Soda

'Soda'

Fies nobilium Tu quoque fontium.—Horat. Od. jiiii. L. 3.
Fontium Qui celat origines.—Horat. Od. xiv. L. 4.

O Fons Salutis! Vita! Fides mea!
Tumultuosi qui mala pectoris
   Compescis, et morbi furores
      Attenuas, saliente lympha;

Musis sodali sub Camerario*
Praestes novellam Castaliam mihi;
   Salvumque dilectis amicis
      Restitues, animosque reddes:

Sparsim remotas condis origines
Arcana rerum subter, et abditus
   Nascentis ad terrae recessus,
      Primigenique elementa mundi:

Unde ausa in auras Te trahere, et leves
Miscere docta particulas manu
   Cohors Medentum, ut rivus orbi
      Mirifica fluat auctus arte.

Agnosce Patris munera! Quem Deum
Agnoscit, omni parte operis Sui,
   Ad Solis occasus et ortus,
      Terra, Mare, aethereumque Ceslum.

22nd August, 1842.

Fountain of health! and hope! and faith! and life!
That quell'st my tortured bosom's restless strife;
And, to relieve my agonising dreams,
Pour'st forth thy crystal, cool, bright, salient streams.
Under the hand of classic Chambers placed,
A new Castalia freshens to my taste:
Inspires new life, and spirit, and again,
Leads me revived to the gay haunts of men.
In nature's secrets hid, thy birth place lies,
Far scattered, deep, remote from human eyes,
Amid the germs that first gave nature birth,
And the primfieval elements of earth;
Whence dared to draw Thee to earth's airs, and blend
Thy lightsome texture in one glorious end
Machaon's Race; and spread thy wholesome streams
Where'er the Sun extends his living beams.
Acknowledge God's good gifts; whose bounteous hand
His works acknowledge all through main and land,
Where'er the sun sinks low, or rises high,
The Earth, the Sea, and the aethereal sky.

Richard Colley Wellesley, Primitiæ et reliquiæ (London: typis Gulielmi Nicol., 1841), [pp. 140-41].