O DE TOMER C Y.

STROPHE.

O

Thou, who fit'ít a smiling bride

By Valour's arm’d and aweful side, Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd:

Who oft with songs, divine to hear,

Win’st from his fatal grasp the spear,
And hid'ft in wreaths of Aowers his bloodless sword !

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,
Oft with thy bosom bare art found,
Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground:

See Mercy, fee, with pure and loaded hands,

Before thy shrine my country's genius stands, And decks thy altar still, though pierc'd with many a wound !

ANTISTROPHE.
When he whom ev'n our joys provoke,

The fiend of Nature join'd his yoke,
^ And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey;

Thy form, from out thy sweet abode,

O’ertook him on his blasted road,
And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.

I see recoil his sable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds,
Thy tender melting eyes they own;
O Maid, for all thy love to Britain shown,

Where Justice bars her iron tower,
To thee we build a roseate bower,

[throne ! Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarchos

O DE

TO

L I B ER T Y.

STROPHE.

W

HO shall awake the Spartan fife,

And call in folemn sounds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,

Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,
At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,

Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alceus, fancy-bleft,
Shall sing the sword, in myrtles dreft,

At Wisdom's shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place fo fit to seal a deed renown'd?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound!

O Goddess, in that feeling hour,
When most its founds would court thy ears,

Let not my shell's misguided power,
E’er draw thy fad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,
How Rome, before thy face,
With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,
Push'd by a wild and artless race,
From off its wide ambitious base,
When Time his northern fons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace,

With many a rude repeated stroke, And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

EPODE

EPODE.

2.

1

Yet, ev’n wheree'er the least appear’d,
Th’admiring world thy hand rever'd;
Still, 'midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found;
They saw, by what escap'd the storm,
How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the labour'd whole,.
Each mighty master pour'd his foul;
For funny Florence, feat of art,
Beneath her vines preserv'd a part,
Till they, whom science lov'd to name,
(O, who could fear it?) quench’d her flame.
And, lo, an humbler relic laid
In jealous Pisa's olive shade!
See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem ;
Strike, louder strike th' ennobling strings
To those, whose merchant sons were kings;
To him, who, deck'd with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride :
Hail port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
Ne’er let me change this Lydian measure:
Nor e'er her former pride relate,
To fad Liguria's bleeding state.
Ah, no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:
(Where, when the favour'd of thy choice,
The daring archer heard thy voice;
VOL. II.

S

Forth

Forth from his eyrie rouz'd in dread,
The ravening eagle northward fled.)
Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
With those * to whom thy stork is dear :
Those whom the rod of Alva bruis’d,
Whose crown a

British
queen

refus'd!
The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,
One holier name alone remains;
The perfect spell thall then avail,
Hail, Nymph, ador'd by Britain, hail !

ANTIS TROPHE.
Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works, the wizard Time has wrought!

The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strandf,

No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary,
He pass’d with unwet feet through all our land.

The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are faid to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

+ This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalitts too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coafts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it.

To

To the blown Baltic then, they say,

The wild waves found another way,
Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding;

Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,
A wide wild storm ev'n Nature's self confounding,

Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth sura
This pillar'd earth so firm and wide, [prize.

By winds and inward labours torn, In thunders dread was push'd aside,

And down the shouldering billows borne.
And see, like gems, her laughing train,

The little illes on every side,
Mona *, once hid from those who search the main,

Where thousand elfin shapes abide,
And Wight who checks the westering tide,

For thee consenting heaven has each bestow'd,
A fair attendant on her sovereign pride :

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd, For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode!

a

* There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and opened her pasfion to him, but was received with a coldness, occafioned by his horror and surprize at her appearance. This however was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, the punished the whole island, by covering it with a mist, so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs,

S 2

SECOND