ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As once, if not with light regard,

I read aright that gifted Bard,

(Him whose school above the rest

His loveliest Elfin queen has blest)
One, only one, unrivall'd fair *,

Might hope the magic girdle wear,

At solemn turney hung on high,

The wish of each love-darting eye.

Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,

As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,

Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,

With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,

* Florimel. See Spenfer, Leg. 4th.

It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side;

Happier hopeless fair, if never

Her baffled hand with vain endeavour

Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!

Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,

And

To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,

The cest of amplest power is given,

To few the god-like gift assigns,

To gird their blest prophetic loins.

gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame.

The band as fairy legends say,

Was wove on that creating day,

When He, who call'd with thought to birth.

Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,

And drest with springs, and forests tall,

And pour'd the main engirting all,

Long by the lov'd Enthusiast wooed

Himself in some diviner mood,

Retiring, sat with her alone,

And plac'd her on his sapphire throne,

The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,

Now sublimest triumph swelling;

Now on love and mercy dwelling;

And she, from out the veiling cloud,

Breath'd her magic notes aloud:

And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,

And all thy subject life was born!

The dangerous passions kept aloof,

Far from the sainted growing woof:

But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,

Listening the deep applauding thunder:

And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,

By whose the Tarsel's eyes were made; And the shadowy tribes of Mind,

In braided dance their murmurs join'd,

And all the bright uncounted Powers,

Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers.

Where is the Bard, whose soul can now Its high presuming hopes avow?

Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,

This hallow'd work for him design'd?

High on some cliff, to heaven up-pil'd,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,

Strange shades o'erbrow the vallies deep,

And holy Genii guard the rock,

Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,

While on its rich ambitious head,

An Eden, like his own, lies spread,

I view that oak, the fancied glades among,

By which, as Milton lay, his evening ear,

From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,

Night spher'd in heaven its native strains could hear:

On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung;

Thither oft his glory greeting,

From Waller's myrtle shades retreating,

With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue,

My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;

In vain-Such bliss to one alone,

Of all the sons of soul was known,

And Heaven, and Fancy, kindred powers,

Have now o'erturned th' inspiring bowers,

Or curtain'd close such scene from every future view.