Nor shall the Bard awake a lowly strain,

His wild notes flinging o'er the Cronian steep;

Whose ready muse, and not invoked in vain,

For such high mark her strongest shaft shall keep.-

Each hath his proper eminence !—

To kings indulgent providence

(No farther search the will of Heaven,)

The glories of the earth hath given.

Still may'st thou reign! enough for me

To dwell with heroes like to thee,

Myself the chief of Grecian minstrelsy.—

II.

TO THERON OF AGRAGAS, VICTOR IN THE CHARIOT RACE.

O SONG! whose voice the harp obeys,
Accordant aye with answering string;

What god, what hero wilt thou praise,
What man of godlike prowess sing?-
Lo, Jove himself is Pisa's king;

And Jove's strong son the first to raise

The barriers of th' Olympic ring.—

And now, victorious on the wing

Of sounding wheels, our bards proclaim

The stranger Theron's honour'd name,

The flower of no ignoble race,

And prop of ancient Agragas !—

His patient sires, for many a year,

Where that blue river rolls its flood,

Mid fruitless war and civil blood

Essay'd their sacred home to rear.

Till time assign'd, in fatal hour,

Their native virtues, wealth and power;

And made them from their low degree,

The eye of warlike Sicily.

And, may that power of ancient birth,

From Saturn sprung, and parent Earth,

Of tall Olympus' lord,

Who sees with still benignant eye

The games' long splendour sweeping by

His Alpheus' holy ford:

Appeas'd with anthems chanted high,

To Theron's late posterity

A happier doom accord!

Or good or ill, the past is gone,

Nor time himself, the parent one,

Can make the former deeds undone ;

But who would these recal,

When happier days would fain efface

The memory of each past disgrace,

And, from the gods, on Theron's race

Unbounded blessings fall?

Example meet for such a song,

The sister queens of Laius' blood;

Who sorrow's edge endured long,

Made keener by remember'd good!

Yet now, she breathes the air of Heaven

(On earth by smouldering thunder riven)

Long-haired Semele:

To Pallas dear is she;

Dear to the sire of gods, and dear

To him, her son, in dreadful glee

Who shakes the ivy-wreathed spear.—

And thus, they tell that deep below

The sounding ocean's ebb and flow,

Amid the daughters of the sea,

A sister nymph must Ino be,

And dwell in bliss eternally:

But, ignorant and blind,

We little know the coming hour;

Or if the latter day shall low'r;

Or if to Nature's kindly power
Our life in peace resign'd,

Shall sink like fall of summer eve,

And on the face of darkness leave

A ruddy smile behind.

For grief and joy with fitful gale
Our crazy bark by turns assail,

And, whence our blessings flow,

That same tremendous Providence

Will oft a varying doom dispense,

And lay the mighty low.

To Theban Laius that befel,

Whose son, with murder dyed,

Fulfill'd the former oracle,

Unconscious parricide !--