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DE FOR MUSIC.

IRREGULAR.

I.

ENCE, avaunt, ('tis holy ground)

"HENCE,

"Comus, and his midnight-crew,

"And Ignorance with looks profound, "And dreaming Sloth of palid hue,

"Mad Sedition's cry profane,

"Servitude that hugs her chain,

"Nor in thefe confecrated bowers

"Let painted Flatt'ry hide her ferpent-train

"in flowers.

«Nor

" Nor Envy base, nor creeping Gain

"Dare the Mufe's walk to ftain,

"While bright-eyed Science watches round:

Hence, away, 'tis holy ground!".

II.

From yonder realms of empyrean day

Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay:

There fit the fainted Sage, the Bard divine, The Few, whom Genius gave to shine

Thro' every unborn age, and undiscover'd

clime.

Rapt in celestial transport they,

1

Yet hither oft a glance from high

They fend of tender fympathy

To bless the place, where on their opening foul

First the genuine ardor ftole.

'Twas Milton ftruck the deep-ton'd fhell,

And, as the choral warblings round him fwell,

Meek

ODE FOR MUSIC.

137

MeekNewton's felfbends from his ftate fublime,

And nods his hoary head, and liftens to the

rhyme.

III.

"Ye brown o'er-arching Groves,

"That Contemplation loves,

"Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!

"Oft at the blush of dawn

"I trod your level lawn,

"Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia filver-bright "In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly, "With Freedom by my fide, and foft-ey'd Melancholy."

IV.

But hark! the portals found, and pacing forth With folemn fteps and flow,

High Potentates, and Dames of royal birth,

And mitred fathers in long order go:

Great

Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow

From haughty Gallia torn,

And fad Chatillon, on her bridal morn

That wept her bleeding Love, and princely

Clare,

And Anjou's Heroine, and the paler Rose,
The rival of her crown and of her woes,
And either Henry there,

The murder'd Saint, and the majestic Lord,

That broke the bonds of Rome.

(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er, Their human paffions now no more,

Save Charity, that glows beyond the tomb) All that on Granta's fruitful plain

Rich ftreams of regal bounty pour'd,

And bad thefe awful fanes and turrets rise, To hail their Fitzroy's feftal morning come; And thus they speak in foft accord

The liquid language of the skies.

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