Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN IMITATION OF SPENSER. Apollo, that through heaven wide Q. 3catter"st the rays of light, and truth his beams, £ In lucent words my darkling voices dight, A And wash my earthly mind in thy clear streams, That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams. I All while the jocund Hours in thy train 2 Scatter their fancies at thy poet's feet; i And, when thou yield'st to Night thy wide domain, Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain. For brutish Pan in vain might thee assay With tinkling sounds to dash thy nervous verse, Sound wthout sense ; yet in his rude affray (For Ignorance is folly's leasing nurse, And love of Folly needs none other's curse) Midas the praise hath gained of lengthened ears, For which himself might deem him ne'er the worse To sit in council with his modern peers, And judge of tinkling rhymes and elegances terse. And them, Mercurius, that with winged bow Dost mount aloff into the yielding sky, And through heaven's halls thy airy flight dost throw, Entering with holy feet to where on high Jove weighs the counsel of futurity ; Then laden with eternal fate, dost go Down, like a fallen star, from Autumn sky, And o'er the surface of the silent deep dost fly : If thou arrivest at the sandy shore Where nought but envious hissing adders dwell, Thy golden rod thrown on the dusty floor, Can charm to harmony with potent spell ; Such is sweet Eloquence, that does dispel Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore ; And cause in sweet society to dwell Vile savage minds that lurk in lonely cell. O Mercury, assist my labouring sense That round thedrcle of the world would fly, As the wingetyeagla)scorns the towery fence Of Alpine mttSround his high aery, And searches through the corners of the sky, Sports in...