The laughing flowers, that round them blow,

Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds along

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign :

Now rowling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour :
The rocks, and nodding groves rebellow to the

[roar.

The subject and fimile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and luftre to all it touches, are here described ; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by

the conflict of tumultuous passions.

Oh!

* Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar.

+ This is a weak imitation of some incomparable lines in

the fane Ode.

D4

Of

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

The terror of his beak, and light’nings of his eye.

1. 3.

* Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen

On Cytherea's day

With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

Frisking light in frolic measures ;

* Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body,

Now

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet :

To brisk notes in cadence beating

* Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach de-

(clare: Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.

With arms sublime, that float

upon

the air,

In gliding state The wins her easy way :

O’er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move

+ The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of

[Love.

I.

* Man's feeble race what Ills await,

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!

The fond complaint, my Song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv’n in vain the heav'nly Muse ?

Night, and all her fickly dews,

Her Spectres wan, and Birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary sky:

* To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse

was given to Mankind by the same Providence that sends the Day by its chearful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the Night.