Around the ever-living Mind
In jubilee their mystic dance begun;
When at thy leaping forth, O Sun!
The Morning started in affright,
Astonished at thy birth, her Child of Light!

3.

Hail, O Urania, hail!

Queen of the Muses, Mistress of the Song!
For thou didst deign to leave. the heavenly throng
As earthward thou thy steps wert bending,
A ray went forth, and harbingered thy way;
All Ether laughed with thy descending.
Thou hadst wreathed thy hair with roses,
The flower that in the immortal bower

Its deathless bloom discloses.

Before thine awful mien, compelled to shrink,
Fled Ignorance, abashed, with all her brood, -
Dragons, and Hags of baleful breath;
Fierce Dreams, that wont to drink
The Sepulchre's black blood;

Or, on the wings of storms

Riding in fury-forms,

Shriek to the mariner the shriek of Death.

4.

I boast, O Goddess! to thy name
That I have raised the pile of fame ;

Therefore to me be given

To roam the starry path of heaven,

To charioteer with wings on high, And to rein in the Tempests of the sky.

5.

Chariots of happy Gods! Fountains of Light!
Ye Angel-Temples bright!

May I unblamed your flamy thresholds tread?
I leave Earth's lowly scene;

I leave the Moon serene,
The lovely Queen of Night;

I leave the wide domains

Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling,
And Jupiter's vast plains

(The many-belted king);

Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns,
Like some stern tyrant to just exile driven.
Dim-seen, the sullen power appears
In that cold solitude of heaven,

And slow he drags along

The mighty circle of long-lingering years.

6.

Nor shalt thou escape my sight,

Who at the threshold of the sun-trod domes

Art trembling, youngest Daughter of the Night!
And you, ye fiery-tressed strangers! you,
Comets who wander wide,

Will I along your pathless way pursue,
Whence bending I may view

The Worlds whom elder Suns have vivified.

7.

For Hope with loveliest visions soothes my mind,
That even in Man, Life's winged power,
When comes again the natal hour,

Shall on heaven-wandering feet,
In undecaying youth,

Spring to the blessed seat,

Where round the fields of Truth

The fiery Essences for ever feed;
And o'er the ambrosial mead

The breezes of serenity,

Silent and soothing, glide for ever by.

8.

There, Priest of Nature! dost thou shine,
NEWTON! a King among the Kings divine.
Whether, with Harmony's mild force,
He guides along its course

The axle of some beauteous star on high;

Or gazing, in the spring

Ebullient with creative energy,

Feels his pure breast with rapturous joy possessed, Inebriate in the holy ecstasy.

9.

I may not call thee mortal then, my soul!
Immortal longings lift thee to the skies:
Love of thy native home inflames thee now,
With pious madness wise.

Know then thyself! expand thy wings divine! Soon, mingled with thy fathers, thou shalt shine A star amid the starry throng,

A God the Gods among.

LONDON, 1802.

GOOSEBERRY-PIE.

A PINDARIC ODE.

1.

GOOSEBERRY-PIE is best.

Full of the theme, O Muse, begin the song!
What though the sunbeams of the West
Mature within the Turtle's breast

Blood glutinous, and fat of verdant hue;
What though the Deer bound sportively along
O'er springy turf, the Park's elastic vest, -
Give them their honors due;

But Gooseberry-pie is best.

2.

Behind his oxen slow

The patient Ploughman plods;

And as the Sower followed by the clods,

Earth's genial womb received the living seed.
The rains descend, the grains they grow:
Saw ye the vegetable ocean

Roll its green ripple to the April gale?
The golden waves, with multitudinous motion,
Swell o'er the summer vale?

3.

It flows through Alder banks along
Beneath the copse that hides the hill;
The gentle stream you cannot see,
You only hear its melody,-

The stream that turns the Mill.

Pass on a little way, pass on,

And you shall catch its gleam anon; And hark, the loud and agonizing groan That makes its anguish known,

Where, tortured by the Tyrant Lord of Meal, The Brook is broken on the Wheel!

4.

Blow fair, blow fair, thou orient gale!
On the white bosom of the sail,
Ye Winds, enamoured, lingering lie!
Ye Waves of ocean, spare the bark,

Ye Tempests of the sky!

From distant realms she comes to bring

The sugar for my Pie.

For this on Gambia's arid side

The Vulture's feet are scaled with blood;

And Beelzebub beholds with pride

His darling planter brood.

5.

First in the spring thy leaves were seen,
Thou beauteous bush, so early green!