Classic Poem

Where is the Muse that loves the good,
The plaintive strain to offer;
But to the bright benignant breast
That feels for all that suffer.

'Tis this that prompts her now to bring,
To thee, a noiseless story;
For Fame confines her brazen trump
To deeds of martial glory.

She flies on every breeze that blows,
To spread her loud narration;
Nor seas resist, nor Alps repel,
The true, or false, inflation.

To her, the Muse consigns the names
That-court Ambition's bubbles;
And sings the hamlet's humbler cares,
A peasant's joys and troubles.

Where Courda once, in days of yore,
Taught faith a cell to rear;
A cottage stands, beneath the cliff,
To Owen's feelings dear.

To every heart, how dear is home,
(If worth that heart possesses);
It still renews our earliest joys,
A parent's fond caresses.

A brother, sister's, dear embrace,
The love-increasing battle,
The little play-things, still preserved;
The first engaging prattle.

Six olive branches gather'd round,
This crowded cottage table,
Till Time declar'd, that Owen, now,
To guard the flocks was able.

The Muse records the sorrowing day
When Owen went, though willing,
To earn his bread, a little man ,
A new importance feeling.

The tears ran down his mother's cheeks,
His father saw them — sighing;
His play-mates shook his little hands,
And all the group — were crying!

The rushy cap now crown'd his pate,
The mystic crook, his sceptre;
The flocks and fields, his people, realms,
And Nature sole preceptor.

With pastoral pipe, this infant Pan,
Commenc'd his new vocation;
Completed soon his present views,
A shepherd's education.

The linnets lov'd his dulcet voice,
The larks drew near in numbers,
And thought they wak'd the morning sun,
From night's protracted slumbers.

They met at noon his brightest blaze,
They join'd their grateful voices;
Thus Nature, in the sweetest strain,
Through all her realms rejoices.

'Twas thus when Day's descending boons,
On western waters rested;
They knew their little nests were safe,
By Owen unmolested.

And if he had, the Virtues, Muse,
Even Heaven itself had hated;
The impious hand, that touch'd their hopes,
The future song frustrated.