Well hello again everyone, hope all is and are well. As a stash of
belated myrrh substitute, this from one of Thomas Warton's ODES FOR THE
NEW YEAR (1786 but who's counting), k
Hence then, each vain complaint, away,
Each captious doubt, and cautious fear!
Nor blast the new-born year,
That anxious waits the spring's slow-shooting ray:
Nor deem that Albion's honours cease to bloom.
With candid glance, th' impartial Muse,
Invok'd on this auspicious morn,
The present scans, the distant scene pursues,
And breaks Opinion's speculative gloom:
Interpreter of ages yet unborn,
Full right she spells the characters of Fate,
That Albion still shall keep her wonted state!
Still in eternal story shine,
Of Victory the sea-beat shrine;
The source of every splendid art,
Of old, of future worlds the universal mart.
(and for Steven, from Cowper (a little tweaked here and there):
Whence is it, that amazed I hear
From yonder wither'd spray,
This foremost morn of all the year,
The melody of May?
And why, since thousands would be proud
Of such a favour shown,
Am I selected from the crowd,
To blush for it alone?
Sing'st thou, sweet Philomel, to me,
For that I also long
Have practised in the groves like thee,
Though not like thee in song?
Or sing'st thou rather under force
Of some directing state,
Commission'd to presage a course
Of happier types of prate?
Thrice welcome then! for many a long
And joyless year have I,
As thou to day, tossed out my song
Beneath a wintry sky.
But Thee no wintry skies can chill,
Whose verse so trim and light
Has learn'd from summer all its ill
And from the gnat its bite.
etc.)
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