Τον φρονειν Βροτους οδω
σαντα, τῳ παθει μαθαν
Θεντα κυρίως εχειν.
ÆSCHYLUS, in Agamemnone.
DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was thou badest her know,
And from her own she learn'd to melt at other's woe.
Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse; and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.
Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,
Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,
With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
O, gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen)
With thundering voice and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart ;
Thy philosophic train be there,
To soften, not to wound my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are to feel, and know myself a man.
THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM
[Left unfinished by Mr. Gray: with additions, in brackets, by Mr. Mason.]
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground;
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance,
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling, thrilling ecstasy;
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
Rise, my soul, on wings of fire,
Rise the rapturous choir among!
Hark! 'tis Nature strikes the lyre,
And leads the general song.
[Warm let the lyric transport flow,
Warm as the ray that bids it glow,
And animates the vernal grove
With health, with harmony, and love.]
PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by :
Their raptures now that wildly flow,
No yesterday nor morrow know;
'Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.
Smiles on past Misfortune's brow
Soft Reflection's hand can trace,
And o'er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower,
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.
Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching Comfort view :
The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
See the wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe, and walk again :
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise,
Humble Quiet builds her cell
Near the source whence Pleasure flows;
She eyes the clear crystalline well,
And tastes it as it goes:
[While far below the maddening crowd
Rush headlong to the dangerous flood,]
Where broad and turbulent it sweeps,
And perish in the boundless deeps.
Mark where Indolence and Pride,
[Soothed by Flattery's tinkling sound,]
Go, softly rolling, side by side,
Their dull, but daily round:
[To these, if Hebe's self should bring
The purest cup from Pleasure's spring,
Say, can they taste the flavour high
Of sober, simple, genuine joy?
Mark Ambition's march sublime
Up to Power's meridian height;
While pale-eyed Envy sees him climb,
And sickens at the sight.
Phantoms of danger, death, and dread,
Float hourly round Ambition's head;
While Spleen, within his rival's breast,
Sits brooding on her scorpion nest.
Happier he, the peasant, far,
From the pangs of Passion free,
That breathes the keen yet wholesome air
Of rugged Penury.
He, when his morning task is done,
Can slumber in the noontide sun;
And hie him home, at evening's close,
To sweet repast and calm repose.
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