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Aerial music in the warbling wind, At distance rising oft, by small degrees Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the trees It hung, and breath'd such soul-dissolving As did alas! with soft perdition please: [airs, Entangled deep in its enchanting snares, The list ning heart forgot all duties and all cares. A certain music, never known before, Here lull'd the pensive melancholy mind, Full easily obtain'd. Behoves no more, But sidelong, to the gently-waving wind, To lay the well-tun'd instrument reclin'd; From which with airy flying fingers light, Beyond each mortal touch the most refin'd, The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight: Whence, with just cause, the Harp of Æolus* it hight.

Ah me! what hand can touch the string so Who up the lofty diapason roll [fine? Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, Then let them down again into the soul? Now rising love they faun'd; now pleasing dole They breath'd, in tender musings, thro' the heart;

And now a graver sacred strain they stole, As when seraphic hands a hymn impart: Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art! Such the gay splendor, the luxurious state Of caliphs old, who on the Tygris' shore, In mighty Bagdat, populous and great, [store; Held their bright court, where was of ladies And verse, love, music still the garland wore: When sleep was coy, the bard in waiting there Cheer'd the lone midnight with the Muse'slore; Composing music bade his dreams be fair, And music lent new gladness to the morning air t.

Near the pavillions where we slept, still ran Soft tinkling streams, and dashing waters fell, And sobbing breezes sigh'd, and oft began (So work'd the wizard) wint'ry storins to swell, As heaven and earth they would together mell? At doors and windows, threat'ning seem'd to call,

The demons of the tempest, growling fell, Yet the least entrance found they none at all; Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy hall.

And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace; O'er which were shadowy cast elysian gleams That play'd in waving lights, from place to place,

And shed a roseate smile on nature's face. Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, So fleece with clouds, the pure ethercal space; Nor could it e'er such melting forms display, As loose on flow'ry beds all languishingly lay.

No, fair illusions! artful phantoms, no!
My Muse will not attempt your fairy land:
She has no colors that like you can glow;
To catch your vivid scenes too gross her hand.
But sure it is, was ne'er a subtler band [rites,
Than these same guileful angel-seeming spi-
Who thus in dreams voluptuous, softandbland,
Pour'd all the Arabian heaven upon our nights,
And bless'd them oft besides with more refin'd
delights.

They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train,
Ev'n feigning virtue? skilful to unite
With evil good, and strew with pleasure pain.
But for these fiends whom blood and broils
delight,

Who hurt the wretch, as if to hell outright, Down, downblack gulphs, where sullen waters sleep,

Or hold him clamb'ring all the fearful night On beetling cliffs, or pent in ruins deep: They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence to keep.

Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear,
From these foul demons shield the midnight
Angels of fancy and of love be near, [gloom:
And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom:
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome,
And let them virtue with a look impart :
But chief, awhile, oh lend us from the tomb
Those long-lost friends for whom in love we

smart,

[heart. And fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the Or, are you sportive, bid the morn of youth Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days Of innocence, simplicity, and truth, [ways. To cares estrang'd, and manhood's thorny What transport, to retrace our boyish plays, Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied; The woods, the mountains, and the warbling [wide,

maze

Of the wild brooks!-But, fondly wand'ring My Muse,resume the task that yet doth thee abide. One great amusement of our household was, In a huge crystal magic globe to spy, Still as you turn'd it, all things that do pass Upon this ant-hill earth; where constantly Of idly busy men the restless fry

Run bustling to and fro in foolish haste, In search of pleasures vain that from them fly, Or which obtain'd the eatiffs dare not taste: When nothing is enjoy'd, can there be greater waste?

Of vanity the mirror this was call'd:

Here you a muckworm of the town might see
At his dull desk, amid his ledgers stall'd,
Eat up with carking care and penurie;
Most like to carcase pitch'd on gallows-trée.
"A penny saved is a penny got;"

This is not an imagination of the author; there being in fact such an instrument, called Aolus's Harp, which, when placed against a little rushing or current of air, produces the effect here described. The Arabian caliphs had poets among the officers of their court, whose office it was to do what is here mentioned,

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Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth lie,
Ne of its rigor will he bate a jot,

Till it has quench'd his fire, and banished hispot.
Straight from the filth of this low grub, behold!
Comes fluttering forth a gaudy spendthrift
heir,

All glossy gay; enamell'd all with gold,
The silly tenant of the summer air,
In folly lost, of nothing takes he care;
Pimps, lawyers, stewards, harlots, flatterers vile,
And thieving tradesmen him among them
share :

His father's ghost from limbo-lake, the while, Seesthis,whichmoredamnation doesuponhimpile.. This globe portray'd the race of learned men, Still at their books, and turning o'er the page Backwards and forwards: oft they snatch the As if inspir'd, and in a Thespian rage; [pen, Then write and blot, as would your rathengage. Why, Authors, all this scrawl and scribbling

sore,

To lose the present, gain the future age, Praised to be when you can hear no more, And much enrich'd with fame when useless worldly store.

Then would a splendid city rise to view,

With carts, and cars, and couches roaring all. Wide pour'd abroad behold the giddy crew: See how they dash along from wall to wall! At ev'ry door, hark! how they thund'ring call! Good Lord! what can this giddy rout excite? Why on each other with fell tooth to fall; A neighbour's fortune, fame, or peace to blight, And make new tiresome parties for the coming night.

their cares,

The puzzling sons of party next appear'd, In dark cabals and nightly juntos met; [rear'd And now they whisper'd close, now shrugging The important shoulder; then, as if to get New light, their twinkling eyes were inward No sooner Lucifer* recals affairs, [set. Than forth they various rush in mighty fret! When, lo! push'd up to pow'r, and crown'd [stairs In comes another set, and kicketh them down But what most show'd the vanity of life, Was to behold the nations all on fire, In cruel broils engag'd, and deadly strife: Most Christian kings, inflam'd by black desire! With honorable ruffians in their hire, Cause war to rage, and blood around to pour Of this sad work when each begins to tire, Theysit them down just where they were before, Till for new scenes of woe peace shall their force restore.

:

With tape-tied trash, and suits of fools that ask For place or pension, laid in decent row; But these I passen by, withnamelessnumbersmoe. Of all the gentle tenants of the place, There was a man of special grave remark : A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face, Pensive, not sad, in thought involv'd not dark. As sooth this man could sing as inorning lark, And teach the noblest morals of the heart; But these his talents were yburied stark; Of the fine stores he nothing would impart, Whichorbootnature gate,of nature-painting art. To noon-tide shades incontinent he ran, Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound.

Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, Amid the broom he bask'd him on the ground, Where the wild thymeand camomile are found: There would he linger, till the latest ray

Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound; Thenhomewardthiro'thetwilightshadowsstray, Saanteringandslow. So had he passed manyaday. Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they past, For oft the heavenly fire that lay conceal'd Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast, And all its native light anew reveal'd: Oft as he travers'd the coerulean field, wind, And mark'd the clouds that drove before the Ten thousand glorious systems would he build, Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind; But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.

With him wassometimes join'd in silent walk
(Profoundly silent, for they never spoke)
One shyer still, who quite detested talk:
Oft, stung by spleen, at once away he broke
Togrovesof pine,andbroado'ershadowingoak;
There, inly thrill'd, he wander'd all alone,
And on himself his pensive fury wroke,
Ne ever utter'd word, save when first shone
The glittering star of eve-"Thank heaven `
"the day is done."

Here lurch'da wretch who had not crept abroad
For forty years, ne face of mortal seen;
In chamber brooding like a loathly toad:
And sure his linen was not very clean.
Thro' secret hoop-holes, that had practis'd been
Near to his bed, his dinner vile he took;
Unkempt,andrough, of squalidiface and mien,
Our castle's shame! whence, from his filthy

nook,

We drove the villain out for fitter lair to look. One day there chanc'd into these halls to rove A joyous youth, who took you at first sight; Him the wild wave of pleasure hither drove, Before the sprightly tempest-tossing light: Certes, he was a most engaging wight, Of social glee, and wit humane tho' keen, Turning the night to day and day to night: For him the merry bells had rung, I ween, If in this nook of quiet bells had ever been. * The Morning Star.

To number up the thousands dwelling here, An useless were, and eke an endless task; From kings, and those who at the helm appear, To gypsies brown in summer-glades who bask. Yea many a man, perdie, I could unmask, Whose desk and table make a solemn show,

But

But not e'en pleasure to excess is good:
What most elates then sinks the soul as low:
When spring-tide joy pours in with copious
flood,

The higher still the exulting billows flow,
The farther back again they flagging go,
And leave us groveling on the dreary shore:
Taught by his son of joy, we found it so;
Who, whilst he staid, kept in a gay uproar
Our madden'd castle all, the abode of sleep no

more.

As when in prime of June a burnish'd fly
Sprung from the neads, o'er which he sweeps
along,

Cheer'd by the breathing bloom and vital sky,
Tunes up amid these airy halls his song,
Soothing at first the gay reposing throng:
And oft he sips their bowl; or nearly drown'd,
He, thence recovering, drives their beds among,
And scarce their tender sleep, with tromp
profound;

Then out again he flies, to wing his mazy round.

Another guest there was, of sense refin'd,
Who felt each worth, for ev'ry worth lie had,
Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind,
As little touch'd as any man's with bad ;
Him thro' their inmost walks the Muses lad,
To him the sacred love of nature leant,
And sometimes would he make our valley glad:
When as we found he would not here be pent,
To him the better sort this friendly message sent:
"Come, dwell with us! true son of virtue,
come!

"But if, alas! we cannot thee persuade

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To ly content beneath our peaceful dome, "Ne ever more to quit our quiet glade; "Yet when at last thy toils but ill apaid "Shall dead thy fire, and damp its heavenly "spark,

"Thou wilt be glad to seek the rural shade, Then to indulge the Muse, and nature mark: "We then a lodge for thee will rear in Hagley "Park."

Here whilom ligg'd the Esopus of the age;
But call'd by fame, in soul ypricked deep,
A noble pride restor'd him to the stage,
And rous'd him like a giant from his sleep.
Even from his slumbers we advantage reap :
With double force the enliven'd scene hewakes,
Yet quits not nature's bounds. He knows
to keep

Each due decorum: now the heart he shakes, And now with well-urg'd sense the enlighten'd judgement takes.

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems;
Who t, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,
On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes,
Pourd forth his unpremeditated strain:
The world forsaking with a calm disdain,
Here laugh'd he careless in his easy seat:
Here quaff'd encircled with the joyous train,

• Mr. Quin.

Oft moralising sage: his ditty sweet
He loathed much to write, he cared to repeat.
Full oft by holy feet our ground was trod,
Of clerks good plenty here you mote espy.
A little, round, fat, oily man of God,
Was one I chiefly mark'd among the fry;
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
And shone all glittering with ungodly dew,
If a tight damsel chanc'd to trippen by;
Which when observ'd, he shrunk into his new,
And staight would recollect his piety anew.
Nor be forgot a tribe, who minded nought
(Old inmates of the place) but state affairs:
They look'd, perdie, as if they deeply thought;
And on their brow sat ev'ry nation's care:
The world by them is parcell'd out in shares,
When in the Hallor Smoke they congress hold,
And the sage berry sun-burnt Mocha bears
Has clear'd their inward eye: then smoke-
enroll'd,

Their oracles break forth mysterious as of old.
Here languid beauty kept her pale-fac'd court:
Bevies of dainty dames, of high degree,
From every quarter hither made resort;
Where from gross mortal care and business free,
They lay, pour'd out in ease and luxury.
Or should they a vain show of work assume,
Alas! and well-a-day! what can it be?
Butfariscastthedistaff, spinning-wheel, and loom.
To knot, to twist, to range the vernal bloom:
Their only labor was to still the time :
And labor dire it is,, and weary woe.
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme :
Then rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth, with tottering step and slow;
This soon too rude an exercise they find;
Straight on the couch their limbs again they
throw,

Where hours on hours they sighingly reclin'd,
count the vapory god soft-breathing in

And

the wind.

Now must I mark the villany we found,
But ah! too late, as shall eftsoons be shown.
A place here was, deep, dreary, under ground;
Where still our inmates, when unpleasing
grown,

Diseas'd and loathsome, privily were thrown.
Far from the light of heaven, they languish'd
Unpitied, uttering many a bitter groan; [there
Forofthose wretches taken was no care: [were.
Fierce fiends, and hags of hell, their only nurses
Alas! the change! from scenes of joy and rest
To this dark den, where sickness toss'd alway.
Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep opprest,
Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay,
Heaving his sides, and snored night and day!
To stir him from his trance it was not eath,
And his half-open'd eye he shut straightway:
He led, I wot, the softest way to death,
And taught withouten pain and strife to yield
the breath.

The following lines of this stanza were written by a friend of the author.

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Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound, Soft-swoln and pale, here lay the Hydrophy: Unweildy man; with belly monstrous round, For ever fed with watery supply;

For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And moping here did Hypochondria sit,
Mother of spleen, in robes of various dye,
Who vexed was full oft with ugly fit, [a wit.
And some her franticdeem'd, andsomeherdeem'd
A lady proud she was, of antient blood,
Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen low:
She felt, or fancied in her fluttering mood,
All the diseases which the spitals know.
And sought all physic which theshops bestow,
And still new leeches and new drugs would try,
Her humor ever wavering to and fro: [cry,
For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes
Then sudden waxed wroth; and all she knew
not why.

Fast by her side a listless maiden pin'd, [ings;
With aching head, and squeamish heart-burn-
Pale,bloated, cold,shescem'd to hate mankind,
Yet lov'd in secret all forbidden things.
And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings,
The sleepless gout here counts the crowing
cocks,

song

Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth,, Dragging the lazy languid line along, Foud to begin, but still to finish loth; Thy half-writ scrolls all caten by the moth: Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame, Who with the sons of softness nobly wroth, To sleep away this human lumber came, Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumberingflame. In Fairy-land there liv'd a knight of old, Of features stern, Selvagio yclep'd; A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold, But wond'rous poor: he neither sow'd nor reap'd,

Ne stores in summer for cold winter heap'd; In hunting all his days away he wore; Nowscorch'dbyJune,nowinNovembersteep'd, Now pinch'd by biting January sore,

He still in woods pursued the libbard and the boar.

As he one morning, long before the dawn, Prick'd thro' the forest to dislodge his prey, Deep in the winding bosom of a lawn, [ray, With wood wild-fringed, he mark'd a taper's That from the beating rain, and wint'ry fray, Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy;

A wolf now gnaws him,now a serpent stings;
There, up to carn the needments of the day,
He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy:
Whilstapoplexycramm'dintemp'ranceknocks Her he compress'd, and fill'd her with a lusty boy.

Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.

CANTO II.

The Knight of Arts and Industry,
And his ahievements fair;
That, by this castle's overthrow,
Secur'd and crowned were.

ESCAP'D the castle of the sire of sin,
Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find?
For all around, without, and all within,
Nothing save what delightful was and kind,
Of goodness favoring and a tender mind,
E'er rose to view. But now another strain,
Of doleful note, alas! remains behind;
I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain,
And of the false inchanter Indolence complain.
Is there no patron to protect the Muse,
And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil?
To every labor its reward accrues,
And they are sure of bread who sink and moil;
But a fell tribe the Aönian hive despoil,
As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee.
Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil,
Ne for the Muses other meed decree,
They praised are alone, and starve right merrily.

I care not, Fortune, what yon me deny : You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Thro'which Aurora shows her bright'ning face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, ateve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave: Of fancy, reason, virtue,nought can me bereave.

Amid the green-wood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a knight of muchel fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed,
The Knight of Arts and Industry by name.
Earth was hisbed, the boughs his roofdidframe;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream;
His tasteful well-earn'd food the sylvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands
[breme.

teem; The same to him glad summer, or the winter

So pass'd his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that thro' the commons run:
For him no tender parents troubled were,
He of the forest seem'd to be the son;
And certes had been utterly undone,
But that Minerva pity of him took,
With all the gods that love the rural wonne,
That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook;
Ne did the sacred Nine disdain a gentle look.

Of fertile genius him they nurtur'd well,
In ev'ry science, and in ev'ry art, [excel,
By which mankind the thoughtless "brutes
That can or use, or joy, or grace impart,
Disclosing all the powers of head and heart:
Ne were the goodly exercises spar'd,

That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert, And mix elastic force with firmness hard: Was never knight on ground note be with him compar'd.

Sometimes, with early morn, he mounted gay The hunter-steed, exuluing o'er the dale, And drew the roseate breath of orient day! Sometimes retiring to the secret vale,

Yclad

Yclad in steel and bright with burnish'd mail, Hestrain'd the bow,ortoss'd thesoundingspear, Or darting on the goal outstripp'd the gale, Or wheel'd the chariot in its mid career, Or stenuous wrestled hard with many a tough compeer.

At other times he pried thro' nature's store,
Whate'er she in th' etherial round contains,
Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor,
The vegetable and the mineral reigns; [mains,
Or else he scann'd the globe, those small do-
Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains,
But more he search'd the mind, and 'rous'd
from sleep

Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.
Nor would he scorn to stoop from high pursuits
Ofheavenly truth, and practisewhat shetaught.
Vain is the tree of knowledge without fruits.
Sometimes in hand the spade or plough he
caught,
[fraught;
Forth-calling all with which boon earth is
Sometimes he plied the strong mechanic tool;
Or rear'd the fabric from the finest draught;
And oft he put himself to Neptune's school,
Fighting with winds and waves on the vex'd
ocean pool.

To solace then these rougher toils, he tried
To touch the kindling canvas into life;
With nature his creating pencil vied,
With nature joyous at the mimic strife;
Or, to such shapes as grac'd Pygmalion's wife
He hew'd the marble; or with varied fire,
He rous'd the trumpet and the martial fife,
Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire;
Or verses fram'd that well might wake Apollo's
lyre.

Accomplish'd thus he from the woods issued, Full of great aims, and bent on bold emprize; The work which long he in his breast had brew'd,

Now to perform he ardent did devise; To wit, a barbarous world to civilize. Earth was till then a boundless forest wild; Nought to be seen but savage wood and skies; No cities nourish'd arts, no culture smil'd, Nogovernment, no laws, no gentle manners mild. A rugged wight, the worst of brutes was man: On his own wretched kind he ruthless prey'd: The strongest still the weakest over-ran; In ev'ry country mighty robbers sway'd, And guile and ruffian force were all their trade. Life was a scene of rapine, want, and woe ; Which this brave knight, in noble anger, made To swear, he would the rascal rout o'erthrow, For, by the pow'rs divine, it should no more be so! It would exceed the purport of my song, To say how this best sun from orient climes Came beaming life and beauty all along, Before him chasing indolence and crimes. Still as he pass'd, the nations he sublimes, And calls forth arts and virtues with his ray

Then Egypt, Greece, and Rome their golden Successive, had; but now in ruins grey [times They ly to slavish sloth and tyranny a prey. To crown his toils, Sir Industry then spread The swelling sail, and made for Britain's coast. A sylvan life till then the natives led, In the brown shades and greenwood forest lost, All careless rambling where it lik'd them most: Their wealth the wild deer bouncing thro' the glade:

They lodg'd at large, and liv'd at nature's cost; Save spear and bow, withouten other aid; Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dismay'd.

He lik'd the soil, he lik'd the clement skies, He lik'd the verdant hills and flow'ry plains. Be this my great, my chosen isle (he cries); This, whilst my labors Liberty sustains, This of ocean all assault disdains. queen Nor lik'd he less the genius of the land, To freedom apt and persevering pains: Mild to obey, and gen'rous to command, Temper'd by forming heaven with kindest

firmest hand.

Here, by degrees, his master-work arose, Whatever arts and industry can frame; Whatever finish'd agriculture knows, [came, Fair queen of arts! from heaven itself who When Eden flourish'd in unspotted fame. And still with her sweet innocence we find And tender peace, and joys without a name, That, while they ravish, tranquillize the mind, Nature and art at once, delight and use combin'd. Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts, And bade the fervent city glow with toil; Bade social commerce raise renowned marts, Join land to land, and marry soil to soil, Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stères; Or, should despotic rage the world embroil, Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores; While o'er th' encircling deep Britannia's thunder roars.

The drooping Muses then he westward call'd,
From the fai'd city * by Propontic sea,
What time the Turk the enfeebled Grecian
thrall'd;
[free,
Thence from their cloister'd walks be set them
And brought them to another Castalie,
Where Isis many a famous noursling breeds;
Or where old Cam soft paces o'er the lea
In pensive mood, and tunes his Doric reeds,
The whilst his flocks at large the lonely shep-
herd feeds.

Yet the fine arts were what he finish'd least.
For why? thy are the quintessence of all;
The growth of laboring time, and slow en-

creast;

Unless, as seldom chances, it should fall,
That mighty patrons the coy sisters call
Up to the sunshine of uncomber'd ease, [thrall,
Where no rude care the mounting thought may

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