CELESTIAL MUSE! sweet arbitress of song,
To whom the flowers of Poesy belong,-
The wild, the fanciful, the dulcet flow,
The graceful sentiment, the fervid glow,
The tuneful measure, the harmonious rhyme,
The brilliant metaphor, the thought sublime,
In sounding numbers swelling to the sphere,
Or in soft cadence falling on the ear-
Descend on burning wing, my heart inspire,
And warm my spirit with poetic fire!
Some truths--the heavenly gift at Eden's birth,
To guide the fallen Pair of all the earth ;
To light the turbid darkness of the mind,
Where Reason's self, unaided thus, is blind;
By Nature taught in all her varied bloom,
From forest, hill, or valley of perfume;
By animated life, where'er it moves
Through Libyan deserts or Italian groves,
On airy wing, above th' umbrageous woods,
Or gliding deep, beneath the limpid floods-
Teach me to know, while, in attractive verse,
I the fair theme to listening Youth rehearse.