Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

With Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy;
And leave us leisure to be good :

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer Friend, the flattering Foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,
Immersed in rapturous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend,—
Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

O, gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread Goddess! lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band,

(As by the impious thou art seen

With thundering voice and threatening mien),
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty !

Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart ;

Thy philosophic train be there,
To soften, not to wound my heart!
The generous spark extinct revive !
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

1721-1759.

TO EVENING.

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, O pensive Eve! to soothe thine ear
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs and dying gales,

O Nymph reserved! while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent whose cloudy skirts
With brede etherial wove

O'erhang his wavy bed,

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

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 hail

Thy genial loved return.

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
And 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 nod

By thy religious gleams!

Or, if chill blustering winds or driving rain
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That, 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 all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil!

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light,

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And 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.

THE PASSIONS.

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,

While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell.

Exalting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting,
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined :

Till once ('tis said) when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,

From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet 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.

Next Anger rush'd his eyes, on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And 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 delightful measure?
Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She 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 frown

Revenge impatient rose.

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe.
And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her 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 different themes the veering song was mix'd; And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.

With eyes upraised, 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 around,

Bubbling 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 tone
When 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 seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green :