Classic Poem

ODE II.

O sovereign hymns! that powerful reign
In the harp, your sweet domain,
Whom will ye choose to raise;
What god shall now the verse resound;
What chief, for godlike deed renown'd,
Exalt to loftiest praise?
Pisa is Jove's: Jove's conquering son
First the Olympic race ordain'd:
The first fair fruits of glory won
The haughty tyrant's rage restrain'd.
He first the wondrous game bestow'd
When breathing from Augean toils,
He consecrates the dreadful spoils,
An offering to his Father-god.
Theron, his virtues to approve,
And imitate the seed of Jove,
The' Olympic laurel claims,
Whose swift-wheel'd car has borne away
The rapid honours of the day,
Foremost among the victor-names.
Therefore for Theron praise awaits,
For him the lyre awakes the strain,
The stranger welcom'd at his gates
With hospitable love humane.
Fix'd on the councils of his breast,
As on the column's lofty height
Remains secure the building's weight,
The structure of his realm may rest.
Of a fair stem, himself a fairer flow'r,
Who soon transplanted from their native soil,
Wander'd many climates o'er,
Till after long and various toil,
On the fair river's destin'd bank they found
Their sacred seat, and heav'n chose ground:
Where stood delightful to the eye
The fruitful, beauteous Sicily,
And could a numerous issue boast,
That spread their lustre round, and flourish'd o'er the coast.
The following years all took their silver flight,
With pleasure wing'd and soft delight,
And every year that flew in peace,
Brought to their native virtues, store
Of wealth and pow'r, a new increase,
Fate still confirm'd the sum, and bounteous added more.
But son of Rhe and Saturn old,
Who dost thy sacred throne uphold
On high Olympus' hill;
Whose rule the' Olympic race obeys,
Who guid'st Alpheus' winding maze,
In hymns delighting still;
Grant, gracious to the godlike race,
Their children's children to sustain,
Peaceful through Time's ne'er-ending space,
The sceptre and paternal reign.
For Time, the aged sire of all,
The deed impatient of delay,
Which the swift hour has wing'd away,
Just or unjust, can ne'er recall.
But when calmer days succeed,
Of fair event, and lovely deed,
Our lot serene at last;
The memory of darker hours,
When Heav'n severe and angry lours,
Forgotten lies and past.
Thus mild, and lenient of his frown,
When Jove regards our adverse fate,
And sends his chosen blessings down
To cheer below our mortal state:
Then former evils, odious brood,
Before the heav'n-born blessings fly,
Or trodden down subjected lie,
Soon vanquish'd by the victor-good.
With thy fair daughters, Cadmus! best agrees
The Muse's song; who, after many woes,
At last on golden thrones of ease
Enjoy an undisturb'd repose.
No more they think of Cadmus, mournful swain!
Succeeding joys dispel his former pain.
And Semele, of rosy hue,
Whom the embracing Thunderer slew,
Exalted now to Heav'n's abodes,
Herself a goddess blithe, dwells with immortal gods.
Bathed in the ambrosial odours of the sky,
Her long dishevel'd tresses fly:
Her, Minerva still approves;
She is her prime and darling joy:
Her, heav'n's Lord supremely loves;
As does his rosy son, the ivy-crowned boy.
Thou Ino too! in pearly cells,
Where Nereus' sea-green daughter dwells,
Enjoy'st a lot divine:
No more of suffering mortal strain,
An azure goddess of the main,
Eternal rest is thine.
Lost in a maze, blind feeble man
Knows not the hour he sure foresees,
Nor with the eyes of nature can
Pierce through the hidden deep decrees.
Nor sees he if his radiant day,
That in meridian splendor glows,
Shall gild his evening's quiet close,
Soft smiling with a farewel ray.
As when the ocean's refluent tides,
Within his hollow womb subsides,
Is heard to sound no more;
Till rousing all its rage again,
Flood roll'd on flood it pours amain,
And sweeps the sandy shore:
So Fortune, mighty Queen of life,
Works up proud man, her destin'd slave,
Of good and ill the stormy strife,
The sport of her alternate wave;
Now mounted to the height of bliss,
He seems to mingle with the sky;
Now looking down with giddy eye,
Sees the retreating waters fly,
And trembles at the deep abyss.
As, by experience led, the searching mind
Revolves the records of still-changing fate,
Such dire reverses shall he find
Oft mark the fortunes of the great!
Now bounteous Gods, with blessings all divine,
Exalt on high the sceptred line,
Now the bright scene of laurel'd years,
At once quick-shifting, disappears:
And in their radiant room succeeds
A dismal train of ills, and tyrannous misdeeds.
Since the curst hour the fateful son
Plung'd in the guilt he sought to shun,
And saw beneath his hasty rage
The hoary King, Heaven's victim, bleed;
Deaf to a father's pleading age,
His erring hands fulfill'd, what guilty Fate decreed.
Erynnis, dreadful Fury! saw
The breach of Nature's holiest law,
She mounts her hooked car;
Through Phocis' death-devoted ground
She flew, and gave the nations round
To the wide waste of war:
By mutual hands the brothers died,
Furious on mutual wounds they run;
Sons, fathers, swell the sanguine tide;
Fate drove the purple deluge on.
Thus perish'd all the fated brood,
Thus Eris wrought her dreadful will;
When sated vengeance had its fill,
Thersander clos'd the scene of blood.
He, sprung from beauteous Argea, shone
The glory of Adrastrus' throne,
When fierce in youthful fire.
He rag'd around the Theban wall,
And saw the sevenfold city fall
A victim to his sire:
From him, as from a second root,
Wide spreading to the lofty skies,
The sons of martial glory shoot,
And clustering chiefs on chiefs arise,
There in the topmost boughs display'd,
Great Theron sits with lustre crown'd,
And verdant honours bloom around,
While nations rest beneath his shade.
Awake the lyre! Theron demands the lays;
Yet all too low! Call forth a nobler strain!
Decent is ev'n the' excess of praise:
For Theron strike the sounding lyre again.
Qlympia's flowering wreath he singly wears;
The Isthmian palm his brother shares.
Delphi resounds the kindred name,
The youths contend alike for fame,
Fair rivals in the glorious chase,
When twelve times darting round, they flew the giddy space.
Thrice blest! for whom the Graces twine
Fame's brightest plume, the wreath divine:
Lost to remembrance, former woes
No more reflection's sting employ;
With triumph all the bosom glows,
Pour'd through the' expanding heart, the' impetuous tide of joy.
Riches, that singly are possest,
Vain pomp of life! a specious waste,
But feed luxurious pride:
Yet when with sacred virtues crown'd,
Wealth deals its liberal treasures round,
'Tis nobly dignified.
To modest worth, to honour's bands,
With conscious warmth he large imparts;
And in his presence smiling stands
Fair Science, and her handmaid, Arts:
As in the pure serene of night,
Thron'd in its sphere, a beauteous star
Sheds its blest influence from afar,
At once beneficent and bright.
But hear ye wealthy, hear ye great,
I sing the fix'd decrees of Fate,
What after death remains,
Prepar'd for the unfeeling kind
Of cruel unrelenting mind,
A doom of endless pains!
The crimes that stain'd this living light,
Beneath the holy eye of Jove,
Meet in the regions drear of night,
The vengeance but delay'd above.
There the pale sinner drear aghast,
Impartial, righteous, and severe,
Unaw'd by pow'r, unmov'd by pray'r,
Eternal justice dooms at last.
Far otherwise, the souls whom virtue guides
Enjoy a calm repose of sacred rest,
Nor light nor shade their time divides,
With one eternal sunshine blest.
Emancipated from the cares of life,
No more they urge the mortal strife;
No more, with still-revolving toil,
They vex a hard ungrateful soil;
Nor plough the surges of the main,
Exchanging holy quiet for false deceitful gain.
But to these sacred seats preferr'd,
With gods they live, as gods rever'd,
And tears are wip'd from every eye;
While banish'd from the happy reign,
The guilty souls in darkness lie,
And weary out the frightful ministers of pain.
So Heav'n decrees: the good and just,
Who, true to life's important trust,
Have well sustain'd the field;
Whose souls undaunted, undismay'd,
Nor flattering pleasure could persuade,
Nor passions taught to yield;
These through the mortal changes past,
Still listening to the heav'nly lore,
Find this sublime reward at last,
The trial of obedience o'er.
Then bursting from the bonds of clay,
Triumphant tread the heav'n-pav'd road
That leads to Saturn's high abode,
And Jove himself directs the way.
There, where the blest reside at ease,
Bland zephyrs breathe the sea-borne breeze
O'er all the happy isle:
Unnumber'd sweets the air perfume,
'Tis all around one golden bloom,
All one celestial smile,
By living streams fair trees ascend,
Whose roots the humid waters lave;
The boughs with radiant fruitage bend,
Rich produce of the fruitful wave.
Thus sporting in celestial bow'rs,
The sons of the immortal morn,
Their heads and rosy hands adorn
With garlands of unfading flow'rs.
There Rhadamanth, who great assessor reigns
To Rhaea's Son, by still unchanging right,
Awarding all: to vice, eternal chains;
To virtue opes the gates of light.
Rhaea! who high in Heav'n's sublime abodes
Sits thron'd, the mother of the gods.
Cadmus to this immortal choir
Was led; and Peleus' noble sire!
And glorious son! since Thetis'-love
Subdued, with pray'r, the yielding mind of Jove.
Who Troy late prostrate on the plain,
His country's pillar, Hector, slain;
By whom unhappy Cygnus bled;
By whom the Ethiopian boy,
That sprung from Neptune's godlike bed,
The aged Tithon's and Aurora's highest joy.
What grand ideas crowd my brain!
What images! a lofty train
In beauteous order spring:
As the keen store of feather'd fates
Within the braided quiver waits,
Impatient for the wing:
See, see they mount! The sacred few,
Endued with piercing flight,
Alone through darling fields pursue
The' airial regions bright.
This Nature gives, her chiefest boast; —
But when the bright ideas fly,
Far soaring from the vulgar eye,
To vulgar eyes are lost.
Where Nature sows her genial seeds,
A liberal harvest straight succeeds,
Fair in the human soil;
While Art, with hard laborious pains,
Creeps on unseen, nor much attains
By slow progressive toil.
Resembling this, the feeble Crow,
Amid the vulgar-winged crowd,
Hides in the darkening copse below,
Vain, strutting, garrulous, and loud:
While Genius mounts the' ethereal height,
As the imperial bird of Jove
On sounding pinions soars above,
And dares the Majesty of light.
Then fit an arrow to the tuneful string,
O thou my Genius! warm with sacred flame;
Fly swift, ethereal shaft! and wing
The godlike Theron unto fame.
I solemn swear, and holy truth attest,
That sole inspires the tuneful breast,
That, never since the' immortal sun
His radiant journey first begun,
To none the gods did e'er impart
A more exalted mind, or wide-diffusive heart,
Fly, Envy, hence, that durst invade
Such glories, with injurious shade;
Still, with superior lustre bright,
His virtues shine, in number more
Than are the radiant fires of night,
Or sands that spread along the sea-surrounding shore.