Page:The Progress of Poetry - Madan (1783).djvu/18
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No common praise be thine, great Bard! whose strains
With conscious strength a vulgar theme disdains;
Sublime ascended thy superior soul,
Above the lightning's flash and thunder's roll,
Where other suns drink deep th' eternal ray,
And thence to other worlds transmit the day;
Where, round the pole, unnumber'd planets burn,
And languid Cynthia lights her silver urn.
O bear me to the soft elysian scenes,
Where shades, far-spreading, boast immortal greens;
Let Paradise disclose its fragrant flowers,
Its sweets unfading, and celestial bowers;
Gentle as Nature's infant beauties smil'd,
Let Zephyr breathe amid the blooming wild,
Stamp o'er the whole a never-ending spring,
Which only Heaven could give, and Milton sing!
With conscious strength a vulgar theme disdains;
Sublime ascended thy superior soul,
Above the lightning's flash and thunder's roll,
Where other suns drink deep th' eternal ray,
And thence to other worlds transmit the day;
Where, round the pole, unnumber'd planets burn,
And languid Cynthia lights her silver urn.
O bear me to the soft elysian scenes,
Where shades, far-spreading, boast immortal greens;
Let Paradise disclose its fragrant flowers,
Its sweets unfading, and celestial bowers;
Gentle as Nature's infant beauties smil'd,
Let Zephyr breathe amid the blooming wild,
Stamp o'er the whole a never-ending spring,
Which only Heaven could give, and Milton sing!
Yet