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Look in the glass, survey that cheek-
Where Flora has with all her roses blush'd;
The shape so tender,-look so meek-
The breasts made to be press'd, not to be
crush'd-

Then turn to me,-turn with obliging eyes, Nor longer Nature's works, in miniature, despise.

Young Ammon did the world subdue, Yet had not more external man than I; Ah! charmer, should I conquer you, With him in fame, as well as size, I'll vie. Then, scornful nymph, come forth to yonder

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ODE XI.

ON TAKING A BACHELOR'S
DEGREE.

In allusion to Horace. Book iii, Ode 20 Exegi monumentum ære perennius, &c. 'Tis done: I tow'r to that degree,

And catch such heav'nly fire,
That Horace ne'er could rank like me,
Nor is King'schapel higher'.-
My name in sure recording page
Shall time itself o'erpow'r2,
If no rude mice with envious rage
The buttery books devour.
A title3 too with added grace,

My name shall now attend,
Till to the church with silent pace

A nymph and priest ascend4. Ev'n in the schools I now rejoice,

Where late I shook with fear, Nor heed the moderator's voice

Loud thundering in my ears. Then with Eolian flute I blow

A soft Italian lay",

Or where Cam's scanty waters flow7,
Releas'd from lectures, stray.
Meanwhile, friend Banks, my merits claim
Their just reward from you,

For Horace bids us challenge fame,
When once that fame's our due9,
Invest me with a graduate's gown,
Midst shouts of all beholders,

An Ode on the 26th of January, being the Birth-My head with ample square-cap crown',

Day of a Young Lady.

ALL hail, and welcome joyous morn,
Welcome to the infant year;

Whether smooth calms thy face adorn,
Or lowering clouds appear;
Tho' billows lash the sounding shore,
And tempests thro' the forests roar,

Sweet Nancy's voice shall soothe the sound;

Tho' darkness shou'd invest the skies,
New day shall beam from Nancy's eyes,
And bless all nature round.

Let but those lips their sweets disclose,
And rich perfumes exhale,
We shall not want the fragrant rose,
Nor miss the southern gale.
Then loosely to the winds unfold,
Those radiant locks of burnish'd gold,

Or on thy bosom let them rove ; His treasure-house there Cupid keeps, And hoards up, in two snowy heaps, His stores of choicest love.

This day each warmest wish be paid To thee the Muse's pride,

I long to see the blooming maid

Chang'd to the blushing bride. So shall thy pleasure and thy praise Increase with the increasing days,

And present joys exceed the past; To give and to receive delight, Shall be thy task both day and night, While day and night shall last.

And deck with hood my shoulders. CAMBRIDGE.

A MORNING PIECE,

B.A.

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Strong Labour got up.-With his pipe in his He stoutly strode over the dale, [mouth, He lent new perfumes to the breath of the south,

On his back hung his wallet and flail. Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch,

Where never physician had lifted the latch.

First of the village Collin was awake,
And thus he sung reclining on his rake.
Now the rural graces three
Dance beneath yon maple tree;
First the vestal Virtue, known
By her adamantine zone;
Next to her in rosy pride,
Sweet Society the bride;

Last Honesty, full seemly drest
In her cleanly home-spun vest.
The abbey bells in wak'ning rounds
The warning peal have giv'n;
And pious Gratitude resounds

Her morning hymn to Heav'n.

All nature wakes-the birds unlock their throats,
And mock the shepherd's rustic notes.
All alive o'er the lawn,

Full glad of the dawn,
The little lambkins play,

Sylvia and Sol arise,—and all is day

Come, my mates, let us work,

And all hands to the fork,

While the Sun shines, our hay-cocks to make,

So fine is the day,

And so fragrant the hay,

That the meadow's as blith as the wake.

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In the middle of the ring,
Mad with May, and wild of wing,
Fire-ey'd Wantonness shall sing.

By the rivulet on the rushes,
Beneath a canopy of bushes,
Where the ever-faithful Tray,
Guards the dumplins and the whey,
Collin Clout and Yorkshire Will
From the leathern bottle swill.

Their scythes upon the adverse bank
Glitter 'mongst th' entangled trees,
Where the hazles form a rank,

And court'sy to the courting breeze.

Ah! Harriot! sovereign mistress of my heart,
Could I thee to these meads decoy,
New grace to each fair object thou'dst impart,
And heighten ev'ry scene to perfect joy.

On a bank of fragrant thyme,
Beneath yon stately, shadowy pine,
We'll with the well-disguised hook
Cheat the tenants of the brook;

Or where coy Daphne's thickest shade
Drives amorous Phœbus from the glade,
There read Sidney's high-wrought stories
Of ladies charms and heroes glories;
Thence fir'd, the sweet narration act,
And kiss the fiction into fact.

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Night with all her negro train,
Took possession of the plain;
`In an hearse she rode reclin'd,
Drawn by screech-owls slow and blind :
Close to her, with printless feet,
Crept Stillness in a winding sheet.
Next to her deaf Silence was seen,
Treading on tip-toes over the green;
Softly, lightly, gently she trips,

Still holding her fingers seal'd to her lips.

You could not see a sight,

You could not hear a sound,
But what confess'd the night,

And horrour deepen'd round.

Beneath a myrtle's melancholy shade,
Sophron the wise was laid:

And to the answ'ring wood these sounds convey'd:
While others toil within the town,
And to fortune smile or frown,
Fond of trifles, fond of toys,
And married to that woman, Noise;
Sacred Wisdom be my care,
And fairest Virtue, Wisdom's heir.

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LONG, with undistinguish'd flame,
I lov'd each fair, each witty dame.
My heart the belle-assembly gain'd,
And all an equal sway maintain'd.

But when you came, you stood confess'd
Sole sultana of my breast;

For you eclips'd, supremely fair,
All the whole seraglio there.

In this ber mien, in that her grace,
In a third I lov'd a face;
But you in ev'ry feature shine
Universally divine.

What can those tumid paps excel,
Do they sink, or do they swell?
While those lovely wanton eyes
Sparkling meet them, as they rise.

Thus is silver Cynthia seen,
Glistening o'er the glassy green,
While attracted swell the waves,
Emerging from their inmost caves.

When to sweet sounds your steps you suit,
And weave the minuet to the lute,

Heav'ns! how you glide!-her neck-her chestDoes she move, or does she rest?

As those roguish eyes advance,
Let me catch their side-long glance,
Soon-or they'll clude my sight,
Quick as lightning, and as bright,

Thus the bashful Pleiad cheats
The gazer's eye, and still retreats,
Then peeps again-then skulks unseen,
Veil'd behind the azure skreen.

Like the ever-toying dove,
Smile immensity of love;
Be Venus in each outward part,
And wear the vestal in your heart.

Grant it with a begging nc,
When I ask a kiss, or so-

And let each rose that deeks your face
Blush assent to my embrace.

ON THE FIFth of DECEMBER,

BEING THE BIRTH-DAY OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY.

ODE XVI.

HAIL, eldest of the monthly train,
Sire of the winter drear,

December, in whose iron reign

Expires the chequer'd year.
Hush all the blust'ring blasts that blow,
And proudly plum'd in silver snow,

Smile gladly on this blest of days.
The livery'd clouds shall on thee wait,
And Phoebus shine in all his state
With more than summer rays,
Tho' jocund June may justly boast
Long days and happy hours,
Tho' August be Pomona's host,

And May be crown'd with flow'rs;
Tell June, his fire and crimson dies,
By Harriot's blush and Harriot's eyes,

Eclips'd and vanquish'd, fade away: Tell August, thou canst let him see A richer, riper fruit than he,

A sweeter flow'r than May.

ODE FOR MUSIC

ON SAINT CECILIA'S DAY.

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1

fter Mr. Dryden and Mr. Pope, would be great
presumption, which is the reason he detains the
1 eader in this place to make an apology, much
against his will, he having all due contempt for
the impertinence of prefaces. In the first place
then, it will be a little hard (he thinks) if he
should be particularly mark'd out for censure,
many others having written on the same subject
without any such imputations; but they, (it may
be) did not live long enough to be laughed at, or,
by some lucky means or other, escaped those
shrewd remarks, which, it seems, are reserved
for him.
In the second place, this subject was
not his choice, but imposed upon him by a gen-
tleman very eminent in the science of music, for
whom he has a great friendship, and who is, by
his good sense and humanity, as much elevated
above the generality of mankind, as by his ex-
quisite art he is above most of his profession.
The request of a friend, undoubtedly, will be
sneered at by some as a stale and antiquated apo-
logy it is a very good one notwithstanding,
which, is manifest even from it's triteness; for it
can never be imagined, that so many excellent
well as bad ones, would have
made use of it, had they not been convinced of
it's cogency.
As for the writer of this piece, he
will rejoice in being derided, not only for oblig-
ing his friends, but any honest man whatsoever,
so far as may be in the power of a person of his
mean abilities.

authors, as

He does not pretend to equal the very worst parts of the two celebrated performances already extant on the subject; which acknowledgment alone will, with the good-natured and judicious, acquit him of presumption; because these pieces, however excellent upon the whole, are not without their blemishes. There is in them both an exact unity of design, which though in compositions of another nature a beauty, is an impropriety in the Pindaric, which should consist in the vehemence of sudden and unlook'd for transitions: hence chiefly it derives that enthusiastic fire and wildness, which, greatly distinguish it from other species of poesy. In the first stanza of Dryden' and in the fifth of Pope2, there is an air, which is so far from being adapted to the majesty of an ode, that it would make no considerable figure in a ballad. And lastly, they both conclude with a turn which has something too epigrammatical in it. Bating these trifles, they are incomparably beautiful and great; neither is there to be found two more finish'd pieces of lyric poetry in our language, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso of Milton excepted, which are the finest in any. Dryden's is the more sublime and magnificent; but Pope's is the more elegant and correct; Dryden has the tire and spirit of Pindar, and Pope has the terse

'Happy, happy, happy pair,

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserve the fair.

2 Thus song cou'd prevail
O'er Death, and o'er Hell,

A conquest how hard and how glorious!
Tho' Fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her.
Yet Music and Love were victorious.

ness and purity of Horace. Dryden's is certainly the more elevated performance of the two, but by no means so much so as people in general will have it. There are few that will allow any sort of comparison to be made between them. This is in some measure owing to that prevailing but absurd custom which has obtained from Horace's3 time even to this day, viz. of preferring authors to the bays by seniority. Had Mr. Pope written first, the mob, that judge by this rule, would have given him the preference; and the rather, because in this piece he does not deserve it.

It would not be right to conclude, without taking notice of a fine subject for an ode on St. Cecilia's Day, which was suggested to the author by his friend the learned and ingenious Mr. Comber, late of Jesus College in this university; that is David's playing to king Saul when he was troubled with the evil spirit. He was much pleased with the hint at first, but at length was deterred from improving it by the greatness of the subject, and he thinks not without reason. The chusing too high subjects has been the ruin of many a tolerable genius. There is a good rule which Fresnoy prescribes to the painters; which is likewise applicable to the poets.

Supremam in tabulis lucem captare dici Insanus labor artificum; cum attingere tan(lucem;

tum

Non pigmenta queant: auream sed Vespere
Seu modicum mane albentem; sive ætheris

actam

Post hyemen nimbis transfuso sole caducam; Seu nebulis sultam accipient, tonitruque rubentem.

THE ARGUMENT.

Stanza I, II. Invocation of men and angels to join in the praise of S. Cecilia. The divine origin of music. Stanza III. Art of music, or it's miraculous power over the brute and inanimate creation exemplified in Waller, and Stanza IV, V, in Arion. Stanza VI. the nature of music, or it's power over the passions. Instances of this in it's exciting pity. Stanza VII. In promoting courage and military virStanza VIII. Excellency of church music. Air to the memory of Mr. Purcell.Praise of the crgan and it's inventress Saint Cecilia.

tue.

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Hither Paradise remove

Spirits of Harmony and Love!

Thou too, divine Urania, deign t' appear,
And with thy sweetly-solemn lute

To the grand argument the numbers suit ;
Such as sublime and clear,
Replete with heavenly love,

Charm th' enraptur'd souls above.
Disdainful of fantastic play,

Mix on your ambrosial tongue

Weight of sense with sound of song,
And be angelically gay.

CHORUS.

Disdainful, &c. &c.

II.

And you, ye sons of Harmony below,

How little less than angels, when ye sing! With emulation's kindling warmth shall glow, And from your mellow-modulating throats The tribute of your grateful notes In union of piety shall bring.

Shall Echo from her vocal cave Repay each note, the shepherd gave, And shall not we our mistress praise And give her back the borrow'd lays? But farther still our praises we pursue;

For ev'n Cecilia, mighty maid,
Confess'd she had superior aid-
She did--and other rites to greater pow'rs are due.
Higher swell the sound and higher:

Let the winged numbers climb:
To the Heav'n of Heav'ns aspire,

Solemn, sacred, and sublime:
From Heav'n music took it's rise,
Return it to it's native skies.

CHORUS.

Higher swell the sound, &c. &c.
III.

Music's a celestial art;

Cease to wonder at it's pow'r,

Tho' lifeless rocks to motion start,

Tho' trees dance lightly from the bow'r,
Tho' rolling floods in sweet suspense
Are held, and listen into sense.

In Fenhurst's plains when Waller, sick with love,
Has found some silent solitary grove,
Where the vague Moon-beams pour a silver flood
Of trem❜lous light athwart th' unshaven wood,
Within an hoary moss-grown cell,

He lays his careless limbs without reserve,
And strikes, impetuous strikes each quer❜lous

nerve

Of his resounding shell.

In all the woods, in all the plains
Around a lively stillness reigns;
The deer approach the secret scene,

And weave their way thro' labyrinths green;
While Philomela learns the lay,

And answers from the neighbouring bay.
But Medway, inelancholy mute,
Gently on his urn reclines,
And all attentive to the lute,

In uncomplaining anguish pines:
The crystal waters weep away,
And bear the tidings to the sea:

Neptune in the boisterous seas

Spreads the placid bed of peace,
While each blast,

Or breathes it's last,

Or just does sigh a symphony and cease.
CHORUS.
Neptune, &c. &c.

IV.

Behold Arion on the stern he stands Pall'd in theatrical attire,

To the mute strings he moves th' enliv'ning hands,
Great in distress, and wakes the golden lyre:
While in a tender Orthian strain

He thus accosts the mistress of the main :
By the bright beams of Cynthia's eyes
Thro' which your waves attracted rise,
And actuate the hoary deep;
By the secret coral cell,

Where love, and joy, and Neptune dwell
And peaceful floods in silence sleep;
By the sea-flow'rs, that immerge
Their heads around the grotto's verge,
Dependent from the stooping stem;
By each roof-suspended drop,
That lightly lingers on the top,

And hesitates into a gem ;

By thy kindred wat'ry gods,

The lakes, the riv'lets, founts and floods,
And all the pow'rs that live unseen
Underneath the liquid green;

Great Amphitrite (for thou can'st bind
The storm and regulate the wind)

Hence waft ine, fair goddess, oh, waft me away,
Secure from the men and the monsters of prey!

CHORUS.

Great Amphitrite, &c. &c.

V.

He sung-The winds are charm'd to sleep,
Soft stillness steals along the deep,

The Tritons and the Nereids sigh
In soul-reflecting sympathy,

And all the audience of waters weep.
But Amphitrite her Dolphin sends the same,
Which erst to Neptune brought the nobly perjur'd
dame-

Pleas'd to obey, the beauteous monster flies, And on his scales as the gilt Sun-beams play, Ten thousand variegated dies

In copious streams of lustre rise, Rise o'er the level main and signify his wayAnd now the joyous bard, in triumph bore, Rides the voluminous wave, and makes the wish'd for shore.

Come, ye festive, social throng

Who sweep the lyre, or pour the song,
Your noblest melody employ,

Such as becomes the mouth of joy,
Bring the sky-aspiring thought,

With bright expression richly wrought,
And hail the Muse ascending on her throne,
The main at length subdued, and all the world
her own.

CHORUS.

Come, ye festive, &c. &c.

4 Fabulantur Græci hanc perpetuam Deis virginitatem vobisse: sed cum a Neptuno sollicitaretur ad Atlantem confugisse, ubi a Delphino persuasa Neptuno assensit. Lilius Gyraldus.

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