Her cities, throng'd with many an Attic dome,
Ask not the banner'd bastion, massy proof;
Firm as the castle's feudal roof,
Stands the Briton's social home.
Hear, Gaul, of England's liberty the lot!
Right, Order, Law, protect her simplest plain;
Nor scorn to guard the shepherd's nightly fold,
And watch around the forest cot.
With conscious certainty, the swain
Gives to the ground his trusted grain,
With eager hope the reddening harvest eyes;
And claims the ripe autumnal gold,
The meed of toil, of industry the prize.
For ours the King, who boasts a parent's praise,
Whose hand the people's sceptre sways;
Ours is the Senate, not a specious name,
Whose active plans pervade the civil frame,
Where bold debate its noblest war displays,
And, in the kindling strife, unlocks the tide
Of manliest eloquence, and rolls the torrent wide.
Hence then, each vain complaint, away,
Each captious doubt, and cautious fear!
Nor blast the new-born year,
That anxious waits the Spring's slow-shooting ray :
Nor deem that Albion's honours cease to bloom.
With candid glance, th' impartial Muse,
Invoked on this auspicious morn,
The present scans, the distant scene pursues,
And breaks Opinion's speculative gloom:
Interpreter of ages yet unborn,
Full right she spells the characters of Fate,
That Albion still shall keep her wonted state!
Still in eternal story shine,
Of Victory the sea-beat shrine;
The source of every splendid art,
Of old, of future worlds the universal mart.
ODE FOR HIS MAJESTY'S BIRTHDAY,
WHEN Freedom nursed her native fire
In ancient Greece, and ruled the lyre;
Her bards, disdainful, from the tyrant's brow
The tinsel gifts of flattery tore ;
But paid to guiltless power their willing vow:
And to the throne of virtuous kings,
Tempering the tone of their vindictive strings,
From truth's unprostituted store,
The fragrant wreath of gratulation bore.
'Twas thus Alcæus smote the manly chord;
And Pindar on the Persian lord
His notes of indignation hurl'd,
And spurn'd the minstrel slaves of eastern sway, From trembling Thebes extorting conscious shame ;1 But o'er the diadem, by Freedom's flame
Illumed, the banner of renown unfurl'd:
16 'Extorting conscious shame:' by his allusions to the victories gained by the Greeks in the Persian war, when the Thebans and most of the other Boeotians disgracefully deserted the common cause of Greece, and sided with the invader of their country.
Thus to his Hiero decreed,
'Mongst the bold chieftains of the Pythian game,
The brightest verdure of Castalia's bay;
And gave an ampler meed
Of Pisan palms, than in the field of Fame
Were wont to crown the car's victorious speed:
And hail'd his scepter'd champion's patriot zeal,
Who mix'd the monarch's with the people's weal;
From civil plans who claim'd applause,
And train'd obedient realms to Spartan laws.
And he, sweet master of the Doric oat,
Theocritus, forsook awhile
The graces of his pastoral isle,1
The lowing vale, the bleating cote,
The clusters on the sunny steep,
And Pan's own umbrage, dark and deep,
The caverns hung with ivy-twine,
The cliffs that waved with oak and pine,
And Etna's hoar romantic pile :
And caught the bold Homeric note,
In stately sounds exalting high
The reign of bounteous Ptolemy: 2
Like the plenty-teeming tide
Of his own Nile's redundant flood,
O'er the cheer'd nations, far and wide,
Diffusing opulence and public good;
While in the richly-warbled lays
Was blended Berenice's name,3
1 Isle' Sicily.-2 Bounteous Ptolemy:' see the 17th Idyllium' of Theocritus. The Ptolemy celebrated by him was the second of that name, King of Egypt, surnamed Philadelphus. 3 Berenice's name:' see Theocritus, as above. The Berenice here intended was the wife of Ptolemy Lagus, and mother of Philadelphus, the patron of Theocritus.
Pattern fair of female fame,
Softening with domestic life
Imperial splendour's dazzling rays,
The queen, the mother, and the wife!
To deck with honour due this festal day,
O for a strain from these sublimer bards!
Who free to grant, yet fearless to refuse
Their awful suffrage, with impartial aim
Invoked the jealous panegyric Muse;
Nor, but to genuine worth's severer claim,
Their proud distinction deign'd to pay,
Stern arbiters of glory's bright awards! ·
For peerless bards like these alone,
The bards of Greece might best adorn,
With seemly song, the Monarch's natal morn ;
Who, throned in the magnificence of peace,
Rivals their richest regal theme:
Who rules a people like their own,
In arms, in polish'd arts supreme;
Who bids his Britain vie with Greece.
ODE FOR THE NEW YEAR, 1787.
IN rough magnificence array'd,
When ancient Chivalry display'd
The pomp of her heroic games;
And crested chiefs, and tissued dames,
Assembled, at the clarion's call,
In some proud castle's high-arch'd hall,
To grace romantic glory's genial rites
Associate of the gorgeous festival,
The Minstrel struck his kindred string,
And told of many a steel-clad king,
Who to the tourney train'd his hardy knights;
Or bore the radiant red-cross shield
'Mid the bold peers of Salem's field;
Who traversed pagan climes to quell
The wizard foe's terrific spell;
In rude affrays untaught to fear
The Saracen's gigantic spear.
The listening champions felt the fabling rhyme With fairy trappings fraught, and shook their plumes sublime.
Such were the themes of regal praise
Dear to the Bard of elder days;
The songs, to savage virtue dear,
That won of yore the public ear!
Ere Polity, sedate and sage,
Had quench'd the fires of feudal rage,
Had stemm'd the torrent of eternal strife,
And charm'd to rest an unrelenting age.-
No more, in formidable state,
The castle shuts its thundering gate;
New colours suit the scenes of soften'd life;
No more, bestriding barbed steeds,
Adventurous Valour idly bleeds:
And now the Bard, in alter'd tones,
A theme of worthier triumph owns;
By social imagery beguiled,
He moulds his harp to manners mild;
Nor longer weaves the wreath of war alone,
Nor hails the hostile forms that graced the Gothic throne.
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