On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And drop'd his thirsty lance at thy command. *Perching on the fceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing: Quench'd in dark clouds of flumber lie

The terror of his beak, and light'nings of his

eye.

I. 3.

Thee the voice, the dance obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rofy-crowned loves are seen

On Cytherea's day

*This is a weak imitation of fome beautiful lines in the fame ode.

+ Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body.

With

With antic Sports, and blue-ey'd Pleasures,

Frifking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet:
To brifk notes in cadence beating

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting ftrains their Queen's approach declare :

Where-e'er the turns the Graces homage pay. With arms fublime, that float upon the air, In gliding ftate fhe wins her eafy way:

O'er her warm cheek, and rifing bofom, move The bloom of young defire, and purple light of Love.

* Μαρμαρυγὼς θηεῖτο ποδῶν· θαύμαζε δέ θυμώ.

HOMER. Od. o.

† Δάμπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέησι

Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτος.

PHRYNICHUS, apud.Athenæum.

II. 1. Man's

II. I.

*Man's feeble race what ills await!

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, fad refuge from the ftorms of Fate!
The fond complaint, my fong, difprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heav'nly Mufe? Night, and all her fickly dews,

Her fpectres wan, and birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary sky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they fpy, and glitt'ring

fhafts of war.

To compenfate the real or imaginary ills of life, the Mufe was given us by the fame Providence that fends the day, by its chearful prefence to difpel the gloom and terrors of the night.

+ Or feen the Morning's well-appointed ftar Come marching up the eastern hills afar.

G

COWLEY.

II. 2. In

II. 2.

*In climes beyond the folar road,

Where fhaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains

roam,

The Mufe has broke the twilight gloom,

To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode.

And oft beneath the od'rous fhade

Of Chili's boundless forefts laid,

She deigns to hear the favage youth repeat
In loose numbers wildly sweet

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dufky loves.
Her track, where-e'er the Goddess roves,
Glory purfue, and gen'rous Shame,

Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

* Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remoteft and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erfe, Norwegian, and Welsh Fragments, the Lapland and American songs, &c.]

"Extra anni folifque vias.”

"Tutta lontana dal camin del fole."

VIRGIL.

PETRARCH, Canzon 2.

II.

3. Woods

II. 3.

* Woods that wave o'er Delphi's fteep,

Ifles, that crown th' Egean deep,

Fields, that cool Iliffus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?

Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;

Ev'ry fhade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a folemn found:

* Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surry and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there. Spenser imitated the Italian writers, and Milton improved on them: but this school expired foon after the Restoration, and a new one arofe on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.