“Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.”
"Boadicea" (1782).
Context: "Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
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William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes

“As when in harp and song adept, a bard
Unlab'ring strains the chord to a new lyre.”
XXI. 406–407 (tr. William Cowper).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

O Black and Unknown Bards, st. 1.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

Plygain y darllain deirllith,
Plu yw ei gasul i'n plith.
Pell y clywir uwch tiroedd
Ei lef o lwyn a'i loyw floedd.
Proffwyd rhiw, praff awdur hoed,
Pencerdd gloyw angerdd glyngoed.
"Y Ceiliog Bronfraith" (The Thrush), line 7; translation from Anthony Conran and J. E. Caerwyn Williams (trans.) The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967) p. 145.

“He straightway spreads his arms about the garlanded fire, and absorbs the prophetic vapours with glowing countenance.”
Ille coronatos iamdudum amplectitur ignes,
fatidicum sorbens vultu flagrante vaporem.
Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 604 (tr. J. H. Mozley)
Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book I. Preparation and Departure, Lines 512–515; of Orpheus.

(9th August 1823) Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. Stothard’s Erato
23rd August 1823) Change see The Improvisatrice (1824
30th August, 6th and 13th September 1823) The Bayadere see The Improvisatrice (1824
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Source: Selected Essays (1904), "Priest and Prophet" (1893), p. 133