Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE, by THOMAS WARTON THE ELDER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: To tinkling brooks, to twilight shades
Last Line: "virtue alone is bliss compleat."
Subject(s): Nature; Pleasure; Solitude; Virtue; Loneliness


I.
TO tinkling Brooks, to twilight Shades,
To desert Prospects, rough and rude,
With youthful Rapture first I ran,
Enamour'd of sweet Solitude.

II.
On Beauty next I wond'ring gaz'd,
Too soon my supple Heart was caught;
An Eye, a Breast, a Lip, a Shape,
Was all I talk'd of, all I thought.

III.
Next, by the smiling Muses led,
On Pindus laurell'd Top I dream,
Talk with old Bards, and listening hear
The Warbles of th' inchanting Stream.

IV.
Then, Harmony and Picture came
Twin-nymphs my Sense to entertain,
By Turns my Eye, my Ear was caught,
With Raphael's Stroke and Handel's Strain.

V.
At last, such various Pleasures prov'd,
All cloying, vain, unmanly found,
Sweet for a Time as Morning-Dew,
Yet Parents of some painful Wound;

VI.
Humbly I ask'd great Wisdom's Aid
To true Delight to lead my Feet;
When thus the Goddess whispering said,
"Virtue alone is Bliss compleat."





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