Of Athens o'er Ægina's gloomy surge,
To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all
The Persian's promis'd glory, when the realms
Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime,
When Libya's torrid champain and the rocks
Of cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands,
To sweep the sons of Liberty from Earth.
In vain: Minerva on the bounding prow
Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice
Denounc'd her terrours on their impious heads,
And shook her burning ægis. Xerxes saw :
From Heracléum, on the mountain's height
Thron'd in his golden car, he knew the sign
Celestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake
His faultering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.
Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power;
Who arm the hand of Liberty for war:
And give to the renown'd Britannic name
To awe contending monarchs: yet benign,
Yet mild of nature; to the works of peace
More prone, and lenient of the many ills
Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid
Hygeia well can witness; she who saves
From poisonous cates and cups of pleasing bane,
The wretch devoted to the entangling snares
Of Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leads
To Cynthia's lonely haunts.
To spread the toils, To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn
At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds,
She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams : And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze, And where the fervour of the sunny vale
May beat upon his brow, through devious paths
Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease,
Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd
His eager bosom, does the queen of health
Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board
She guards, presiding; and the frugal powers
With joy sedate leads in: and while the brown
Ennæan dame with Pan presents her stores;
While changing still, and comely in the change,
Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread
The garden's banquet; you to crown his feast,
To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair
Hygeia calls and from your shelving seats,
And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,
To slake his veins: till soon a purer tide
Flows down those loaded channels; washeth off
The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds
Of crude disease; and through the abodes of life
Sends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads: hail,
Who give, to labour, health; to stooping age,
The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your
Will I invoke; and, frequent in your praise,
Abash the frantic Thyrsus with my song.
For not estrang'd from your benignant arts
Is he, the god, to whose mysterious shrine
My youth was sacred, and my votive cares
Belong; the learned Pæon. Oft when all
His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain ;
When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm
Rich with the genial influence of the Sun,
(To rouse dark Fancy from her plaintive dreams,
To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win
Sick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast
Which pines with silent passion,) he in vain
Hath prov'd; to your deep mansions he descends,
Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades,
He entereth; where empurpled veins of ore
Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine
Your trickling rills insinuate. There the god
From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl
Wafts to his pale-ey'd suppliants; wafts the seeds
Metallic, and the elemental salts
Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink: and
Flies pain; flies inauspicious care: and soon
The social haunt or unfrequented shade
Hears Io, Io Pæan; as of old,
When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs,
Oft as for helpless mortals I implore
Your salutary springs, through every urn
Oh shed your healing treasures. With the first
And finest breath, which from the genial strife
Of mineral fermentation springs like light
O'er the fresh morning's vapours, lustrate then
The fountain, and inform the rising wave.
My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not ye That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes Not unregarded of celestial powers,
I frame their language; and the Muses deign
To guide the pious tenour of my lay.
The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine)
In early days did to my wondering sense
Their secrets oft reveal: oft my rais'd ear
In slumber felt their music: oft at noon,
Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,
In field or shady grove, they taught me words
Of power, from death and envy to preserve
The good man's name. Whence yet with grateful mind,
And offerings unprofan'd by ruder eye,
My vows I send, my homage, to the seats
Of rocky Cirrha, where with you they dwell:
Where you their chaste companions they admit
Through all the hallow'd scene: where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tuneful, yielding gratefullest repose
To their consorted measure: till again,
With emulation all the sounding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of the song,
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,
And sweep their lofty strings: those powerful strings
That charm the mind of gods: that fill the courts
Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet
Of evils, with immortal rest from cares :
Assuage the terrours of the throne of Jove;
And quench the formidable thunderbolt
Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings,
While now the solemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord
Sleeps the stern eagle; by the number'd notes,
Possess'd; and satiate with the melting tone:
Sovereign of birds. The furious god of war,
His darts forgetting, and the winged wheels
That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,
Relents, and soothes his own fierce heart to ease,
The sire of gods and men,
In that great moment of divine delight,
Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er
He loves not, o'er the peopled earth, and o'er
The interminated ocean, he beholds
Curs'd with abhorrence by his doom severe,
And troubled at the sound. Ye Naiads, ye
With ravish'd ears the melody attend
Worthy of sacred silence.
Of Bacchus with tempestuous clamours strive
To drown the heavenly strains; of highest Jove
Irreverent, and by mad presumption fir'd
Their own discordant raptures to advance
With hostile emulation. Down they rush
From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the dames
Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,
With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd
Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild
Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air
The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch
Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd
With shrieks and frantic uproar.
From every unpolluted ear avert
Their orgies! If within the seats of men,
Within the walls, the gates, where Pallas holds
The guardian key, if haply there be found
Who loves to mingle with the revel-band
And hearken to their accents; who aspires
From such instructors to inform his breast
With verse; let him, fit votarist, implore
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