With hecatombs of bulls, whofe reeking blood,
Great king, they fhed to thee their guardian God.
Iö! Carnean Phoebus! awful power!
Whom fair Cyrene's fuppliant fons adore !
To deck thy hallow'd temple, fee! we bring
The choiceft flowers, and rifle all the spring :
The most diftinguish'd odours nature yields,
When balmy Zephyr breathes along the fields;
Soon as the fad inverted year retreats,
To thee the crocus dedicates his fweets.
From thy bright altars hallow'd flames afpire;
They fhine inceffant from the facred fire.
What joy, what tranfport, fwells Apollo's breaft,
When at his great Carnean annual feast,
Clad in their arms our Libyan tribes advance,
Mixt with our fwarthy dames, and lead the dance.
Nor yet the Greeks had reach'd Cyrene's floods ;
But rov'd through wild Azilis' gloomy woods;
Whom to his nymph Apollo deign'd to fhow,
High as he stood on tall Myrtufa's brow;
Where the fierce lion by her hands was flain,
Who in his fatal rage laid waste the plain.
Still to Cyrene are his gifts convey'd,
In dear remembrance of the ravish'd maid;
Nor were her fons ungrateful, who bestow'd
Their choiceft-honours on their guardian God.
Iö! with holy raptures fing around;
We owe to Delphos the triumphant found.
When thy victorious hands vouchfaf'd to show
The wonders of thy fhafts and golden bow;
When Python from his den was seen to rise,
Dire, fierce, tremendcus, of enormous fize;
By thee with many a fatal arrow flain,
The monster funk extended on the plain;
Shaft after fhaft in fwift fuccceffion flew;
As fwift the people's fhouts and prayers pursue.
lö, Apollo, launch thy flying dart;
Send it, oh! fend it to the monster's heart.
When thy fair mother bore thee, fhe defign'd
Her mighty for, a bleffing to mankind.
Envy, that other plague and fiend, drew near;
And gently whisper'd in Apollo's ear :
No Poet I regard but him whose lays
Are fwelling, loud, and boundless as the seas;
Apollo fpurn'd the fury, and reply'd,
The vaft Euphrates rolls a mighty tide;
With rumbling torrents the rough river roars ;
But black with mud, difcolour'd from his fhores,
Prone down Affyria's lands his course he keeps,
And with polluted waters ftains the deeps.
But the Meliffan nymphs to Ceres bring
The pureft product of the limpid fpring;
Small is the facred stream, but never stain'd
With mud, or foul ablutions from the land.
Hail, glorious king! beneath thy matchless power
May malice fink, and envy be no more!
To SIR JAMES THORNHILL,
On his excellent Painting the RAPE of HELEN, at the Seat of General ERLE in Dorsetshire.
Written in the Year 1718.
COULD I with thee, O Thornhill, bear a part,
And join the Poet's with the Painter's art,
(Though both share mutually each common name,
Their thoughts, their genius and defign the fame!)
The Mufe, with features neither weak nor faint,
Should draw her fifter-art in fpeaking paint.
But while admiring thine and nature's ftrife,
I fee each touch juft ftarting into life,
From fide to fide with various raptures toft,
Amid the vifionary fcenes I'm loft.
Methinks as thrown upon fome fairy land,
Amaz'd we know not how, nor where we stand;
While tripping phantoms to the fight advance,
And gay ideas lead the mazy dance:
While wondering we behold in every part
The beauteous fcenes of thy creating art.
By fuch degrees thy colours rife and fall,
And breathing flufh the animated wall;
That the bright objects which our eyes survey,
Ravish the mind, and steal the foul away;
Our footsteps by fome fecret power are croft,
And in the painter all the bard is loft.
Thus in a magic ring we stand confin'd
While fubtle spells the fatal circle bind;
In vain we strive and labour to depart,
Fix'd by the charms of that mysterious art;
In vain the paths and avenues we trace,
While spirits guard and fortify the place.
How could my stretch'd imagination swell,
And on each regular proportion dwell!
While thy fwift art unravels nature's maze,
And imitates her works, and treads her ways,
Nature with wonder fees herself out-done,
And claims thy fair creation for her own;
Thy figures in fuch lively ftrokes excel,
They give those paffions which they seem to feel.
Each various feature fome ftrong impulfe bears,
Wraps us in joy, or melts us all to tears.
Each piece with fuch tranfcendent art is wrought,
That we could almost fay thy pictures thought;
When we behold thee conquer in the strife,
And strike the kindling figures into life,
Which does from thy creating pencil pass,
Warm the dull matter, and inspire the mass;
As fam'd Prometheus' wand convey'd the ray
Of heavenly fire to animate his clay.
How the just strokes in harmony unite!
How shades and darkness recommend the light!
No lineaments unequally furprize;
The beauties regularly fall and rife.
Loft in each other we in vain pursue
The fleeting lines that cheat our wearied view.
Nor know we how their fubtle courfes run,
Nor where this ended, nor where that begun.
VOL. LII.
Nor where the fhades their utmost bounds display,
Or the light fades infenfibly away;
But all harmoniously confus'd we see,
While all the fweet varieties agree.
Thus when the organ's folemn airs afpire,
The blended mufic wings our thoughts with fire;
Here warbling notes in whispering breezes figh,
But in their birth the tender accents die ;
While thence the bolder notes exulting come,
Swell as they fly, and bound along the dome.
With transport fir'd, each lost in each we hear,
And all the foul is center'd in the ear.
See first the fenate of the Gods above,
Frequent and full amid the courts of Jove:
Behold the radiant confiftory fhine,
With features, airs, and lineaments divine.
Hermes difpatch'd from the bright council flies,
And cleaves with all his wings the liquid fkies.
In many a whirl and rapid circle driven
So fwift, he seems at once in earth and heaven.
Oh! with what energy! what noble force
Of strongest colours you defcribe his course?
Till the fwift God the Phrygian fhepherd found
Compos'd for fleep, and stretch'd along the ground.
He brings the blooming gold, the fatal prize,
The bright reward of Cytherea's eyes.
The confcious earth the awful fignal takes,
Without a wind the quivering foreft shakes;
Tall Ida bows; th' unwieldy mountains nod;
And all confefs the prefence of the God.
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