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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ode XVIII: To The Right Honourable Francis Earl Of Huntington</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. 1.<br>The wise and great of every clime,<br>Through all the spacious walks of Time,<br>Where'er the Muse her power display'd,<br>With joy have listen'd and obey'd.<br>For taught of heaven, the sacred Nine<br>Persuasive numbers, forms divine,<br>To mortal sense impart:<br>They best the soul with glory fire;<br>They noblest counsels, boldest deeds inspire;<br>And high o'er Fortune's rage inthrone the fixed heart.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. 2. <br>Nor less prevailing is their charm<br>The vengeful bosom to disarm;<br>To melt the proud with human woe,<br>And prompt unwilling tears to flow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Can wealth a power like this afford?<br>Can Cromwell's arts, or Marlborough's sword,<br>An equal empire claim?<br>No, Hastings. Thou my words wilt own:<br>Thy breast the gifts of every Muse hath known;<br>Nor shall the giver's love disgrace thy noble name.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. 3.<br>The Muse's awful art,<br>And the blest function of the poet's tongue,<br>Ne'er shalt thou blush to honour; to assert<br>From all that scorned vice or slavish fear hath sung.<br>Nor shall the blandishment of Tuscan strings<br>Warbling at will in pleasure's myrtle bower;<br>Nor shall the servile notes to Celtic kings<br>By flattering minstrels paid in evil hour,<br>Move thee to spurn the heavenly Muse's reign.<br>A different strain,<br>And other themes<br>From her prophetic shades and hallow'd streams<br>(Thou well can'st witness) meet the purged ear:<br>Such, as when Greece to her immortal shell<br>Rejoicing listen'd, godlike sounds to hear;<br>To hear the sweet instructress tell<br>(While men and heroes throng'd around)<br>How life its noblest use may find,<br>How well for freedom be resign'd;<br>And how, by glory, virtue shall be crown'd.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II. 1. <br>Such was the Chian father's strain<br>To many a kind domestic train,<br>Whose pious hearth and genial bowl<br>Had chear'd the reverend pilgrim's soul:<br>When, every hospitable rite<br>With equal bounty to requite,<br>He struck his magic strings;<br>And pour'd spontaneous numbers forth,<br>And seiz'd their ears with tales of ancient worth,<br>And fill'd their musing hearts with vast heroic things.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II. 2.<br>Now oft, where happy spirits dwell,<br>Where yet he tunes his charming shell,<br>Oft near him, with applauding hands,<br>The genius of his country stands.<br>To listening gods he makes him known,<br>That man divine, by whom were sown<br>The seeds of Grecian fame:<br>Who first the race with freedom fir'd;<br>From whom Lycurgus Sparta's sons inspir'd;<br>From whom Platæan palms and Cyprian trophies came.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II. 3.<br>O noblest, happiest age!<br>When Aristides rul'd, and Cimon fought;<br>When all the generous fruits of Homer's page<br>Exulting Pindar saw to full perfection bought.<br>O Pindar, oft shalt thou be hail'd of me:<br>Not that Apollo fed thee from his shrine;<br>Not that thy lips drank sweetness from the bee;<br>Nor yet that, studious of thy notes divine,<br>Pan danc'd their measure with the sylvan throng:<br>But that thy song<br>Was proud to unfold<br>What thy base rulers trembled to behold;<br>Amid corrupted Thebes was proud to tell<br>The deeds of Athens and the Persian shame:<br>Hence on thy head their impious vengeance fell.<br>But thou, o faithful to thy fame,<br>The Muse's law did'st rightly know;<br>That who would animate his lays,<br>And other minds to virtue raise,<br>Must feel his own with all her spirit glow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III. 1.<br>Are there, approv'd of later times,<br>Whose verse adorn'd a tyrant's crimes?<br>Who saw majestic Rome betray'd,<br>And lent the imperial ruffian aid?<br>Alas! not one polluted bard,<br>No, not the strains that Mincius heard,<br>Or Tibur's hills reply'd,<br>Dare to the Muse's ear aspire;<br>Save that, instructed by the Grecian lyre,<br>With freedom's ancient notes their shameful task they hide.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III. 2.<br>Mark, how the dread Pantheon stands,<br>Amid the domes of modern hands:<br>Amid the toys of idle state,<br>How simply, how severely great!<br>Then turn, and, while each western clime<br>Presents her tuneful sons to Time,<br>So mark thou Milton's name;<br>And add, “Thus differs from the throng<br>'The spirit which inform'd thy awful song,<br>Which bade thy potent voice protect thy country's fame.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III. 3.<br>Yet hence barbaric zeal<br>His memory with unholy rage pursues;<br>While from these arduous cares of public weal<br>She bids each bard begone, and rest him with his Muse.<br>O fool! to think the man, whose ample mind<br>Must grasp at all that yonder stars survey;<br>Must join the noblest forms of every kind,<br>The world's most perfect image to display,<br>Can e'er his country's majesty behold,<br>Unmov'd or cold!<br>O fool! to deem<br>That he, whose thought must visit every theme,<br>Whose heart must every strong emotion know<br>Inspir'd by nature, or by fortune taught;<br>That he, if haply some presumptuous foe,<br>With false ignoble science fraught,<br>Shall spurn at freedom's faithful band;<br>That he their dear defence will shun,<br>Or hide their glories from the sun,<br>Or deal their vengeance with a woman's hand!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV. 1.<br>I care not that in Arno's plain,<br>Or on the sportive banks of Seine,<br>From public themes the Muse's quire<br>Content with polish'd ease retire.<br>Where priests the studious head command,<br>Where tyrants bow the warlike hand<br>To vile ambition's aim,<br>Say, what can public themes afford,<br>Save venal honors to an hateful lord,<br>Reserv'd for angry heaven and scorn'd of honest fame?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV. 2.<br>But here, where freedom's equal throne<br>To all her valiant sons is known;<br>Where all are conscious of her cares,<br>And each the power, that rules him, shares;<br>Here let the bard, whose dastard tongue<br>Leaves public arguments unsung,<br>Bid public praise farewell:<br>Let him to fitter climes remove,<br>Far from the hero's and the patriot's love,<br>And lull mysterious monks to slumber in their cell.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV. 3. <br>O Hastings, not to all<br>Can ruling heaven the same endowments lend:<br>Yet still doth nature to her offspring call,<br>That to one general weal their different powers they bend,<br>Unenvious. Thus alone, though strains divine<br>Inform the bosom of the Muse's son;<br>Though with new honors the patrician's line<br>Advance from age to age; yet thus alone<br>They win the suffrage of impartial fame.<br>The poet's name<br>He best shall prove,<br>Whose lays the soul with noblest passions move.<br>But thee, o progeny of heroes old,<br>Thee to severer toils thy fate requires:<br>The fate which form'd thee in a chosen mould,<br>The grateful country of thy sires,<br>Thee to sublimer paths demand;<br>Sublimer than thy sires could trace,<br>Or thy own Edward teach his race,<br>Though Gaul's proud genius sank beneath his hand.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V. 1. <br>From rich domains and subject farms,<br>They led the rustic youth to arms;<br>And kings their stern atchievements fear'd;<br>While private strife their banners rear'd.<br>But loftier scenes to thee are shown,<br>Where empire's wide-establish'd throne<br>No private master fills:<br>Where, long foretold, the People reigns:<br>Where each a vassal's humble heart disdains;<br>And judgeth what he sees; and, as he judgeth, wills.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V. 2.<br>Here be it thine to calm and guide<br>The swelling democratic tide;<br>To watch the state's uncertain frame,<br>And baffle faction's partial aim:<br>But chiefly, with determin'd zeal,<br>To quell that servile band, who kneel<br>To freedom's banish'd foes;<br>That monster, which is daily found<br>Expert and bold thy country's peace to wound;<br>Yet dreads to handle arms, nor manly counsel knows.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V. 3.<br>'Tis highest heaven's command,<br>That guilty aims should sordid paths pursue;<br>That what ensnares the heart should maim the hand,<br>And virtue's worthless foes be false to glory too.<br>But look on freedom. see, through every age,<br>What labours, perils, griefs, hath she disdain'd!<br>What arms, what regal pride, what priestly rage,<br>Have her dread offspring conquer'd or sustain'd!<br>For Albion well have conquer'd. Let the strains<br>Of happy swains,<br>Which now resound<br>Where Scarsdale's cliffs the swelling pastures bound,<br>Bear witness. there, oft let the farmer hail<br>The sacred orchard which imbowers his gate,<br>And shew to strangers passing down the vale,<br>Where Candish, Booth, and Osborne sate;<br>When bursting from their country's chain,<br>Even in the midst of deadly harms,<br>Of papal snares and lawless arms,<br>They plann'd for freedom this her noblest reign.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI. 1.<br>This reign, these laws, this public care,<br>Which Nassau gave us all to share,<br>Had ne'er adorn'd the English name,<br>Could fear have silenc'd freedom's claim.<br>But fear in vain attempts to bind<br>Those lofty efforts of the mind<br>Which social good inspires;<br>Where men, for this, assault a throne,<br>Each adds the common welfare to his own;<br>And each unconquer'd heart the strength of all acquires.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI. 2.<br>Say, was it thus, when late we view'd<br>Our fields in civil blood imbru'd?<br>When fortune crown'd the barbarous host,<br>And half the astonish'd isle was lost?<br>Did one of all that vaunting train,<br>Who dare affront a peaceful reign,<br>Durst one in arms appear?<br>Durst one in counsels pledge his life?<br>Stake his luxurious fortunes in the strife?<br>Or lend his boasted name his vagrant friends to chear?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=454965" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI. 3.<br>Yet, Hastings, these are they<br>Who challenge to themselves thy country's love;<br>The true; the constant: who alone can weigh,<br>What glory should demand, or liberty approve!<br>But let their works declare them. Thy free powers,<br>The generous powers of thy prevailing mind,<br>Not for the tasks of their confederate hours,<br>Lewd brawls and lurking slander, were design'd.<br>Be thou thy own approver. Honest praise<br>Oft nobly sways<br>Ingenuous youth:<br>But, sought from cowards and the lying mouth,<br>Praise is reproach. Eternal God alone<br>For mortals fixeth that sublime award.<br>He, from the faithful records of his throne,<br>Bids the historian and the bard<br>Dispose of honor and of scorn;<br>Discern the patriot from the slave;<br>And write the good, the wise, the brave,<br>For lessons to the multitude unborn.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Mark+Akenside">Mark Akenside</a></strong></div>