But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sunbeams trembling on the floating
tides;
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And softened sounds along the waters die;
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently
play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was
gay.
All but the sylph—with careful
thoughts oppressed,
Th’ impending woe sat heavy on his
breast.
He summons straight his denizens of air;
The lucid squadrons around the sails repair;
Soft o’er the shrouds aerial whispers
breathe,
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds
of gold;
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal
sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Loose to the wind their airy garments
flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy
dew,
Dipped in the richest tincture of the
skies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling
dyes,
While every beam new transient colours
flings,
Colours that change whene’er they
wave their wings.
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,
Superior by the head, was Ariel placed;
His purple pinions opening to the sun,
He raised his azure wand, and thus begun:
’Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your
chief give ear!
Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons,
hear!
Ye know the spheres, and various tasks
assigned
By laws eternal to th’ aerial kind.
Some in the fields of purest aether play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.
Some guide the course of wandering orbs
on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless
sky.
Some less refined, beneath the moon’s
pale light
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the
night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry
main,
Or o’er the glebe distil the kindly
rain;
Others on earth o’er human race
preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions
guide:
Of these the chief the care of nations
own,
And guard with arms divine the British
throne.
’Our humbler province is to tend
the fair,
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious
care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let th’ imprisoned essences
exhale;
To draw fresh colours from the vernal
flowers;
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop
in showers,
A brighter wash; to curl their waving
hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their
airs;
Nay, oft in dreams, invention we bestow,
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.
’This day, black omens threat the
brightest fair
That e’er deserved a watchful spirit’s
care;
Some dire disaster, or by force, or sleight;
But what, or where, the fates have wrapped
in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s