IV.--2.
When friendship and when letter'd mirth
Haply partake my simple board,
Then let thy blameless hand call forth
The music of the Teian chord.
Or if invoked at softer hours,
Oh! seek with me the happy bowers
That hear Olympia's gentle tongue;
To beauty link'd with virtue's train,
To love devoid of jealous pain,
There let the Sapphic lute be strung.
IV.--3.
But when from envy and from death to claim
A hero bleeding for his native land;
When to throw incense on the vestal flame
Of Liberty my genius gives command,
Nor Theban voice nor Lesbian lyre
From thee, O Muse, do I require;
While my presaging mind,
Conscious of powers she never knew,
Astonish'd, grasps at things beyond her view,
Nor by another's fate submits to be confined.
[Footnote 1: 'The Lesbian patriot:' Alcaeus.]
[Footnote 2: 'The man of Thebes:' Pindar.]
ODE XIV.
TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES TOWNSHEND;
FROM THE COUNTRY.
1 Say, Townshend, what can London boast
To pay thee for the pleasures lost,
The health to-day resign'd,
When Spring from this her favourite seat
Bade Winter hasten his retreat,
And met the western wind.
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