On an EAGLE confined in a College-Court. ODE XIII. Christopher Smart Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T42626 K041581.000 Smart, Christopher, 1722-1771. Poems on several occasions: By Christopher Smart, A. M. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge. London printed for the author, by W. Strahan; and sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCLII. 1752 pp. 31-32. [16],230p.,plates; 4⁰.

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On an EAGLE confined in a College-Court . ODE XIII . I. IMperial bird , who wont to soar High o'er the rolling cloud , Where Hyperborean mountains hoar Their heads in Ether shroud ; — Thou servant of almighty JOVE , Who , free and swift as thought , could'st rove To the bleak north's extremest goal ; — Thou , who magnanimous could'st bear The sovereign thund'rer's arms in air , And shake thy native pole ! — II . Oh cruel fate ! what barbarous hand , What more than Gothic ire , At some fierce tyrant's dread command , To check thy daring fire , Has plac'd thee in this servile cell , Where Discipline and Dulness dwell , Where Genius ne'er was seen to roam ; Where ev'ry selfish soul's at rest , Nor ever quits the carnal breast , But lurks and sneaks at home ! III . Tho' dim'd thine eye , and clipt thy wing , So grov'ling ! once so great ! The grief-inspired Muse shall sing In tend'rest lays thy fate . What time by thee scholastic Pride Takes his precise , pedantic stride , Nor on thy mis'ry casts a care , The stream of love ne'er from his heart Flows out , to act fair pity's part ; But stinks , and stagnates there . IV . Yet useful still , hold to the throng — Hold the reflecting glass , — That not untutor'd at thy wrong The passenger may pass : Thou type of wit and sense confin'd , Cramp'd by the oppressors of the mind , Who study downward on the ground ; Type of the fall of Greece and Rome ; While more than mathematic gloom , Envelopes all around !