bower,
The Passions own thy power,
Love, only Love her forceless numbers mean:
For thou hast left her shrine; 40
Nor olive more, nor vine,
Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius, bless
To some divine excess,
Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; 45
What each, what all supply,
May court, may charm, our eye;
Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,
To aid some mighty task, 50
I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
Where oft my reed might sound
To maids and shepherds round,
And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The ~aedon~, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have
entertained a peculiar fondness. C.

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, unrival'd[20] fair, 5
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, 10
Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unblest her loathed dishonour'd side;
Happier, hopeless Fair, if never
Her baffled hand, with vain endeavour, 15
Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given:
To few the godlike gift assigns, 20
To gird their blest prophetic loins,
And 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 25
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
And dress'd with springs and forests tall,
And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the loved enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood, 30
Retiring, sat with her alone,
And placed her on his sapphire throne;
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around