They would have thought, who heard the strain,
  They saw in Tempe’s vale her native maids,
  Amidst the festal-sounding shades,
  To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
  While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
  Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;
  Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,
  And he, amidst his frolic play,
  As if he would the charming air repay,
  Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

  O Music! sphere-descended maid! 
  Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom’s aid! 
  Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
  Lay’st thou thy ancient lyre aside? 
  As in that loved Athenian bower
  You learned an all-commanding power,
  Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared,
  Can well recall what then it heard. 
  Where is thy native simple heart,
  Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? 
  Arise as in that elder time,
  Warm energic, chaste, sublime! 
  Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
  Fill thy recording sister’s page: 
  ’Tis said, and I believe the tale,
  Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
  Had more of strength, diviner rage,
  Than all which charms this laggard age,
  E’en all at once together found,
  Cecilia’s mingled world of sound. 
  O bid our vain endeavours cease: 
  Revive the just designs of Greece;
  Return in all thy simple state;
  Confirm the tales her sons relate!

  ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF
  THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND

  CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY

  I

  H——­, thou return’st from Thames, whose naiads long
  Have seen thee lingering, with a fond delay,
  ’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
  Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. 
  Go, not, unmindful of that cordial youth
  Whom, long-endeared, thou leav’st by Levant’s side;
  Together let us wish him lasting truth,
  And joy untainted, with his destined bride. 
  Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
  My short-lived bliss, forget my social name;
  But think, far off, how on the Southern coast
  I met thy friendship with an equal flame! 
  Fresh to that soil thou turn’st, whose every vale
  Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand: 
  To thee thy copious subjects ne’er shall fail;
  Thou need’st but take the pencil to thy hand,
  And paint what all believe who own thy genial land.

  II

  There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
  ’Tis Fancy’s land to which thou sett’st thy feet,
  Where still, ’tis said, the fairy people meet
  Beneath each birken shade on mead or hill. 
  There each trim lass that skims the milky store
  To the swart tribes their creamy bowl allots;
  By night they sip it round the cottage door,
  While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 
  There every herd, by sad experience, knows