Yonder azure vault on high, Scarce can our daring thoughts arise The bliss, the joy, the rapture there. Ever joying in thy sight (For thee their silver harps are strung); Ever beauteous, ever young. Angelic forms their voices raise, And through heaven's arch resound thy praise. The feather'd fowls that skim the air, Thus, like thy golden chain from high, Source of light! thou bidst the sun The stars like dust around him fly, Eiresione we'll no more, Imaginary power, adore; Since oil, and wool, and cheerful wine, And life-sustaining bread are thine. Thy herbage, O great Pan, sustains The flocks that graze our Attic plains: The olive, with fresh verdure crown'd, Rises pregnant from the ground; At thy command it shoots and springs, And a thousand blessings brings. Minerva, only is thy mind, Wisdom, and bounty to mankind. The fragrant thyme, the blooming rose, Herb and flower, and shrub that grows On Thessalian Tempe's plain, Or where the rich Sabeans reign, That treat the taste, or smell, or sight, O ye nurses of soft dreams, Reedy brooks, and winding streams, Or murmuring o'er the pebbles sheen, Or sliding through the meadows green, Or where through matted sedge you creep, Traveling to your parent deep: Sound his praise by whom ye rose, That sea which neither ebbs nor flows. 0 immortal woods and groves, ye Which the' enamour'd student loves; Beneath whose venerable shade, For thought and friendly converse made, Famed Hecadem, old hero, lies, Whose shrine is shaded from the skies, And through the gloom of silent night Projects from far its trembling light. You, whose roots descend as low, As high in air branches grow: your Your leafy arms to heaven extend, Bend your heads, in homage bend: Cedars and pines, that wave above, And the oak beloved of Jove. Omen, monster, prodigy, And to rebel man declare Can we forget thy guardian care, Slow to punish, prone to spare! Thou break'st the haughty Persian's pride That dared old Ocean's power deride; Their shipwrecks strew'd the' Euboean wave, At Marathon they found a grave. 0 ye bless'd Greeks who there expired, For Greece with pious ardour fired, What shrines or altars shall we raise To secure your endless praise? Or need we monuments supply, To rescue what can never die! And yet a greater hero far Come, unknown Instructor, come! O Father, King whose heavenly face THE END. C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick. |