My lyre shall pay your bounty. Nor disdain
That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand
Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes
Not unregarded of coelestial powers,
I frame their language; and the Muses deign
To guide the pious tenour of my lay.
The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine)
In early days did to my wondering sense
Their secrets oft reveal: oft my rais'd ear
In slumber felt their music: oft at noon
Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,
In field or shady grove, they taught me words
Of power from death and envy to preserve
The good man's name. whence yet with grateful mind,
And offerings unprofan'd by ruder eye,
My vows I send, my homage, to the seats
Of rocky Cirrha, where with you they dwell:
Where you their chaste companions they admit
Through all the hallow'd scene: where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tunefull, yielding gratefullest repose
To their consorted measure: till again,
With emulation all the sounding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of the song,
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,
And sweep their lofty strings: those awful strings,
That charm the mind of Gods: that fill the courts
Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet
Of evils, with immortal rest from cares;
Assuage the terrours of the throne of Jove;
And quench the formidable thunderbolt
Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings,
While now the solemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord
Sleeps the stern eagle; by the number'd notes,
Possess'd; and satiate with the melting tone:
Sovereign of birds. The furious God of war,
His darts forgetting and the rapid wheels
That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,
Relents, and sooths his own fierce heart to ease,
Unwonted ease. The sire of Gods and men,
In that great moment of divine delight,
Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er
He loves not, o'er the peopled earth and o'er
The interminated ocean, he beholds
Curs'd with abhorrence by his doom severe,
And troubled at the sound. Ye, Naiads, ye
With ravish'd ears the melody attend
Worthy of sacred silence. But the slaves
Of Bacchus with tempestuous clamours strive
To drown the heavenly strains; of highest Jove,
Irreverent; and by mad presumption fir'd
Their own discordant raptures to advance
With hostile emulation. Down they rush
From Nysa's vine-impurpled cliff, the dames
Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,
With old Silenus, through the midnight gloom
Tossing the torch impure, and high in air
The brandish'd Thyrsus, to the Phrygian pipe's
Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd
With shrieks and frantic uproar. May the Gods
From every unpolluted ear avert
Their orgies! If within the seats of men,
Within the seats of men, the walls, the gates
Which Pallas rules, if haply there be found
Who loves to mingle with the revel-band
And hearken to their accents; who aspires
From such instructers to inform his breast
With verse; let him, fit votarist, implore
Their inspiration. He perchance the gifts
Of young Lyaeus, and the dread exploits,
May sing in aptest numbers: he the fate
Of sober Pentheus, he the Paphian rites,
And naked Mars with Cytheraea chain'd,
And strong Alcides in the spinster's robe,
May celebrate, applauded. But with you,
O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout,
Must dwell the man whoe'er to praised themes
Invokes the immortal Muse. the immortal Muse
To your calm habitations, to the cave
Corycian or the Delphic mount, will guide
His footsteps; and with your unsullied streams
His lips will bathe: whether the eternal lore
Of Themis, or the majesty of Jove,
To mortals he reveal; or teach his lyre
The unenvied guerdon of the patriot's toils,
In those unfading islands of the blest,
Where sacred bards abide. Hail, honour'd Nymphs;
Thrice hail, for you the Cyrenaïc shell,
Behold, I touch, revering. To my songs
Be present ye with favourable feet,
And all profaner audience far remove.