Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd.
The toils of law,-what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added, to perplex the truth,
And lengthen simple justice into trade,-
How glorious were the day that saw these broke
And every man within the reach of right!

RULE BRITANNIA

(1740)

When Britain first at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of her land,

And guardian angels sung the strain: Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves! Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee

Must in their turn to tyrants fall, While thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,

And work their woe and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine!

The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;

25 Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown'd
And manly hearts to guard the fair:-
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves!

William Collins

1721-1759.

ODE TO EVENING

(From Odes, 1746)

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales,

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired

sun,

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breath some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May, not unseemly, with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves

Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile, Or up-land fallows grey

Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While spring shall pour his showers, as oft he

wont,

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest eve!
While summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or winter yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, Shall fancy, friendship, science, rose-lipp'd health,

Thy gentlest influence own,
And hymn thy favorite name!

THE PASSIONS

AN ODE FOR MUSIC

(From the same)

When music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.
First fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.

Next anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept, with hurried hand, the strings.
With woful measures wan despair

Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delightful measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on echo still, through all the song;
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden

hair.

And longer had she sung;-but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose:

He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down;

And with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!

And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum, with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien, While each strained ball of sight seemed burst. ing from his head.