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My sole exchequer fill'd by Clio's smile;

The regal maid, who crowns my faithful toil:
Who, as beneath her laurel shade I dream,
Visits my slumbers in a golden stream.

Nor slight the treasures of the harmonious Nine,
Who greatly speak the source of man, divine:
Show that he caught a sparkle from above;
His breast still glowing with the fire of Jove.
Heaven's ear is charm'd with song: controlling verse
With thrilling force dire Tartarus can pierce;
With chains of triple adamant compell.
The dusky hosts, and bind the powers of hell.
In verse the priestess shakes the Pythian cave:
Rapt into verse, the pale-eyed Sybills rave:
Verse smooths the sacrificer's holy prayer
At the dread altar, as his hands prepare
To strike the bull that threats in gaudy state;
Or in the breathing entrails grope for fate.
We too, when raised to our celestial land,
Where time in one stupendous pause shall stand,
Crown'd with pure gold shall tread the eternal fane,
Attuning to the lyre the numerous strain:
While the pleased stars, that gem the vaulted sky,
Catch the soft tones, and ring in sweet reply.
The guardian Power, who, throned on every sphere,
Wheels the vast orb, and guides its proud career,
Pours, as he circles through the starry throng,
The unutterable notes of angel-song.

Fierce Ophiuchus hears with mute delight;
And stern Orion checks the threaten'd fight;
While Atlas, as the lays abstract his soul,
Exults, unconscious of the incumbent pole.
When yet the social board, by reason graced,
Disdain'd subservience to the glutton taste;
When modest Bacchus gave the frugal cheer,
The feasts of monarchs own'd the Muses dear.
There sate the bard in state above the rest,

His unshorn locks with oaken wreaths compress'd;

His the high deeds of heroes to rehearse,
And bid the great examples live in verse:
His with sublimer spirit to recite

The world first rising from essential night;
And infant deities with acorns fed,
Unarm'd as yet from thund'ring Ætna's bed.
Nor aught avail the melodies of tone

To words unwedded, and the Muse unknown.
'Twas not the harp of Orpheus, but the song
That held the floods, and drew the trees along;
Touch'd the hard breasts of spectres with consent;
And made their eyes in stony showers relent.

Nor you affect to scorn the Aönian quire,
Bless'd by their smiles, and glowing with their fire:
You, who, by them inspired, with art profound
Can wield the magic of proportion'd sound:
Through thousand tones can teach the voice to stray,
And wind to harmony its mazy way,
Arion's tuneful heir!-then wonder not
A poet-child should be by you begot.
My kindred soul is warm with kindred flame,
And the son treads the father's track to fame.
Phœbus controlls us with a common sway;
To you his lyre commends, to me his lay :
Whole in each bosom makes his just abode;
With child and sire the same, though varied God.
Yet that you hate the Muse is but profess'd:

Her secret love is cherish'd in your breast.
Else why not urge my steps where fortune lies

In the prone path, and vaunts her gaudy prize:
Why not condemn me, with the bar's hoarse throng,
To gather affluence from a nation's wrong:

Why rather seek with intellectual gold
To deck my mind, and to my sight unfold,
Withdrawn in shades from lucre's noisy band,
The beauteous vision of the Aönian land:
Give me through all its bloomy wilds to stray,
The bless'd companion of the God of day?

I pass the endearing fatherly caress,—
And in the greater kindness lose the less.

When by your bounty, sire, the words, that hung,
In strength and sweetness, on the Latian's tongue,
I now had learn'd; and, what even Jove could speak,
The full sonorous accents of the Greek;

Your love persuasive press'd me to advance,

And glean the flowers that strew the page of France:
To win Italia's modern Muse, who shows
The base pollution of barbarian foes;
And read the native strains of hallow'd lore,
Taught by heaven-tutor'd Palestine of yore.
Nor yet content, you led my curious eye
To scan the circling wonders of the sky:
Of air the lucid secrets to reveal,

And know what earth's and ocean's depths conceal.

Thus brought to science in her inmost seat,

You broke the cloud that veil'd her last retreat;
And offer'd, in her plenitude of charms,

The naked goddess to my youthful arms:

And, if your power had match'd your will to bless,
Now should my arms the heavenly fair possess.
Mad worshippers of gold!—and will ye dare
With mine your glittering treasures to compare?
Mine wealth intangible,-and haply your's-
All that the sun in India's lap matures.
Say could a father more than mine have given,
If Jove that father, and reserved his heaven?
Had it been safe, the boon less precious far,
When Hyperion lent his blazing car;
Sent forth his boy in all the god's array,
And crown'd him with intolerable day.
Now deck'd with ivies and immortal bays,
One, though the meanest of the sons of praise,
High shall I keep the tenor of my state
O'er the base crowd, and lifted from their fate.
Hence, wakeful Cares, and pining Sorrows fly!
Hence leering Envy, with thy sidelong eye!

Slander in vain thy viper-jaws expand!

No harm can touch me from your hateful band!
Alien from you, my breast, in virtue strong,
Derides the menace of your reptile throng.

Since then, dear sire, my gratitude can find,
For all your gifts, no gifts of equal kind:
Since every prouder wish my powers confine-
Accept, for all, this fond recording line:
O! take the love that strives to be express'd!
O! take the thanks that swell within my breast!
And you, sweet triflings of my youthful state,
If strains like you can hope a lasting date:
Unconscious of your mortal master's doom,
If ye maintain the day, nor know the tomb,
From dark forgetfulness, as time rolls on,
Your power shall snatch the father and the son:
And make them live to teach succeeding days,
How one could merit, and how one could praise.

Speaking of this translation of mine, (and of no other translation in my volume does he intimate even a suspicion of the existence,) Mr. Hayley says, "This translation has considerable merit: but my opinion of the rcspectable author's taste and candour is such, that I persuade myself he will agree with me in thinking the blank verse of Cowper, in expres sing the same ideas, has more happily caught the sweetness and spirit of the original."

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To a compliment of this description I shall not make any reply. If I could with

See the preface to Cowper's translations of Milton's Latin and Italian Poems, p. xvi.

propriety transcribe in this place the entire subject of Mr. Hayley's preference, I should confidently leave to my readers the easy task of deciding on that Gentleman's candour and taste: but I must content myself with making a short extract from the version in question; and for the sole purpose of subjoining a remark on it.

"The fiery spirit pure,

That wheels yon circling orbs, directs himself
Their mazy dance with melody of verse,
Unutterable, immortal, hearing which
Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppress'd,
Orion soften'd drops his ardent blade,
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load."

(COWPER'S Trans. &c. p. 60.)

In my translation of this verse in the ori

ginal,

"Torrida dum rutilus compescit sibila SERPENS,"

I assumed the liberty of substituting one constellation for another, Ophiuchus (the serpent-holder, or Hercules strangling the snakes,) for the serpent. This license, though venial, I regarded as bold; and I was consequently rather surprised when I discovered in the version, published by Mr. Hayley, the very same substitution, accompanied with the whimsical impropriety of having the hisses of Milton's serpent attributed to the man, who

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