William Collins
¶[1720-1759]
Fidele
¶TO fair Fidele's grassy tombSoft maids and village hinds shall bringEach opening sweet of earliest bloom,And rifle all the breathing Spring.
¶No wailing ghost shall dare appearTo vex with shrieks this quiet grove;But shepherds lads assemble here,And melting virgins own their love.
¶No wither'd witch shall here be seen,No goblins lead their nightly crew;The female fays shall haunt the green,And dress thy grave with pearly dew.
¶The redbreast oft at evening hoursShall kindly lend his little aid,With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,To deck the ground where thou art laid.
¶When howling winds, and beating rain,In tempests shake thy sylvan cell;Or 'midst the chase, on every plain,The tender thought on thee shall dwell;
¶Each lonely scene shall thee restore,For thee the tear be duly shed;Beloved, till life can charm no more;And mourn'd, till Pity's self be dead.
Ode Written in Mdc CXLVI
¶How sleep the Brave, who sink to restBy all their Country's wishes blest!When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,She there shall dress a sweeter sodThan Fancy's feet have ever trod.
¶By fairy hands their knell is rung,By forms unseen their dirge is sung:There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,To bless the turf that wraps their clay;And Freedom shall awhile repairTo dwell, a weeping hermit, there!
The Passions
¶An Ode for MusicWHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,While yet in early Greece she sung,The Passions oft, to hear her shell,Throng'd around her magic cellExulting, trembling, raging, fainting,Possest beyond the Muse's painting,By turns they felt the glowing mindDisturb'd, delighted, raised, refined:'Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,From the supporting myrtles roundThey snatch'd her instruments of sound,And, as they oft had heard apartSweet lessons of her forceful art,Each, for Madness ruled the hour,Would prove his own expressive power.
¶First Fear his hand, its skill to try,Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,And back recoil'd, he knew not why,E'en at the sound himself had made.[477]Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,In lightnings own'd his secret stings;In one rude clash he struck the lyreAnd swept with hurried hand the strings.
¶With woeful measures wan Despair,Low sullen sounds, his grief beguiled;A solemn, strange, and mingled air,'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
¶But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,What was thy delighted measure?Still it whisper'd promised pleasureAnd bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!Still would her touch the strain prolong:And from the rocks, the woods, the valeShe call'd on Echo still through all the song;And, where her sweetest theme she chose,A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair;—
¶And longer had she sung:—but with a frownRevenge impatient rose:He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down;And with a withering lookThe war-denouncing trumpet tookAnd blew a blast so loud and dread,Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!And ever and anon he beatThe doubling drum with furious heat;And, though sometimes, each dreary pause between,Dejected Pity at his sideHer soul-subduing voice applied,Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd:Sad proof of thy distressful state!Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd;And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.[478]With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,Pale Melancholy sat retired;And from her wild sequester'd seat,In notes by distance made more sweet,Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:And dashing soft from rocks aroundBubbling runnels join'd the sound;Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,Round an holy calm diffusing,Love of peace, and lonely musing,In hollow murmurs died away.
¶But O! how alter'd was its sprightlier toneWhen Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,Her bow across her shoulder flung,Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known!The oak-crown'd Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen,Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seenPeeping from forth their alleys green:Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.
¶Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:He, with viny crown advancing,First to the lively pipe his hand addrest:But soon he saw the brisk awakening violWhose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best:They would have thought who heard the strainThey saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maidsAmidst the festal-sounding shadesTo some unwearied minstrel dancing;While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;And he, amidst his frolic play,As if he would the charming air repay,Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.[479]O Music! sphere-descended maid,Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!Why, goddess, why, to us denied,Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?As in that loved Athenian bowerYou learn'd an all-commanding power,Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd!Can well recall what then it heard.Where is thy native simple heartDevote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?Arise, as in that elder time,Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!Thy wonders, in that god-like age,Fill thy recording Sister's page;—'Tis said, and I believe the tale,Thy humblest reed could more prevailHad more of strength, diviner rage,Than all which charms this laggard age,E'en all at once together foundCecilia's mingled world of sound:—O bid our vain endeavours cease:Revive the just designs of Greece:Return in all thy simple state!Confirm the tales her sons relate!
To EVENING
¶I F aught of oaten stop or pastoral songMay hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest earLike thy own solemn springs,Thy springs and dying gales;
¶O Nymph reserved,—while now the bright-hair'dSits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,With brede ethereal wove,O'erhang his wavy bed,
¶Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed batWith short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,Or where the beetle windsHis small but sullen horn,[480]As oft he rises midst the twilight path,Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,—Now teach me, maid composed,To breathe some soften'd strain.
¶Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,May not unseemly with its stillness suit;As, musing slow, I hailThy genial loved return.
¶For when thy folding-star arising showsHis paly circlet, at his warning-lampThe fragrant Hours, and ElvesWho slept in buds the day,
¶And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedgeAnd sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,The pensive Pleasures sweet,Prepare thy shadowy car.
¶Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,Whose walls more awful nodBy thy religious gleams.
¶Or, if chill blustering winds or driving rainPrevent my willing feet, be mine the hutThat, from the mountain's side,Views wilds and swelling floods,
¶And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er allThy dewy fingers drawThe gradual dusky veil.
¶While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!While Summer loves to sportBeneath thy lingering light;[481]While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,Affrights thy shrinking trainAnd rudely rends thy robes;
¶So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,Thy gentlest influence own,And love thy favourite name!