Classic Poem

Hail Bard triumphant! Whose poetic fire
Apollo and the Sacred Nine inspire.
Thou Light! Who for Hibernia's glory rose
To make cramp Persius speak in Irish prose.
The sense of whose dark numbers to restore
Was often tried, but never gained before.
Here Stapleton exerts his art in vain;
Here Dryden sunk, nor could the load sustain.
This was the work reserved for THEE, to bring
A Latian bard the Irish cry to sing.

Your first attempt turned Lilly's rules to rhyme.
Now Persius speaks through thee in prose sublime.
O wondrous genius! who can thus transpose,
Turn Lilly's prose to verse, and Persius' verse to prose.

Thou Dunster of the age, the puzzling text
Can now no more by critics be perplexed.
Beneath, the swelling notes in order stand,
And with the comment chime, at thy command.
The upper planets thus their powers dispense,
And govern mortals by their influence.
Thy early notes in music now appear
In strains exalted in a nobler sphere.
The prattling parrot now his Greek forsakes,
And in a more familiar language speaks.
Now the " Grim Horns " in rattling numbers roar,
And sound a sense they never knew before.
The proud calf's head a horrid aspect lies,
And when it's ravished from his body dies.

Thou truly did'st on Mount Parnassus dream
And glut the purest Heliconian stream.
May ivy leaves around thy temples spread
In shape like tongues, and lick thy sacred head.
The crooked Horns shall serve to sound thy fame,
And Echo shall reiterate thy name.