Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/344

330 To triumph in the bold career of song,

And roll the unwearied energy along.

Does the mean incense of promiscuous praise,

Does servile fear disgrace his regal bays?

I spurn his panegyric strings,

His partial homage tuned to kings!

Be mine, to catch his manlier chord,

That paints th' impassion'd Persian lord,

By glory fir'd, to pity su'd,

Roused to revenge, by love subdued;

And still, with transport new, the strains to trace,

That chant the Theban fair, and Tancred's deadly vase.

Had these blest bards been call'd to pay

The vows of this auspicious day,

Each had confess'd a fairer throne,

A mightier sovereign than his own!

Chaucer had made his hero-monarch yield

The martial fame of Cressy's well-fought field

To peaceful prowess, and the conquests calm,

That braid the sceptre with the patriot's palm:

His chaplets of fantastic bloom,

His colorings warm from Fiction's loom

Spenser had cast in scorn away,

And deck'd with truth alone the lay;

All real here, the Bard had seen,

The glories of his pictur'd Queen!

The tuneful Dryden had not flatter'd here,

His lyre had blameless been, his tribute all sincere.

Rude was the pile, and massy proof,

That first uprear'd its haughty roof

On Windsor's brow sublime, in warlike state

The Norman tyrant's jealous hand

The giant fabric proudly plann'd:

With recent victory elate,

On this majestic steep, he cried,

A regal fortress threatening wide,