WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counfel of her country's gods,
Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.
Princefs! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchlefs wrongs,
'Tis becaufe refentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.
Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride fhall kifs the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
Other Romans fhall arife,
Heedlefs of a foldier's name;
Sounds, not arms fhall win the prize,
Harmony the path to fame.
Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Regions Cæfar never knew
Thy pofterity fhall fway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.
Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celeftial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bofom glow:
Rushed to battle, fought, and died;
Dying hurled them at the foe.
Ruffians, pitilefs as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due;
Empire is on us beftowed,
Shame and ruin wait for you.
THERE was a time when Ætna's filent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire;
When, confcious of no danger from below,
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of fnow.
No thunders fhook with deep intestine found
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines
(Unfelt the fury of those burfting mines)
The peafant's hopes, and not in vain, afsured,
In peace upon her floping fides matured.
When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration labouring in her womb,
She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That fhook the circling feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,
While through the ftygian veil, that blots the day,
In dazzling ftreaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what muse, and in what powers of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devaftation in the van,
It marches o'er the proftrate works of man.
Vines, olives, herbage, forefts disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.
Revolving feasons, fruitlefs as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mafs;
Without a foil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.
Once more the fpiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the fhade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unsafe retreats,
Oh charming paradife of fhort-lived fweets!
The felf-fame gale, that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the diftant ear a fullen found:
Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below.
Ten thousand swains the wafted scene deplore,
That only future ages can reftore.
Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who ftrike the blow, then plead your own defence, Glory your aim, but juftice your pretence,
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