So pure the vows which claffic duty pays
To blefs another Brunswick's rifing rays!

O Pitt, if chofen ftrains have power to steal
Thy watchful breast awhile from Britain's weal;
If votive verfe, from facred Isis fent,
Might hope to charm thy manly mind, intent
On patriot plans, which ancient freedom drew,
Awhile with fond attention deign to view
This ample wreath, which all th' affembled Nine
With skill united have confpir'd to twine.

Yes, guide and guardian of thy country's caufe! Thy confcious heart fhall hail with just applause The duteous Mufe, whofe hafte officious brings Her blameless off'ring to the fhrine of kings: Thy tongue, well tutor'd in historic lore, Can fpeak her office and her use of yore : For fuch the tribute of ingenuous praise Her harp difpens'd in Grecia's golden days; Such were the palms, in ifles of old renown, She cuil'd, to deck the guiltlefs monarch's crown; When virtuous Pindar told, with Tufcan gore How fceptied Hiero ftain'd Sicilia's fhore, Or to mild Theron's raptur'd eye difclos'd Bright vales, where fpirits of the brave repos'd: Yet ftill beneath the throne, unbrib'd, the fat The decent handmaid, not the flave, of state; Pleas'd in the radiance of the regal name To blend the luftre of her country's fame : For, taught like Ours, the dar'd with prudent pride Obedience from dependance to divide : Though princes claim'd her tributary lays. With truth fevere the temper'd partial praise; Conscious the kept her native dignity, Bold as her flights, and as her numbers free. And fure, if e'er the mufe indulg'd her ftrains, With just regard to grace heroic reigns, Where could her glance a theme of triumph own So dear to fame as George's trophy'd throne? At whole firm bafe thy ftedfaft foul afpires To wake a mighty nation's ancient fires : Afpires to baffle Faction's fpecious claim, Roufe England's rage, and give her thunder aim: Cace more the main her conqu'ring banners fweep, Again her Commerce darkens all the deep. Thy fix'd refolve renews each firm decree That made, that kept of yore, thy country free. Call'd by thy voice, nor deaf to war's alarms, Its willing youth the rural empire arms: Again the lords of Albion's cultur'd plains March the firm leaders of their faithful fwains; As eft ftout archers, from the farm or fold, Flam'd in the van of many a baron bold.

O Pitt, while honour points thy lib'ral plan, And o'er the Minifter exalts the Man, fis congenial greets thy faithful fway, Nor fcorns to bid a ftatelinan grace her lay. For 'tis not Hers, by falfe connections drawn At fplendid Slavery's fordid fhrine to fawn; Each native effort of the feeling breast To friends, to foes, in equal fear, fuppreft: 'Tis not for her to purchase or pursue The phantom favours of the cringing crew: More useful toils her ftudious hours engage, And fairer leffons fill her spotlefs page: Beneath ambition, but above difgrace, With nobler arts the forms the rifing race: With happier tasks, and lefs refin'd pretence, In elder times, fhe woo'd Munificence To rear her arched roofs in regal guife, And lift her temples nearer to the skies; Princes and prelates ftretch'd the focial hand To form, diffufe, and fix, her high command: From kings fhe claim'd, yet fcorn'd to feek, the [wife. From kings, like George, benignant, juft, and Lo, this her genuine lore.-Nor thou refufe This humble prefent of no partial Muse From that calm Bow'r, which nurs'd thy thoughtful youth

prize;

In the pure precepts of Athenian truth:
Where fiift the form of British Liberty
Beam'd in full radiance on thy mufing eye;
That form, whofe mien fublime, with equal awe
In the fame fhade unblemish'd Somers faw:
Where once (for well the lov'd the friendly grove
Which ev'ry claffic Grace had learn'd to rove)
Her whispers wak'd fage Harrington to feign
The bleffings of her vitionary reign;

That reign, which now, no more an empty theme,
Adorns Philofophy's ideal dream,

But crowns at laft, beneath a George's fimile,
In full reality this favour'd ifle.

Nor thine the pomp of indolent debate, The war of words, the fophiftries of state: Nor frigid caution checks thy free defign, Nor ftops thy ftream of eloquence divine: For thine the privilege, on few beftow'd, To feel, to think, to fpeak, for public good. In vain Corruption calls her venal tribes; One common cause one common end prefcribes: Nor fear nor fraud or fpares or fcreens the foc, But fpirit prompts, and valour strikes the blow. Trinity College, Oxford; in which alfo Lord were educated.

Heroic champions caught the clarion's call,
And throng'd the feaft in Edward's banner'd hall;
While chiefs, like George, approv'd in worth
alone,

Unlock'd chafte Beauty's adamantine zone.
Lo! the fam'd ifle, which hails thy clofen fway.
What fertile fields her temp rate funs display!
Where Property fecures the confcious fwain,
And guards, while Plenty gives, the golden grain:
Hence with ripe ftores her villages abound,
Her airy downs with scatter'd theep refound;
Frefl are her paftures with unceasing rills,
And future navies crown her dark fome hills.
To bear her formidable glory far,
Behold her opulence of hoarded war!
Sce, from her ports a thousand banners ftream;
On ev'ry coaft her vengeful lightnings gleam!
Meantime, remote from Ruin's armed hand,
In peaceful majefty her cities find;
Whole fplendid doines and bufy streets declare
Their firmest fort, a king's parental care.

And oh! bleft Queen, if e'er the magic pow'rs
Of warbled truth have won thy mufing hours;
Here Poefy, from awful days of yore,
Has pour'd her genuine gifts of raptur'd lore.
Mid oaken bow'rs, with holy verdure wreath'd.
In Druid-fongs her folemn fpirit breath'd:
While cunning Bards at ancient banquets fung
Of paynim foes defied, and trophies hung.
Here Spenfer tun'd his myftic minstrelfy,
And drefs'd in fairy robes a Queen like Thee.
Here, boldly mark'd with ev'ry living hue,
Nature's unbounded portrait Shakespeare drew:
But chief the dreadful group of human woes
The daring artift's tragic pencil chofe;
Explor'd the pangs that rend the royal breaft,
Thofe wounds that lurk beneath the tiflued veft.
Lo! this the land, whence Milton's mufe of fire
High foar'd to steal from heaven a feraph's lyre;
And told the golden ties of wedded love
In facred Eden's amaranthine grove.

Thine too, majestic Bride, the favour'd clime, Where Science fits enfhrin'd in roofs fublime. O mark, how green her wood of ancient bays O'er Ifis' marge in many a chaplet strays! Thither, if haply fome diftinguish'd flow'r Of these mix'd blooms from that ambrofial bow'r Might catch thy glance, and, rich in Nature's hue, Entwine thy diadem with honour due; If feemly gifts the train of Phoebus pay, To deck imperial Hymen's festive day; Thither thyfelf fhall hafte, and mildly deign To tread with nymph-like step the conícious plain; Pleas'd in the mufe's nook, with decent pride, To throw the fceptred pall of ftate afide. Nor from the fhade fhall George be long away, Which claims Charlotta's love, and courts her stay. Thefe are Britannia's praifes. Deign to trace With rapt reflection Freedom's fav'rite race! But though the gen'rous ifle, in arts and arms, Thus ftand fupreme in Nature's choiceft charms Tho George and Conqueft guard her fea-girt throne,

One happier bleffing ftill the calls her own

And, proud to cull the fairest wreath of Fame, Crowns her chief honours with a Charlotte's

name.

$66. On the Birth of the Prince of Wales. T. WARTON. Written after the Inftallation at Wrador, in the fure year.

MPERIAL Dome of Edward wife and brave! Where warlike Honour's brightest banners

wave;

At whofe proud Tilts, unmatch'd for hardy deeds, Heroic kings have frown'd on barbed ficeds: Though now no more thy crefted chiefs advance In arm'd array, nor grasp the glitt'ring lance; Though Knighthood boats the martial pomp no

more

That grac'd its gorgeous feftivals of yore;
Say, confcicus Dome, if e'er thy marshall'd knights
So nobly deck'd their old majestic rites
As when, high-thron'd amid thy trophy'd fhrine,
George fhone the leader of the gaiter'd line?

Yet future triumphs, Windfor, ftill remain; Still may thy bow'rs receive as brave a traja : For, to! to Britain and her favour'd Pair Heaven's high command has fent a facred Heir! Him the bold pattern of his patriot fire

Shall fill with early fame's immortal fire:
In life's freth fpring cre buds the promis'd prime,
His thoughts fhall mount to virtue's meed fublime:
The patrict fire thall catch, with fure profage,
Each lib'ral omen of his op'ning age;
Thea to thy courts fhall lead, with confcious joy,
In ftripling beauty's bloom, the princely boy;
There firmly wreathe the Braid of heavenly dre,
True valour's badge, around his tender thigh.
Meantime, thy royal piles that rife clate
With many an antique tow'r, in mafly state,
In the young champion's nufing mind thall raife
Vaft images of Albion's elder days;
While, as around is eager glance explores
Thy chambers,rough with war's conftructed fiores,
Rude helms, and bruifed fields, barbaric fpeits
Of ancient chivalry's undaunted toils;
Amid the dusky trappings hung on high,
Young Edward's fable mail thall frike his eye;
Shall fire the youth to crown his riper years
With rival Creffys, and a new Poitiers;
On the fame wall, the fame triumphal base,
His own victorious monuments to place.
Nor can a fairer kindred titie move
His emulative age to glory's love
Than Edward, laureate prince. In letter'd truth,
Oxford, fage mother, school'd his studious youth:
Her fimple inftitutes and rigid lore
The royal nurfling unreluctant bore;
Nor fhunn'd, at penfive eve, with lonefome pace,
The cloifter's moon-light-chequer'd floor to trace;
Nor fcorn'd to mark the fun, at matins due,
Stream through the ftoried windows holy ine.

And oh, Young Prince, be thine his moral praife; Nor feek in fields of blood his warrior bays.

Scarce a fickly ftraggling flow'r
Decks the rough caftle's rifted tow'r :
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled fteeps:
O'er the field of waving broom
Slowly fhoots the golden bloom:
And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the tranfitory gale:

While from the fhrubb'ry's naked maze,
Where the vegetable blaze

Of Flora's brightest 'broidery shone,
Ev'ry chequer'd charm is flown;
Save that the lilac hangs to view
Its bursting gems in clufters blue.
Scant along the ridgy land

The beans their new-born ranks expand:
The fresh-turn'd foil with tender blades
Thinly the fprouting barley fhades:
Fringing the foreft's devious edge,
Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge;
Or to the distant eye difplays
Weakly green its budding fprays.

The fwallow, for a moment feen,
Skims in hafte the village green :
From the grey moor, on feeble wing,
The fereaning plovers idly fpring:
The butterfly, gay-painted foon,
Explores awhile the tepid noon,
And fondly trufts its tender dyes
To frkle funs and flatt'ring fkies.

Fraught with a tranfient, frozen show'r,
If a cloud should haply low'r,
Sailing o'er the landfcape dark,
Mute on a fudden is the lark;
But when gleams the fun again
O'er the pearl-befprinkled plain,
And from behind his wat'ry veil
Looks through the thin-defcending bail,
She mounts, and, lefs'ning to the fight,
Salutes the blythe return of light,
And high her tuneful track purfues
Mid the dim rainbow's fcatter'd hues,
Where in venerable rows
Widely waving oaks inclofe
The moat of yonder antique hall,
Swarm the rooks with clamorous call;
And, to the toils of nature true,
Wreath their capacious nelts anew.
Mufing through the lawny park,
The lonely poet loves to mark
How various greens in faint degrees
Tinge the tall groups of various trees:
While, carclefs of the changing year,,
The pine cerulean, never fear,
Towers diftinguish'd from the rest,
And proudly vaunts her winter vest.

Within fome whispering ofier ifle,

Where Glym's low banks neglected smile;
And each trim meadow ftill retains
The wint'ry torrent's oozy ftains:

He ftartles from the bordering wood The bashful wild-duck's early brood.

O'er the broad downs, a novel race,
Frisk the lambs, with faltering pace,
And with eager bleatings fill
The fofs that fkirts the beacon'd hill.

His free-born vigour yet unbroke
To lordly man's ufurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play:
Bafking beneath the noontide ray,
And ftretch'd among the daifies, pride
Of a green dingle's floping fide:
While far bencath, where nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loofe luxuriance taught to ftray
A thousand tumbling rills inlay
With filver veins the vale, or pafs
Redundant thro' the fparkling grafs.
Yet, in these presages rude,
Midft her penfive folitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the foreft, green and gay,
The dappled flope, the tedded hay;
Sces the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sces June unfold his gloffy robe
Of thousand hues o'er all the globe;
Sees Ceres grafp her crown of corn,
And plenty load her ample horn.

§ 70.
BENEATH the beech, whofe branches bar
Smit with the lightning's vivid glare,
O'erhang the craggy road,

Ode. The Suicide. T. WARTON.

And while hollow as they wave;
Within a folitary grave,

A wretched Suicide holds his accurs'd abode.
Lower'd the grim morn, in murky dies
Damp mifts involv'd the fcowling fkies,
And dimm'd the struggling day;

As by the brook that ling ring laves
Yon ruth-grown moor with fable waves,
Full of the dark refolve he took his fullen way.
I mark'd his defultory pace,

His geftures ftrange, and varying face,
With many a mutter'd found;

And ah! too late aghaft I view'd
The recking blade, the hand embru'd:

He fell, and groaning grafp'd in agony the ground.
Full many a melancholy night

He watch'd the flow return of light;

And fought the pow'rs of fleep,

To fpread a momentary calm

O'er his fad couch, and in the balm

Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep.

Full oft, unknowing and unknown,

He wore his endless noons alone,

Amid the autumnal wood:

Oft was he wont, in hafty fit,

Abrupt the focial board to quit,

And

gaze with eager glance upon the tumbling food,

Beck'ning

Beck'ning the wretch to torments new,
Defpair, for ever in his view,

A fpectre pale, appear'd;
While, as the fhades of eve arose

And brought the day's unwelcome clofe,

More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd.
Is this,' mistaken Scorn will cry,
Is this the youth, whofe genius high
Could build the genuine rhyme?
Whofe bofom mild the fav'iing Mufe
Had ftor'd with all her ample views,
Parent of faireft deeds, and purposes fublime?'
Ah! from the Mufe that bofom mild
By treach'rous magic was beguil'd,
To ftrike the deathful blow:
She fill'd his foft ingenuous mind
With many a feeling too refin'd,
And rous'd to livelier pangs his wakeful fenfe of

Though doom'd hard penury to prove,
And the fharp ftings of hopelefs love;

To griefs congenial prone,

[woe.

More wounds than nature gave he knew, While mifery's form his fancy drew In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own. Then with not o'er his earthly tomb The baleful nightfhade's lurid bloom

To drop its deadly dew:

Nor, oh! forbid the twifted thorn,

That rudely binds his turf forlorn, With fpng's green-fwelling buds to What though no marble-piled buft Adorn his defolated duft,

With speaking fculpture wrought? Pity fhall woo the weeping Nine To build a vifionary thrine,

[anew.

vegetate

[brought.

Hung with unfading flow'rs, from fairy regions
What though refus'd each chanted rite?
Here viewlefs mourners fhall delight

To touch the fhadowy thell:
And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom
Of Laura, loft in early bloom,

In melancholy tones fhall ring his pensive knell.
To footh a lone, unhallow'd shade,
This votive dirge fad duty paid,
Within an ivy'd nook:
Sudden the half-funk orb of day
More radiant fhot its parting ray,
And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention

Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praife; Nor thus for guilt in pecious lays

The wreath of glory twine:

[took:

Shall claffic fteps thy fcenes explore l
When morn's pale rays but faintly peep
O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy steep,
Who now fhall climb its brows, to view
Thy length of landscapes ever new;
Where Summer flings, in carclefs pride,
Her varied vefture far and wide?
Who mark, beneath, each village-charm,
Or grange, or elm-encircled farm :
The flinty dove-cote's crowded roof,
Watch'd by the kite that fails aloof:
The tufted pines, whofe umbrage tall
Darkens the long-deserted hall:
The vet'ran beech, that on the plain
Collects at eve the playful train:
The cot that fmokes with early fire,
The low-roof'd fane's embofom'd fpire ?
Who now fhall indolently stray
Through the deep foreft's tangled way;

Pleas'd at his cuftom'd talk to find
The well-known hoary-treffed hind,
That toils with feeble hands, to glean
Of wither'd boughs his pittance mean?
Who mid thy nooks of hazle fit,
Loft in fome melancholy fit;
And lift ning to the raven's croak,
The diftant fail, the falling oak?
Who, through the funfhine and the show'r,
Defery the rainbow-painted tow'r?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckow's vernal lay?
Who, mufing waste the fummer hour,
Where higa o'er-arching trees embow'r
The graffy lane, fo rarely pac'd,
With azure flow'rets idly grac'd?
Unnotic'd now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers cross the lawn:
Nor fond attention loves to note
The wether's bell from folds remote:
While own'd by no poetic eye,
Thy penfive evening fhade the fky!

For, lo! the bard who rapture found
From ev'ry rural fight or found;
Whofe genius warm, and judgment chaste,
No charm of genuine nature pafs'd;

Gg 4

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