from his native groves,
A like regard the British Loves
To me their future poet bore,
Nor left me guardianless alone,
For tho' no Nymph or Faun appear'd,
Nor piping Satyr was there heard,
And here the Dryads are unknown;
Yet, natives true of English ground,
Sweet Elves and Fays in mantles green,
By shepherds oft in moonlight seen,
And dapper Fairies danc'd around.
The nightingale, her love-lorn lay
Neglecting on the neighb'ring spray,
Strew'd with fresh flow'rs my turfy bed,
And, at the first approach of morn,
The red-breast stript the fragrant thorn
On roses wild to lay my head.
Thus, as the wond'ring rustics say,
In smiling sleep they found me laid
Beneath a blossom'd hawthorn's shade,
Whilst sportive bees, in mystic play,
With honey fill'd my little lips
Blent with each sweet that Zephyr sips
From flow'ry cups in balmy May.
From that bless'd hour my bosom glow'd Ere vanity or fame inspir'd,
With unaffected transports fir'd,
And from my tongue untutor'd flow'd,
In childhood's inattentive days,
The lisping notes of artless lays.
Nor have these dear enchantments ceas'd,
For what in innocence began
Still with increasing years increas'd,
And youth's warm joys now charm the man. Perhaps this fondly-foster'd flame,
E'en when in dust my body's laid,
Will o'er the tomb preserve its fame,
And glow within my future shade.
If thus, as poets have agreed,
The soul, when from the body freed,
In t' other world confines her bliss
To the same joys she lov'd in this,
Thine, when she's pass'd the Stygian flood,
Shall, 'midst the patriot chiefs of old,
The wise, the valiant, and the good,
(Great names in deathless archives roll'd!)
Strike with a master's mighty hand
Thy golden lyre's profoundest chords,
And fascinate the kindred band
With magic of poetic words.
Ravish'd with thy mellifluent lay
Plato and Virgil shall entwine
Of olive and the Mantuan bay
A never-fading crown for thee,
And learn'd Lucretius shall resign,
Among the foll'wers of the Nine,
His philosophic dignity.
For tho' his faithful pencil drew
Nature's external symmetry,
Yet to the mind's capacious view,
That unconfin'd expatiates
O'er mighty Nature's wond'rous whole,
Thy nicer stroke delineates
The finer features of the soul.
And, whilst the Theban bard to thee
Shall yield the heart-elating lyre,
Horace shall hear attentively
Thy finger touch his softer wire
To more familiar harmony.
Mean while thy Aristippus' shade
Shall seek where sweet Anacreon plays,
Where Chapelle spends his festive days,
Where lies the vine-impurpled glade
By tuneful Chaulieu vocal made,
Or where our Shenstone's mossy cell,
Or where the fair Deshouliéres strays,
Or Haramond and Pavillon dwell,
And Gresset's gentle spirit roves
Surrounded by a group of Loves
With roses crown'd and asphodel.
Let the furr'd pedants of the schools,
In learning's formidable show,
Full of wise saws and bookish rules,
The meagre dupes of misery grow,
A lovelier doctrine I profess
Than their dull science can avow;
All that belongs to happiness
Their heads are welcome still to know,
My heart's contented to possess.
For in soft elegance and ease,
Secure of living whilst I live,
Each momentary bliss I seize,
Ere these warm faculties decay,
The fleeting moments to deceive
Of human life's allotted day.
And when th' invidious hand of Time
By stealth shall silver o'er my head,
Still Pleasure's rosy walks I'll tread,
Still with the jocund Muses rhyme,
And haunt the green Idalian bow'rs,
Whilst wanton boys of Paphos' court
In myrtles hide my staff for sport,
And coif me, where I'm bald, with flow'rs.
Thus to each happy habit true,
Preferring happiness to pow'r,
Will Aristippus e'en pursue
Life's comforts to the latest hour,
Till age (the only malady
Which thou and med'cine cannot cure,
Yet what all covet to endure)
This innocent voluptu❜ry
Shall, from the Laughs and Graces here,
With late and lenient change remove,
To regions of Elysian air,
Where shades of mortal pleasures rove,
Destin'd, without alloy, to share
Eternal joys of mutual love,
Which transitory were above.
DEAR Chloe what means this disdain,
Which blasts each endeavour to please?
Tho' forty, I'm free from all pain,
Save love, I am free from disease.
No Graces my mansion have fled,
No Muses have broken my lyre;
The Loves frolic still round my bed,
And Laughter is cheer'd at my fire.
To none have I ever been cold,
All beauties in vogue I'm among; I've appetite e'en for the old,
And spirit enough for the young. Believe me, sweet girl, I speak true, Or else put my love to the test;
Some others have doubted like you, Like them do you bless and be blest.
FROM THE KING OF PRUSSIA TO MONSIEUR VOL-
TAIRE. 1775.
CROYEZ que si j' etois, Voltaire,
Particulier aujourdhui,
Me contentant du necessaire,
Je verrois envoler la Fortune legere,
Et m'en mocquerois comme lui.
Je connois l'ennui des grandeurs,
Le fardeau des devoirs, le jargon des flateurs,
Et tout l'amas des petitesses,
Et leurs genres et leurs especes,
Dont il faut s'occuper dans le sein des honneurs. Je meprise la vaine glorie,
Quoique poëte et souverain,
Quand du ciseau fatal retranchant mon destin
Atropos m' aura vu plonge dans la nuit noire,
Que m' importe l' honneur incertain
De vivre apres ma mort au temple de memoire:
Un instant de bonheur vaut mille ans dans l'his-
Nos destins sont ils donc si beaux?
Le doux plaisir et la mollesse,
La vive et naïve allegresse
Ont toujours fui des grands, la pompe, et les fai-
Nes pour la liberté leurs troupes enchantresses
Preferent l'aimable paresse
Aux austeres devoirs guides de nos travaux.
Aussi la Fortune volage
N'a jamais causé mes ennuis,
Soit qu'elle m' agaçe, ou qu' elle m' outrage,
Je dormirai toutes les nuits
En lui refusant mon hommage.
Mais notre etat nous fait loi,
Il nous oblige, il nous engage
A mesurer notre courage,
Sur ce qu' exige notre emploi.
Voltaire dans son hermitage,
Dans un païs dont l' heritage
Est son antique bonne foi,
Peut 's addoner en paix à la vertu du sage
Dont Platon nous marque la loi;
Pour moi menacé du naufrage,
Je dois, en affrontant l' orage,
Penser, vivre, et mourir en roi.
THE SAME TRANSLATED. VOLTAIRE, believe me, were I now In private life's calm station plac'd, Let Heav'n for nature's wants allow, With cold indiff'rence would I view Departing Fortune's winged haste, And laugh at her caprice like you. Th' insipid farce of tedious state, Imperial duty's real weight, The faithless courtier's supple bow, The fickle multitude's caress, And the great vulgar's littleness, By long experience well I know; And, tho' a prince and poet born, Vain blandishments of glory scorn. For when the ruthless shears of fate Have cut my life's precarious thread, And rank'd me with th' unconscious dead,
What will't avail that I was great,
Or that the uncertain tongue of fame
In mera'ry's temple chaunts my name?
One blissful moment whilst we live
Weighs more than ages of renowa;
What then do potestates receive
of good, peculiarly their own?
Sweet ease and unaffected joy,
Domestic peace, and sportive pleasure,
The regal throne and palace fly,
And, born for liberty, prefer
Soft silent scenes of lovely leisure,
To, what we monarchs buy so dear,
The thorny pomp of scepter'd care.
My pain or bliss shall ne'er depend
On fickle Fortune's casual flight,
For, whether she's my foe or friend,
In calm repose I'll pass the night;
And meer by watchful homage own
I court her smile, or fear her frown.
But from our stations we derive
Userring precepts how to live,
And certain deeds each rank calls forth,
By which is measur'd human worth.
Voltaire, within his private cell
In realins where ancient honesty
Is patrimonial property,
And sacred freedom loves to dwell,
May give up all his peaceful mind,
Guided by Plato's deathless page,
In silent solitude resign'd
To the mild virtues of a sage;
But I, 'gainst whom wild whirlwinds wage
Fierce war with wreck-denouncing wing,
Must be, to face the tempest's rage,
In thought, in life, in death, a king.
WRITTEN IN SICKNESS.
SWEET as the fragrant breath of genial May,
Come, fair Hygeia, goddess heav'nly born,
More lovely than the Sun's returning ray,
To northern regions, at the half year's morn. Where shall I seek thee? in the wholesome grot, Where Temperance her scanty meal enjoys? Or Peace, contented with her humble lot,
Beneath her thatch th' inclement blast defies? Swept from each flow'r that sips the morning dew, Thy wing besprinkles all the scenes around; Where e'er thou fly'st the blossoms blush anew, And purple vi'lets paint the hallow'd ground.
Thy presence renovated nature shows,
By thee each shrub with varied hue is dy'd, Each tulip with redoubled lustre glows,
And all creation smiles with flow'ry pride.
But in thy absence joy is felt no more,
The landscape wither'd e'en in spring appears, The morn low'rs om'nous o'er the dusky shore, And evening suns set half extinct in tears. Ruthless Disease ascends, when thou art gone From the dark regions of th' abyss below, With Pestilence, the guardian of her throne, Breathing contagion from the realms of woe.
In vain her citron groves Italia boasts,
Or Po the balsam of his weeping trees;
In vain Arabia's aromatic coasts
Perfume the pinions of the passing breeze.
No wholesome scents impregn the western gale,
But noxious steuch exhal'd by scorching heat,
Where gasping swains the pois'nons air inhale
That once diffus'd a medicinal sweet.
Me, abject me, with pale disease oppress'd,
Heal with the balm of thy prolific breath;
Rekindle life within my clay-cold breast, [death.
And shield my youth from canker-worms of
Then on the verdant turf, thy favʼrite shrine,
Restor❜d to thee a votary I'll come,
Grateful to offer to thy pow'r divine
Each herb that grows round Æsculapius' tomb.
THE nymph that I lov'd was as cheerful as day,
And as sweet as the blossoming hawthorn in May;
Her temper was smooth as the down on the dove,
And her face was as fair as the mother's of love.
Tho' mild as the pleasantest zephyr that sheds,
And receives gentle odours from violet beds,
Yet warm in affection as Phoebus at noon, [Moor.
And as chaste as the silver-white beams of the
Her mind was unsullied as new-fallen snow,
Yet as lively as tints of young Iris's bow,
As firm as the rock, and as calm as the flood,
Where the peace-loving halcyon deposits her
brood.
The sweets that each virtue or grace had in store,
She cull'd as the bee would the bloom of caci
Which treasur'd for me, O! how happy was I, For tho' her's to collect, it was mine to enjoy.
THE GENIUS OF BRITAIN.
AN IAMBIC ODE. ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM PITT.
*Ατοπον γὰρ ἦν τὴν μὲν τῶν ἀπάλλων σωτηρίαν τε της ἐπιτρέπειν, ὑπὲρ δ δε ἀγαγιάναι μηδὲν αὐτό, ὅτα κειν κατὰ τὴν χώραν σπυδής άξιον.
Diodor. Meul. Histor. Lib. 1. Written in the year 1756.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM
O THOU, ordain'd at length by pitying fate
To save from ruin a declining state;
Adorn'd with all the scientific store
Which bloom'd on Roman or Athenian shore;
At whose command our passions fall or rise,
Breathe anger's menaces, or pity's sighs,
Whose breast (O never let the flame expire!)
Glows ardent with the patriot's sacred fire;
Attend the bard, who scorns the venal lays,
Which servile flatt'ry spurious greatness pays;
Whose British spirit emulating thine,
Could ne'er burn incence at corruption's shrine;
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