Lo! to each other nymp in turn applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,
Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side;
Happier, hopeless fair, if never
Her baffled hand with vain endeavour
Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given:
To few the god like gift assignt,
To gird their blest prophetic loins,
And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame.
The band, as fairy legends say,
Was wove on that creating day,
When he, who call'd with thought to birth
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
And drest with springs, and forests tall,
And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sat with her alone,
And plac'd her on his saphire throne,
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound!
Now sublimest triumph swelling,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she, from out the veiling cloud,
Breath'd her magic notes aloud:
And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!
The dangerous passions kept aloof,
Far from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,
Listening the deep applauding thunder:
And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,
By whose the Tarsol's eyes were made:
All the shadowy tribes of Mind,
In braided dance their murmurs join'd,
And all the bright uncounted Powers,
Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers.
Where is the Bard, whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow?
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallow'd work for him design'd?