"
[1] The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we
almost feel a degree of coolness and freshness while we peruse it.
ODE XX.[1]
One day the Muses twined the hands
Of infant Love with flowery bands;
And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant for her slave.
His mother comes, with many a toy,
To ransom her beloved boy;[2]
His mother sues, but all in vain,--
He ne'er will leave his chains again.
Even should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.
"If this," he cries, "a bondage be,
Oh, who could wish for liberty?"
[1] The poet appears, in this graceful allegory, to describe the softening
influence which poetry holds over the mind, in making it peculiarly
susceptible to the impressions of beauty.
[2] In the first idyl of Moschus, Venus there proclaims the reward for her
fugitive child:--
On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show,
A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow;
But he, who can bring back the urchin in chains,
Shall receive even something more sweet for his pains.
ODE XXI.[1]
Observe when mother earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky;
And then the dewy cordial gives
To every thirsty plant that lives.
The vapors, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.
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