She trains the body's bulky frame
For passive, persevering toils;
And lest, from any prouder aim,

The daring mind should scorn her homely spoils, She breathes maternal fogs to damp its restless flame.

I. 2.

Farewell the grave, pacific air,

Where never mountain zephyr blew :
The marshy levels lank and bare,
Which Pan, which Ceres never knew:
The Naiads, with obscene attire,
Urging in vain their urns to flow;

While round them chant the croaking choir,
And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe,
Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre.

I. 3.

Farewell, ye nymphs, whom sober care of gain
Snatch'd in your cradles from the god of Love:
She render'd all his boasted arrows vain :
And all his gifts did he in spite remove.
Ye too, the slow-ey'd fathers of the land,
With whom dominion steals from hand to hand,
Unown'd, undignified by public choice,

I

go where Liberty to all is known,

And tells a monarch on his throne,

He reigns not but by her preserving voice.1

II. 1.

O my lov'd England, when with thee
Shall I sit down, to part no more?
Far from this pale, discolour'd sea,
That sleeps upon the reedy shore :
When shall I plough thy azure tide?
When on thy hills the flocks admire,
Like mountain snows; till down their side
I trace the village and the sacred spire,

While bowers and copses green the golden slope divide?

1 "If there be any truth in the supposition that Dr. Akenside and his friend entertained republican ideas in their youth, it is probable that they might afterwards soften the rigour of their sentiments. In the Ode on leaving Holland, the three following lines,

"I go where Freedom in the streets is known,

And tells a monarch on his throne,

Tells him he reigns, he lives but by her voice,"

are thus changed in the last edition :

"I go where Liberty to all is known,

And tells a monarch on his throne,

He reigns not but by her preserving voice."-KIPPIS.-W.

II. 2.

Ye nymphs who guard the pathless grove,
Ye blue-ey'd sisters of the streams,
With whom I wont at morn to rove,
With whom at noon I talk'd in dreams;
O! take me to your haunts again,
The rocky spring, the greenwood glade;
To guide my lonely footsteps deign,

To prompt my slumbers in the murmuring shade,
And soothe my vacant ear with many an airy strain.

II. 3.

And thou, my faithful harp, no longer mourn
Thy drooping master's inauspicious hand:
Now brighter skies and fresher gales return,
Now fairer maids thy melody demand.
Daughters of Albion, listen to my lyre!
O Phœbus, guardian of the Aonian choir,
Why sounds not mine harmonious as thy own,
When all the virgin deities above

With Venus and with Juno move

In concert round the Olympian father's throne?

III. 1.

Thee too, protectress of my lays,
Elate with whose majestic call
Above degenerate Latium's praise,
Above the slavish boast of Gaul,
I dare from impious thrones reclaim,
And wanton sloth's ignoble charms,

The honours of a poet's name

To Somers' counsels, or to Hampden's arms, Thee, Freedom, I rejoin, and bless thy genuine flame.

III. 2.

Great citizen of Albion. Thee
Heroic Valour still attends,

And useful Science pleas'd to see
How Art her studious toil extends:
While Truth, diffusing from on high
A lustre unconfin'd as day,

Fills and commands the public eye,

Till, pierc'd and sinking by her powerful ray,

Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly demons, fly.

III. 3.

Hence the whole land the patriot's ardour shares :
Hence dread Religion dwells with social Joy :
And holy passions and unsullied cares,
In youth, in age, domestic life employ.
O fair Britannia, hail !-With partial love
The tribes of men their native seats approve,
Unjust and hostile to each foreign fame :
But when for generous minds and manly laws
A nation holds her prime applause,
There public zeal shall all reproof disclaim.

THRICE hath the spring beheld thy faded fame
Since I exulting grasp'd the tuneful shell :
Eager through endless years to sound thy name,
Proud that my memory with thine should dwell.
How hast thou stain'd the splendour of my choice!
Those godlike forms which hover'd round thy voice,
Laws, freedom, glory, whither are they flown?
What can I now of thee to Time report,

Save thy fond country made thy impious sport,
Her fortune and her hope the victims of thy own?

II.

There are with eyes unmov'd and reckless heart
Who saw thee from thy summit fall thus low,
Who deem'd thy arm extended but to dart
The public vengeance on thy private foe.
But, spite of every gloss of envious minds,
The owl-eyed race whom virtue's lustre blinds,
Who sagely prove that each man hath his price,
I still believ'd thy aim from blemish free,
I yet, even yet, believe it, spite of thee

And all thy painted pleas to greatness and to vice.

1 "Such was his love of lyrics, that having written with great vigour and poignancy his Epistle to Curio, he transformed it afterwards into an ode disgraceful only to its author." A smart saying is seldom true. This of Johnson is not. We find nothing disgraceful in Akenside's ode; on the contrary, the spirit is animated, and some of the lines are bold, and might have been admired if they were not outshone by the Epistle. There is a singular oversight in the fifth stanza, where "crowns" is compelled to rhyme with "sounds."-W.

III.

“Thou didst not dream of liberty decay'd,
Nor wish to make her guardian laws more strong:
But the rash many, first by thee misled,
Bore thee at length unwillingly along."
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For faith deserted, or for cities sold,
Own here one untried, unexampled deed;
One mystery of shame from Curio learn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn,

[meed.

And 'scape in Guilt's disguise from Virtue's offer'd

IV.

For saw we not that dangerous power avow'd
Whom Freedom oft hath found her mortal bane,
Whom public Wisdom ever strove to exclude,
And but with blushes suffereth in her train ?
Corruption vaunted her bewitching spoils,
O'er court, o'er senate, spread in pomp her toils,
And call'd herself the state's directing soul:
Till Curio, like a good magician, tried
With Eloquence and Reason at his side,

[trol.

By strength of holier spells the enchantress to con

V.

Soon with thy country's hope thy fame extends: The rescued merchant oft thy words resounds: Thee and thy cause the rural hearth defends: His bowl to thee the grateful sailor crowns: The learn'd recluse, with awful zeal who read Of Grecian heroes, Roman patriots dead, Now with like awe doth living merit scan: While he, whom virtue in his blest retreat Bade social ease and public passions meet, Ascends the civil scene, and knows to be a man.

VI.

At length in view the glorious end appear'd: We saw thy spirit through the senate reign; And Freedom's friends thy instant omen heard Of laws for which their fathers bled in vain. Wak'd in the strife the public Genius rose More keen, more ardent from his long repose: Deep through her bounds the city felt his call: Each crowded haunt was stirr'd beneath his power, And murmuring challeng'd the deciding hour Of that too vast event, the hope and dread of all.

K

VII.

O ye good powers! who look on humankind, Instruct the mighty moments as they roll; And watch the fleeting shapes in Curio's mind, And steer his passions steady to the goal. O Alfred, father of the English name, O valiant Edward, first in civil fame, O William, height of public virtue pure, Bend from your radiant seats a joyful eye, Behold the sum of all your labours nigh, Your plans of law complete, your ends of rule secure.

VIII.

'Twas then-O shame! O soul from faith

estrang'd!

O Albion oft to flattering vows a prey!
"Twas then-Thy thought what sudden frenzy
chang'd P

What rushing palsy took thy strength away?
Is this the man in Freedom's cause approv'd?
The man so great, so honour'd, so belov'd?
Whom the dead envied, and the living bless'd?
This patient slave by tinsel bonds allur'd?
This wretched suitor for a boon abjur'd?
Whom those that fear'd him, scorn; that trusted
him, detest?

IX.

O lost alike to action and repose!

With all that habit of familiar fame,

Sold to the mockery of relentless foes,

And doom'd to exhaust the dregs of life in shame,
To act with burning brow and throbbing heart
A poor deserter's dull exploded part,

To slight the favour thou canst hope no more, Renounce the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind, Charge thy own lightness on thy country's mind, And from her voice appeal to each tame foreign shore.

X.

But England's sons, to purchase thence applause,
Shall ne'er the loyalty of slaves pretend,
By courtly passions try the public cause;
Nor to the forms of rule betray the end.