Soul of the universe, bright Poesy! Thy spirit vivifies, and, like the blast That’s burning in the desert swiftly free, In its course all inflames where it has past. Happy the man who feels within his breast The fire celestial purely is possess’d! For that to worth, to virtue elevates, And to his view makes smile the shadowy forms Confused of joys to come, and future fates: Of cruel fortune ’gainst the gathering storms It shields him, causing him to dwell among The beings of his own creation bright: It arms him daringly with wings of light, And to the world invisible along Bears him, to wondering mortals to unseal The mysteries which the horrid depths reveal. High inspiration! O, what hours of joy, Deep and ineffable, without alloy, Hast thou benign conceded to my breast! On summer nights, with brilliant hues impress’d, ’Tis sweet to break with sounding prow the wave Of the dark surging sea, which shows behind A lengthen’d streak of light the current gave. ’Tis sweet to bound where lofty mountains wind, Or on thy steed to scour along the plain; But sweeter to my fiery soul ’tis far To feel myself whirl’d forward in the train Of thy wild torrent, and as with a star The brow deck’d proudly, hear thy oracles Divine; and to repeat them, as of old Greece listen’d mute to those from Delphic cells The favour’d priestess of Apollo told; While she with sacred horror would unfold The words prophetic, trembling to refer To the consuming god that frenzied her. There is of life a spirit that pervades The universe divine: ’tis he who shades All Nature’s loveliest scenes with majesty, And glory greater: beauty’s self ’tis he, Who robes with radiant mantle, and endows Her eye with language eloquent, while flows Soft music from her voice; ’tis he who lends To her the magic irresistible, And fatal, which her smile and look attends, Making men mad and drunk beneath her spell. If on the marble’s sleeping forms he breathe, To life they start the chisel’s touch beneath: In Phædra, Tancred, Zorayde he wrings The heart within us deep; or softly brings Love-fraught delight, as do their strains inspire Anacreon, or Tibullus, or the lyre Of our Melendez, sweetest languishings. Or wrapt in thunder snatches us away With Pindar, or Herrera, or thy lay, Illustrious Quintana! to the heights, Where virtue, and where glory too invites. By him compels us Tasso to admire Clorinda; Homer fierce Achilles’ ire; And Milton, elevated all beyond, His direful angel, arm’d of diamond.