Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/13

 Direct his course, and point him out the road To sing in Epick strains a hero or a god.


 * youth, whose gen'rous bosom pants for praise,

Will dare with me to beat those arduous ways? O'er high Parnassus' painful steeps to go, And leave the grov'ling multitude below: Where the glad muses sing, and form the choir, Where bright Apollo strikes the silver lyre. Approach thou first, great, nor refuse To pay due honours to the sacred muse; While Gallia waits for thy auspicious reign, Till age compleats the monarch in the man; Mean timeMeantime [sic] the muse may bring some small relief, To charm thy anguish, and suspend thy grief; While guilty fortune's stern decrees detain Thee, and thy brother in the realms of Spain; Far, far transported from your native place, Your country's, father's, and your friends' embrace! Such are the terms the cruel fates impose On your great father, struggling with his woes, These