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POEMS

OF

CHRISTOPHER SMART.

ODES.

IDLENESS.

ODE I.

GODDESS of ease, leave Lethe's brink,
Obsequious to the Muse and me;
For once endure the pain to think,
Oh! sweet insensibility!

Sister of peace and indolence,

Bring, Muse, bring numbers soft and slow, Elaborately void of sense,

And sweetly thoughtless let them flow,

Near some cowslip-painted mead,

There let me doze out the dull hours,
And under me let Flora spread,
A sofa of her softest flow'rs.

Where, Philomel, your notes your breathe
Forth from behind the neighbouring pine,
And murmurs of the stream beneath
Still flow in unison with thine.

For thee, O Idleness, the woes
Of life we patiently endure,

Thou art the source whence labour flows,

We shun thee but to make thee sure.

For who'd sustain war's toil and waste,

Or who th' hoarse thund'ring of the sea,

But to be idle at the last,

And find a pleasing end in thee.

TO ETHELINDA,

Happy Muse, that didst embrace
The sweet, the heav'nly-fragrant place!
Tell me, is the omen true,
Shall the bard arrive there too?

Oft thro' my eyes my soul has flown,
And wanton'd on that iv'ry throne:
There with extatic transport burn'd,
And thought it was to Heav'n return'd.
Tell me is the omen true,
Shall the body follow too?

When first at Nature's early birth,
Heav'n sent a man upon the Earth,
Ev'n Eden was more fruitful found,
When Adam came to till the ground:
Shall then those breasts be fair in vain,
And only rise to fall again?

No, no, fair nymph-for no such end
Did Heav'n to thee its bounty lend;
That breast was ne'er design'd by fate
For verse, or things inanimate;
Then throw them from that downy bed,
Aud take the poet in their stead.

ON AN EAGLE

CONFINED IN A COLLEGE COURT,
ODE III.

IMPERIAL bird, who wont to soar

High o'er the rolling cloud,
Where Hyperborean mountains hoar
Their heads in ether shroud;

Thou servant of almighty Jove,

Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove
To the bleak north's extremest goal;-
Thou, who magnanimous could'st bear

ON HER DOING MY VERSES THE HONOUR OF The sovereign thund'rer's arms in air,
WEARING THEM IN HER BOSOM.-WRIT-

TEN AT THIRTEEN,

ODE II.

HAPPY verses! that were prest

In fair Ethelinda's breast!

VOL. XVI.

And shake thy native pole !

Oh cruel fate! what barbarous hand,

What more than Gothic ire,

At some fierce tyrant's dread command,
To check thy daring fire,

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Tho' dim'd thine eye, and clipt thy wing
So grov'ling! once so great!"
The grief-inspired Muse shall sing
In tend'rest lays thy fate.
What time by thee scholastic pride
Takes his precise, pedantic stride,

Nor on thy mis'ry casts a care,
The stream of love ne'er from his heart
Flows out, to act fair pity's part;
But stinks, and stagnates there.

Yet useful still, hold to the throng-
Hold the reflecting glass,-
That not untutor'd at thy wrong

The passenger may pass :
Thou type of wit and sense confin'd,
Cramp'd by the oppressors of the mind,

Who study downward on the ground; Type of the fall of Greece and Rome; While more than mathematic gloom, Envelopes all around.

ON THE SUDDEN DEATH OF A CLERGYMAN.

ODE IV.

Ir, like th' Orphean lyre, my song could charm'
And light to life the ashes in the urn,
Fate of his iron dart I would disarm,

Sudden as thy disease should'st thou return,
Recall'd with mandates of despotic sounds,
And arbitrary grief that will not hear of bounds.
But, ah! such wishes, artless Muse, forbear;
'Tis impotence of frantic love,
Th' enthusiastic flight of wild despair,

To hope the Thracian's magic power to prove.
Alas! thy slender vein,

Nor mighty is to move, nor forgetive to feign,
Impatient of a rein,

Thou canst not in due bounds the struggling mea

sures keep,

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Hail to that wretched corse, untenanted and

See-hear the storms tempestuous sweep— Precipitate it falls-it falls-falls lifeless in the deep.

Cease, cease, ye weeping youth,

Sincerity's soft sighs, and all the tears of truth. And you, his kindred throng, forbear Marble memorials to prepare,

And sculptur'd in your breasts his busto wear. 'Twas thus when Israel's legislator dy'd, No fragile mortal honours were supply'd,

But even a grave denied.

Better than what the pencil's daub can give,
Better than all that Phidias ever wrought,
Is this that what he taught shall live,
And what he liv'd for ever shall be taught.

ON GOOD-NATURE.
ODE V.

HAIL cherub of the highest Heav'n,
Of look divine, and temper ev'n,

Celestial sweetness, exquisite of mien,
Of ev'ry virtue, ev'ry praise the queen!
Soft gracefulness, and blooming youth,
Where, grafted on the stem of truth,

That friendship reigns, no interest can divide,
And great humility looks down on pride.
Oh! curse on slander's viprous tongue,
That daily dares thy merit wrong;

Ideots usurp thy title, and thy frame,
Without or virtue, talent, taste, or name.

Is apathy, is heart of steel,

Nor ear to hear, nor sense to feel,

Life idly inoffensive such a grace,

That it shou'd steal thy name and take thy
place?

No-thou art active-spirit all-
Swifter than lightning, at the call

Of injur'd innocence, or griev'd desert,
And large with liberality thy heart.

Thy appetites in easy tides

(As reason's luminary guides)

Soft flow-no wind can work them to a storm,
Correctly quick, dispassionately warm.

Yet if a transport thou canst feel

And hail the peaceful shade loos'd from its irk-'Tis only for thy neighbours weal :

some hold.

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Great, generous acts thy ductile passions And smilingly thou weep'st with joy and

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There in yon lonesome heath, Which Flora, or Sylvanus never knew,

Where never vegetable drank the dew, Or beast, or fowl attempts to breathe; Where Nature's pencil has no colours laid; But all is blank, and universal shade;

Contrast to figure, motion, life and light, There may'st thou vent thy spite,

For ever cursing, and for ever curs'd, Of all th' infernal crew the worst ;

The worst in genius, measure and degree; For envy, hatred, malice, are but parts of thee.

[den,

Or would'st thou change the scene, and quit the
Behold the Heav'n-deserted fen,
Where spleen, by vapours dense begot and bred,
Hardness of heart, and heaviness of head,
Have rais'd their darksome walls, and plac'd their
thorny bed;

There may'st thou all thy bitterness unload, There may'st thou croak in concert with the toad, With thee the hollow howling winds shall join, Nor shall the bittern her base throat deny,

The querulous frogs shall mix their dirge with thine,

Th'ear-piercing hern, the plover screaming high, Millions of humming gnats fit cestrum shall supply.

Away-away-behold an hideous band

An herd of all thy minions are at hand,
Suspicion first with jealous caution stalks,
And ever looks around her as she walks,
With bibulous ear imperfect sounds to catch,
And prompt to listen at her neighbours latch.
Next Scandal's meagre shade,

Foe to the vigins, and the poet's fame,
A wither'd time-deflower'd old maid,
That ne'er enjoy'd love's ever sacred flame.
Hypocrisy succeeds with saint-like look,
And elevates her hands and plods upon her
book.

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But when the King of Righteousness arose,
And on the illumin'd east serenely smil'd,
He shone with meekest mercy on his foes,
Bright as the Sun, but as the Moon-beams
mild;

From anger, fell revenge, and discord free,
He bad war's hellish clangour cease,
In pastoral simplicity and peace,
And show'd to man that face, which Moses could
not see.

Well hast thou, Webster, pictur'd Christian love,
And copied our great master's fair design,
But livid Envy would the light remove,

Or croud thy portrait in a nook malign→
The Muse shall hold it up to popular view-
Where the more candid and judicious few

Shall think the bright original they see, The likeness nobly lost in the identity.

Oh hadst thou liv'd in better days than these,
F'er to excel by all was deem'd a shame!
Alas! thou hast no modern arts to please,
And to deserve is all thy empty claim.
Else thou'dst been plac'd, by learning, and by
wit,

There, where thy dignify'd inferiors sit

Oh they are in their generations wise,
Each path of interest they have sagely trod,→
To live to thrive to rise-and still to ris
Better to bow to men, than kncel to God.

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DESCEND, descend, ye sweet Aonian maids,

Leave the Parnassian shades,
The joyful Hymencal sing,
And to a lovelier fair

Than fiction can devise, or eloquence declare,
Your vocal tributes bring.

And you, ye winged choristers, that fly
In all the pensile gardens of the sky,

Chant thro' th' enamel'd grove,

Stretch from the trembling leaves your little

From the Zephyrs steal her sighs,
From thyself her sun-bright eyes;
Then baffled, thou shalt see,

That as did Daphne thee,
Fler charms description's force shall fly,
And by no soft persuasive sounds be brib'd
To come within Invention's narrow eye;
But all indignant shun its grasp, and scorn to be
describ'd.

Now see the bridegroom rise,

Oh! how impatient are his joys! Bring zephyrs to depaint his voice, Bring lightning for his eyes.

He leaps, he springs, he flies into her arms, With joy intense,

Feeds ev'ry sense,

And sultanates o'er all her charms. Oh! had I Virgil's comprehensive strain, Or sung like Pope, without a word in vain, Then should I hope my numbers might con

tain,

Engaging nymph, thy boundless happiness,
How arduous to express !
Such may it last to all eternity:
And may thy lord with thee,

Like two coeval pines in ida's grove,
That interweave their verdant arms in love,
Each mutual office cheerfully perform,
And share alike the sunshine, and the storm;
And ever, as you flourish hand in hand,
Both shade the shepherd and adorn the land,
Together with each growing year arise,
Indissolubly link'd, and climb at last the skies,

ODE IX.

With all the wild variety of artless notes, [throats, The Author apologizes to a Lady for his being a

But let each note be love.

Fragrant Flora, queen of May,

All bedight with garlands gay,

Where in the smooth-shaven green

The spangled cowslips variegate the scene,
And the rivulet between,
Whispers, murmurs, sings,
As it stoops, or falls, or springs;
There spread a sofa of thy softest flowers,
There let the bridegroom stay,

There let him hate the light, and curse the
day,

And blame the tardy hours.

But see the bride-she comes with silent pace, Full of majesty and love;

Not with a nobler grace

Look'd the imperial wife of Jove,
When erst ineffably she shene

In Venus' irresistible, enchanting zoue.

Fhoebus, great god of verse, the nymph observe,
Observe her well;

Then touch each sweetly-trem'lous nerve
Of thy resounding shell:

Her like huntress-Dian paint,

Modest, but without restraint;
From Pallas take her decent pace,
With Venus sweeten all her face,

little Man.

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