By Dr. AKENSIDE. HYMN TO THE NAIADS. O'ER yonder eastern hill the twilight throws Her dusky mantle; and the God of day, With bright Astraea seated by his side, Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs, Ye Nymphs, ye blue-ey'd progeny of Thames, Who now the mazes of this rugged heath Trace with your fleeting steps; who all night long Repeat, amid the cool and tranquil air, Your lonely murmurs, tarry: and receive My offer'd lay. To pay you homage due, I leave the gates of sleep; nor shall my lyre Too far into the splendid hours of morn Ingage your audience: my observant hand Shall close the strain ere any sultry beam Approach you. To your subterranean haunts Ye then may timely steal; to pace with care The humid sands; to loosen from the soil The bubbling sources; to direct the rills To meet in wider channels; or beneath Some grotto's dripping arch, at height of noon To slumber, shelter'd from the burning heaven. Where shall my song begin, ye Nymphs? or end? Wide is your praise and copious — First of things, First of the lonely powers, ere Time arose, Were Love and Chaos. Love, the fire of Fate; Elder than Chaos. Born of Fate was Time, Who many sons and many comely births Devour'd, relentless father: till the child Of Rhea drove him from the upper sky, And quell'd his deadly might. Then social reign'd The kindred powers, Tethys, and reverend Ops, And spotless Vesta; while supreme of sway Remain'd the cloud-compeller. From the couch Of Tethys sprang the sedgy-crowned race, Who from a thousand urns, o'er every clime, Send tribute to their parent; and from them Are ye, O Naiads: Arethusa fair, And tuneful Aganippe; that sweet name, Bandusia; that soft family which dwelt With Syrian Daphne; and the honour'd tribes Belov'd of Paeon. Listen to my strain, Daughters of Tethys: listen to your praise. You, Nymphs, the winged offspring, which of old Aurora to divine Astraeus bore, Owns; and your aid beseecheth. When the might Of Hyperion, from his noontide throne, Unbends their languid pinions, aid from you They ask: Favonius and the mild South-west From you relief implore. Your sallying streams Fresh vigour to their weary wings impart. Again they fly, disporting; from the mead Half-ripen'd and the tender blades of corn, To sweep the noxious mildew; or dispel Contagious steams, which oft the parched earth Breathes on her fainting sons. From noon to eve, Along the river and the paved brook, Ascend the cheerful breezes: hail'd of bards Who, fast by learned Cam, the Mantuan lyre Sollicit; nor unwelcome to the youth Who on the highths of Tybur, all inclin'd O'er rushing Anio, with a pious hand The reverend scene delineates, broken fanes, Or tombs, or pillar'd aqueducts, the pomp Of ancient time; and haply, while he scans The ruins, with a silent tear revolves The fame and fortune of imperious Rome. You too, O Nymphs, and your unenvious aid The rural powers confess; and still prepare For you their grateful treasures. Pan commands, Oft as the Delian king with Sirius holds The central heavens, the father of the grove Commands his Dryads over your abodes To spread their deepest umbrage. well the God Remembereth how indulgent ye supplied Your genial dews to nurse them in their prime. Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray, Pursues your steps, delighted; and the path With living verdure clothes. Around your haunts The laughing Chloris, with profusest hand, Throws wide her blooms, her odours. Still with you Pomona seeks to dwell: and o'er the lawns, And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with Thames Ye love to wander, Amalthea pours Well-pleas'd the wealth of that Ammonian horn, Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant isles Nysaean or Atlantic. Nor can'st thou, (Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mock The beverage of the sober Naiad's urn, O Bromius, O Lenaean) nor can'st thou Disown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid, With nectar feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me, Yet, blameless Nymphs, from my delighted lyre, Accept the rites your bounty well may claim; Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band. For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire, As down the verdant slope your duteous rills Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives, Delighted; and your piety applauds; And bids his copious tide roll on secure, For faithful are his daughters; and with words Auspicious gratulates the bark which, now His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings Yields to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn, When Hermes, from Olympus bent o'er earth To bear the words of Jove, on yonder hill Stoops lightly-sailing; oft intent your springs He views: and waving o'er some new-born stream His blest pacific wand, "And yet," he cries, "Yet," cries the son of Maia, "though recluse "And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs, "Flows wealth and kind society to men. "By you my function and my honour'd name "Do I possess; while o'er the Boetic vale, "Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms "By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct "The English merchant: with the buxom fleece "Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe "Sarmatian kings; or to the household Gods "Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore, "Dispense the mineral treasure which of old "Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land "Was yet unconscious of those generous arts "Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime "Transplanted to a more indulgent heaven. " Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise, O Naiads, which from tongues coelestial waits Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power: And those who, sedulous in prudent works, Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays With generous wealth and his own seat on earth, Fit judgments to pronounce, and curb the might Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns Not vainly to the hospitable arts Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs, Hath he not won the unconquerable queen Of arms to court your friendship? You she owns The fair associates who extend her sway Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things Of you she uttereth, oft as from the shore Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads To Calpe's foaming channel, or the rough Cantabrian coast; her auspices divine Imparting to the senate and the prince Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings, The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings Was ever scorn'd by Pallas: and of old Rejoic'd the virgin, from the brazen prow Of Athens o'er Aegina's gloomy surge, To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all The Persian's promis'd glory, when the realms Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime, When Lybia's torrid champain and the rocks Of cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands, To sweep the sons of liberty from earth. In vain: Minerva on the brazen prow Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice Denounc'd her terrours on their impious heads, And shook her burning Aegis. Xerxes saw: From Heracleum, on the mountain's highth Thron'd in his golden car, he knew the sign Coelestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake His faltering heart, and turn'd his face with shame. Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power; Who arm the hand of liberty for war: And give, in secret, the Britannic name To awe contending monarchs: yet benign, Yet mild of nature: to the works of peace More prone, and lenient of the many ills Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid Hygeia well can witness; she who saves, From poisonous cates and cups of pleasing bane, The wretch devoted to the entangling snares Of Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leads To Cynthia's lonely haunts. To spread the toils, To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds, She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams: And where his breast may drink the mountain-breeze, And where the fervour of the sunny vale May beat upon his brow, through devious paths Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease, Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd His eager bosom, does the queen of health Her pleasing care withold. His decent board She guards, presiding; and the frugal powers With joy sedate leads in: and while the brown Ennaean dame with Pan presents her stores; While changing still, and comely in the change, Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread The garden's banquet; you to crown his feast, To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair Hygeia calls: and from your shelving seats, And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring, To slake his veins: till soon a purer tide Flows down those loaded channels; washeth off The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds Of crude disease; and through the abodes of life Sends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads: hail, Who give, to labour, health; to stooping age, The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urns Will I invoke; and, frequent in your praise, Abash the frantic Thyrsus with my song. For not estrang'd from your benignant arts Is he, the God, to whose mysterious shrine My youth was sacred, and my votive cares Are due; the learned Paeon. Oft when all His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain; When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm Rich with the genial influence of the sun, (To rouze dark fancy from her plaintive dreams, To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win Sick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast Which pines with silent passion) he in vain Hath prov'd; to your deep mansions he descends. Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades, He entereth; where impurpled veins of ore Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine Your trickling rills insinuate. There the God From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl Wafts to his pale-ey'd suppliants; wafts the seeds Metallic and the elemental salts Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink: and soon Flies pain; flies inauspicious care: and soon The social haunt or unfrequented shade Hears Io, Io Paean; as of old, When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs, Oft as for hapless mortals I implore Your salutary springs, thro' every urn O shed selected atoms, and with all Your healing powers inform the recent wave. 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.