[Page 262]
An ODE Performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge July 1, 1749, At the Installation of his Grace THOMAS HOLLES Duke of NEWCASTLE CHANCELLOR of the University.
— canit errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum
Aonas in montes ut duxerit una sororum;
Utque viro Phoebi chorus assurrexerit omnis.
VIRGIL
Recitative.
[Page 263]1 HERE all thy active fires diffuse,
2 Thou genuine British Muse;
3 Hither descend from yonder orient sky,
4 Cloth'd in thy heav'n-wove robe of harmony.
Air I.
5 Come, imperial queen of song;
6 Come with all that free-born grace,
7 Which lifts thee from the servile throng,
8 Who meanly mimic thy majestic pace;
9 That glance of dignity divine,
10 Which speaks thee of celestial line;
11 Proclaims thee inmate of the sky,
12 Daughter of Jove and Liberty.
II.
Recitative.
13 The elevated soul, who feels
14 Thy aweful impulse, walks the fragrant ways
15 Of honest unpolluted praise:
16 He with impartial justice deals
17 The blooming chaplets of immortal lays:
18 He flies above ambition's low career;
19 And nobly thron'd in Truth's meridian sphere,
20 Thence, with a bold and heav'n-directed aim,
21 Full on fair Virtue's shrine he pours the rays of fame.
III.
[Page 264]Air II.
22 Goddess! thy piercing eye explores
23 The radiant range of Beauty's stores,
24 The steep ascent of pine-clad hills,
25 The silver slope of falling rills,
26 Catches each lively-colour'd grace,
27 The crimson of the wood-nymph's face,
28 The verdure of the velvet lawn,
29 The purple in the eastern dawn,
30 Or all those tints, which rang'd in vivid glow
31 Mark the bold sweep of the celestial bow.
IV.
Recitative.
32 But chief she lifts her tuneful transports high,
33 When to her intellectual eye
34 The mental beauties rise in moral dignity:
35 The sacred zeal for Freedom's cause,
36 That fires the glowing Patriot's breast;
37 The honest pride that plumes the Hero's crest,
38 When for his country's aid the steel he draws;
39 Or that, the calm, yet active heat,
40 With which mild Genius warms the Sage's heart,
41 To lift fair Science to a loftier seat,
42 Or stretch to ampler bounds the wide domain of art.
Air III.
43 These, the best blossoms of the virtuous mind,
44 She culls with taste refin'd;
45 From their ambrosial bloom
46 With bee-like skill she draws the rich perfume,
47 And blends the sweets they all convey,
48 In the soft balm of her mellifluous lay.
V.
Recitative.
[Page 265]49 Is there a clime, where all these beauties rise
50 In one collected radiance to her eyes?
51 Is there a plain, whose genial soil enhales
52 Glory's invigorating gales,
53 Her brightest beams where Emulation spreads,
54 Her kindliest dews where Science sheds,
55 Where every stream of Genius flows,
56 Where ev'ry flower of Virtue glows?
57 Thither the Muse exulting flies,
58 There she loudly cries —
Chorus I.
59 All hail, all hail,
60 Majestic Granta! hail thy aweful name,
61 Dear to the Muse, to Liberty, to Fame.
VI.
Recitative.
62 You too, illustrious Train, she greets
63 Who first in these inspiring seats
64 Caught the bright beams of that aetherial fire,
65 Which now sublimely prompts you to aspire
66 To deeds of noblest note: whether to shield
67 Your country's liberties, your country's laws;
68 Or in Religion's hallow'd cause
69 To hurl the shafts of reason, and to wield
70 Those heav'nly-temper'd arms, whose rapid force
71 Arrests base Falshood in her impious course,
72 And drives rebellious Vice indignant from the field.
VII.
[Page 266]Air IV.
73 And now she tunes her plausive song
74 To you her sage domestic throng;
75 Who here, at Learning's richest shrine,
76 Dispense to each ingenuous youth
77 The treasures of immortal Truth,
78 And open Wisdom's golden mine.
Recitative.
79 Each youth inspir'd by your persuasive art,
80 Clasps the dear form of virtue to his heart;
81 And feels in his transported soul
82 Enthusiastic raptures roll,
83 Gen'rous as those the sons of Cecrops caught
84 In hoar Lycaeum's shades from Plato's fire-clad thought.
[VIII.]
Air V.
85 O Granta! on thy happy plain
86 Still may these Attic glories reign:
87 Still mayst thou keep thy wonted state,
88 In unaffected grandeur great;
Recitative.
89 Great as this illustrious hour,
90 When He, whom GEORGE'S well-weigh'd choice
91 And Albion's general voice
92 Have lifted to the fairest heights of pow'r,
93 When He appears, and deigns to shine
94 The leader of thy learned line;
95 And bids the verdure of thy olive bough
96 'Mid all his civic chaplets twine,
97 And add fresh glories to his honour'd brow.
IX.
Air VI.
98 Haste then, and amply o'er his head
99 The graceful foliage spread;
100 Mean while the Muse shall snatch the trump of Fame,
101 And lift her swelling accents high,
102 To tell the world that PELHAM'S name
103 Is dear to Learning as to Liberty.
Full Chorus.
104 The Muse shall snatch the trump of Fame,
105 And lift her swelling accents high,
106 To tell the world that PELHAM'S name
107 Is dear to Learning as to Liberty.
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About this text
Title (in Source Edition): An ODE Performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge July 1, 1749, At the Installation of his Grace THOMAS HOLLES Duke of NEWCASTLE CHANCELLOR of the University.
Author: William Mason
Themes:
liberty; patriotism; glory of the British nation; nature
Genres:
ode; occasional poem
References:
DMI 25840
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Source edition
Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. IV. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 262-266. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.004) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)
Editorial principles
The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.
Other works by William Mason
- ELEGY TO A YOUNG NOBLEMAN LEAVING THE UNIVERSITY. MDCCLIII. ()
- AN ELEGY, On the DEATH of a LADY. Written in 1760. ()
- IL BELLICOSO. MDCCXLIV. ()
- IL PACIFICO. WRITTEN ON THE CONCLUSION OF THE PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, MDCCXLVIII. ()
- ISIS. AN ELEGY. MDCCXLVIII. (); ISIS. An ELEGY. WRITTEN BY MR. MASON OF CAMBRIDGE, 1748. ()
- MUSAEUS: A MONODY TO THE MEMORY of Mr. POPE. In Imitation of MILTON'S Lycidas. ()
- ODE to a WATER NYMPH. ()
- ODE to an AEOLUS's Harp. Sent to Miss SHEPHEARD. ()
- ODE. On MELANCHOLY. ()
- ODE. To INDEPENDENCY. ()
- ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE. ()