Thee the voice, the dance, obey, 25 Tempered to thy warbled lay; O’er Idalia’s velvet-green The rosy-crownèd Loves are seen On Cytherea’s day, With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, 30 Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating Glance their many-twinkling feet. 35 Slow-melting strains their Queen’s approach declare: Where’er she turns, the Graces homage pay: With arms sublime that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way: O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move 40 The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. Man’s feeble race what ills await, Labour and penury, the racks of pain, Disease, and sorrow’s weeping train, And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! 45 The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night, and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50 He gives to range the dreary sky; Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion’s march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam, 55 The Muse has broke the twilight gloom, To cheer the shivering native’s dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade Of Chili’s boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 60 In loose numbers wildly sweet, Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. Her track, where’er the Goddess roves, Glory pursue, and generous Shame, The unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame. 65 Woods that wave o’er Delphi’s steep, Isles that crown the Ægean deep, Fields that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander’s amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, 70 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish? Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathed around; Every shade and hallowed fountain 75 Murmured deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece’s evil hour, Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power, And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. 80 When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, O Albion, next thy sea-encircled coast.