Ha! what forms, with port fublime
Glide along in fullen mood,
Scorning all the threats of time,

High above misfortune's flood?

They feize their harps, they strike the lyre,
With rapid hand, with freedom's fire.
Obedient nature hears the lofty found,

And Snowdon's airy cliffs the heavenly ftrains refound.

In pomp of ftate, behold they wait,

With arms outstretch'd, and aspects kind, To fnatch on high to yonder sky,

The child of fancy left behind: Forgot the woes of Cambria's fatal day, By rapture's blaze impell'd, they fwell the artless lay.

But ah in vain they ftrive to footh,
With gentle arts, the tort'ring hours;
ADVERSITY, with rankling tooth,
Her baleful gifts profufely pours.

Behold fhe comes, the fiend forlorn,
Array'd in horror's settled gloom;

BARD, an Ode.

+ Hymn to ADVERSITY.

She

She ftrews the briar and prickly thorn,

And triumphs in th' infernal doom.

With frantic fury and infatiate rage,

She knaws the throbbing breaft, and blasts the glowing page.

No more the foft EOLIAN flute*

Breathes thro' the heart the melting ftrain;

The powers of Harmony are mute,

And leave the once-delightful plain;

With heavy wing I see them beat the air,
Damp'd by the leaden hand of comfortless despair.

Yet ftay, O! ftay, celeftial pow'rs,
And with a hand of kind regard,
Difpel the boift'rous ftorm that lours
Destructive on the fav'rite bard;

Ọ watch with me his laft expiring breath,

And fnatch him from the arms of dark, oblivious

death.

Hark the FATAL SISTERS

join,

And with horror's mutt'ring founds,

Weave the tiffue of his line,

While the dreadful spell refounds.

The PROGRESS OF POETRY,

↑ The FATAL SISTERS, an Ode.

❝ Hail,

"Hail, ye midnight fifters, hail,
"Drive the shuttle swift along;
"Let our fecret charms prevail
"O'er the valiant and the ftrong.

"O'er the glory of the land,
"O'er the innocent and

O'er the mufes' tuneful band,

“Weave the fun'ral web of Gray."

'Tis done, 'tis done-the iron hand of pain,
With ruthless fury and corrofive force,
Racks every joint, and feizes every vein:
He finks, he groans, he falls a lifeless corfe.

Thus fades the flow'r nip'd by the frozen gale, Tho' once fo fweet, fo lovely to the eye: Thus the tall oaks, when boift'rous ftorms affail, Torn from the earth, a mighty ruin lye.

Ye facred fifters of the plaintive verse,

Now let the ftream of fond affection flow; O pay your tribute o'er the flow-drawn hearfe, With all the manly dignity of woe.

Oft when the Curfew tolls its parting knell,
With folemn paufe yon CHURCH-YARD's

gloom furvey;

While forrow's fighs, and tears of pity tell,
How juft the moral of the poet's lay *.

O'er his green grave, in contemplation's guise,
Oft let the pilgrim drop a filent tear;
Oft let the fhepherd's tender accents rife,
Big with the fweets of each revolving year;
Till proftrate time adore his deathlefs name,
Fix'd on the folid base of adamantine fame.

*

Elegy in a COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD,

ODE