Ode On The Poetical Character
By William Collins
As once, if not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard,
(Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest,)
One, only one, unrivald fair,
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn tourney hung on high,
The wish of each love-darting eye;
Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hovring hand,
Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,
With whisperd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unblest her loathd dishonourd side;
Happier, hopeless fair, if never
Her baffled hand with vain endeavour
Had touchd that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
To whom, prepard and bathd in Heavn,
The cest of amplest powr is givn:
To few the god-like gift assigns,
To gird their blest prophetic loins,
And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmixd her flame!
The band, as fairy legends say,
Was wove on that creating day,
When He, who calld with thought to birth
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
And dressd with springs, and forests tall,
And pourd the main engirting all,
Long by the lovd enthusiast wood,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sate with her alone,
And placd her on his sapphire throne,
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now sublimest triumph swelling,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she, from out the veiling cloud,
Breathd her magic notes aloud:
And thou, thou rich-haird youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!
The dangrous Passions kept aloof,
Far from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sate ecstatic Wonder
Listning the deep applauding thunder:
And Truth, in sunny vest arrayd,
By whose the tarsels eyes were made
All the shadwy tribes of mind,
In braided dance their murmurs joind,
And all the bright uncounted Powrs
Who feed on Heavns ambrosial flowrs.
Where is the bard, whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow?
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallowd work for him designd?
High on some cliff, to Heavn up-pild,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange shades oerbrow the valleys deep,
And holy genii guard the rock,
Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,
While on its rich ambitious head,
An Eden, like his own, lies spread.
I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
By which as Milton lay, his evning ear,
From many a cloud that droppd ethereal dew,
Nigh spherd in Heavn its native strains could hear:
On which that ancient trump he reachd was hung;
Thither oft his glory greeting,
From Wallers myrtle shades retreating,
With many a vow from Hopes aspiring tongue,
My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;
In vain, such bliss to one alone,
Of all the sons of soul was known,
And Heavn, and Fancy, kindred powrs,
Have now oerturnd th inspiring bowrs,
Or curtaind close such scene from evry future view.