Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid, What time, where lucid Avon strayed, To him the mighty Mother did unveil Her awful face. The dauntless Child Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. This pencil take (she said) whose colors clear Richly paint the vernal year; Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy, Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears. III^{2} Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of th' Abyss to spy, He pass'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time; The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where Angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Clos'd his eyes in endless night. Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. III^{3} Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er Scatters from her pictured urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. But ah! 'tis heard no more-- Oh! Lyre divine, what daring spirit Wakes thee now? tho' he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban Eagle bear Sailing with supreme dominion Thro' the azure deep of air; Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun; Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the good how far--but far above the great. (GRAY: _The Progress of Poesy._ 1757.) Gray's _Progress of Poesy_ is probably to be regarded as the chief of all English odes of the regular Pindaric form. Mr. Lowell said, indeed, that it "overflies all other English lyrics like an eagle." _The Bard_ is in precisely the same form, and shows the same skill in the wielding of the intricately varying melodies of the lines of different length. B.--IRREGULAR (COWLEYAN)