"The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode"

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	T	E	T/E		"The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode"
					ϕωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς
					δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων χατίζει.
					Pindar, Olymp[ian Odes]. II. [85]
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					When the Author first published this and the following
					Ode, he was advised, even by his Friends, to subjoin some
					few explanatory Notes; but had too much respect for the
					understanding of his Readers to take that liberty.
					I. 1.
	T	E	T/E	1	Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
	T	E	T/E	2	And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
		E		3	From Helicon's harmonious springs
		E		4	A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
		E		5	The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
		E		6	Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
		E		7	Now the rich stream of music winds along,
		E		8	Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
		E		9	Through verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign:
	T	E	T/E	10	Now rowling down the steep amain,
	T	E	T/E	11	Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:
	T	E	T/E	12	The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.
					I. 2.
		E		13	Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,
		E		14	Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
		E		15	Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
		E		16	And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
		E		17	On Thracia's hills the Lord of War,
		E		18	Has curbed the fury of his car,
		E		19	And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command.
		E		20	Perching on the sceptred hand
		E		21	Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king
		E		22	With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
	T	E	T/E	23	Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie
		E		24	The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.
					I. 3.
		E		25	Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
		E		26	Tempered to thy warbled lay.
		E		27	O'er Idalia's velvet-green
		E		28	The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
		E		29	On Cytherea's day
	T	E	T/E	30	With antic Sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,
		E		31	Frisking light in frolic measures;
		E		32	Now pursuing, now retreating,
		E		33	Now in circling troops they meet:
	T	E	T/E	34	To brisk notes in cadence beating
		E		35	Glance their many-twinkling feet.
	T	E	T/E	36	Slow melting strains their queen's approach declare:
		E		37	Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.
		E		38	With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
		E		39	In gliding state she wins her easy way:
		E		40	O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
		E		41	The bloom of young desire and purple light of love.
					II. 1.
	T	E	T/E	42	Man's feeble race what ills await,
		E		43	Labour, and penury, the racks of pain,
		E		44	Disease, and sorrow's weeping train,
	T	E	T/E	45	And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!
		E		46	The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
		E		47	And justify the laws of Jove.
				48	Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
		E		49	Night, and all her sickly dews,
		E		50	Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
		E		51	He gives to range the dreary sky:
	T	E	T/E	52	Till down the eastern cliffs afar
	T	E	T/E	53	Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.
					II. 2.
		E		54	In climes beyond the solar road,
		E		55	Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
		E		56	The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom
	T	E	T/E	57	To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
		E		58	And oft, beneath the odorous shade
		E		59	Of Chile's boundless forests laid,
		E		60	She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat
		E		61	In loose numbers wildly sweet
		E		62	Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
		E		63	Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
		E		64	Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
		E		65	The unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.
					II. 3.
		E		66	Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
		E		67	Isles that crown the Aegean deep,
		E		68	Fields that cool Ilissus laves,
	T	E	T/E	69	Or where Maeander's amber waves
	T	E	T/E	70	In lingering lab'rinths creep,
	T	E	T/E	71	How do your tuneful echoes languish,
		E		72	Mute, but to the voice of anguish?
		E		73	Where each old poetic mountain
		E		74	Inspiration breathed around:
		E		75	Every shade and hallowed fountain
	T	E	T/E	76	Murmured deep a solemn sound:
		E		77	Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour
		E		78	Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
		E		79	Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power,
		E		80	And coward Vice that revels in her chains.
		E		81	When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
		E		82	They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.
					III. 1.
		E		83	Far from the sun and summer-gale,
		E		84	In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
		E		85	What time, where lucid Avon strayed,
		E		86	To him the mighty Mother did unveil
		E		87	Her awful face: the dauntless child
		E		88	Stretched forth his little arms and smiled.
	T	E	T/E	89	"This pencil take," (she said) "whose colours clear
	T	E	T/E	90	Richly paint the vernal year:
	T	E	T/E	91	Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
	T	E	T/E	92	This can unlock the gates of joy;
	T	E	T/E	93	Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
	T	E	T/E	94	Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."
					III. 2.
		E		95	Nor second he, that rode sublime
		E		96	Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
		E		97	The secrets of the abyss to spy.
		E		98	He passed the flaming bounds of place and time:
		E		99	The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
		E		100	Where angels tremble while they gaze,
		E		101	He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
		E		102	Closed his eyes in endless night.
		E		103	Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
		E		104	Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
		E		105	Two coursers of ethereal race,
		E		106	With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.
					III. 3.
		E		107	Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
	T	E	T/E	108	Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er
		E		109	Scatters from her pictured urn
		E		110	Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
		E		111	But ah! 'tis heard no more—
		E		112	Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
		E		113	Wakes thee now? Though he inherit
		E		114	Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
		E		115	That the Theban eagle bear
		E		116	Sailing with supreme dominion
		E		117	Through the azure deep of air:
	T	E	T/E	118	Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
	T	E	T/E	119	Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray
	T	E	T/E	120	With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun:
	T	E	T/E	121	Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
	T	E	T/E	122	Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
	T	E	T/E	123	Beneath the Good how far— but far above the Great.

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• [BrJ_1903] The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. Reprinted edition. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1903 [1st edition 1891].
• [CrJ_1948] Gray: Poetry and Prose. With essays by Johnson, Goldsmith and others. With an Introduction and Notes by J. Crofts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1948 [1st ed. 1926].
• [EpW_1959] Poems of Thomas Gray. Edited by W. C. Eppstein. London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son Ltd., 1959.
• [F/G_1999] Eighteenth-Century Poetry. An Annotated Anthology. Edited by David Fairer and Christine Gerrard. Blackwell annotated anthologies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
• [GoE_1884] The Works of Thomas Gray: In Prose and Verse. Ed. by Edmund Gosse, in four vols. London: MacMillan and Co., 1884, vol. i.
• [HeJ_1981] Thomas Gray: Selected Poems. Ed. by John Heath-Stubbs. Manchester: Carcanet New Press Ltd., 1981.
• [LoR_1969] The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, Oliver Goldsmith. Edited by Roger Lonsdale. Longman Annotated English Poets Series. London and Harlow: Longmans, 1969.
• [P/W_1950] The Poems of Gray and Collins. Edited by Austin Lane Poole. Revised by Leonard Whibley. Third edition. Oxford editions of standard authors series. London: Oxford UP, 1937, reprinted 1950 [1st ed. 1919].
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• [ReJ_1973] The Complete English Poems of Thomas Gray. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by James Reeves. The Poetry Bookshelf series. London: Heinemann; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1973.
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• [ToD_1922] Gray's English Poems, Original and Translated from the Norse and Welsh. Edited by Duncan C. Tovey. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1922 [1st ed. 1898].