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3.

Princefs! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchlefs wrongs,

Tis becaufe refentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

4.

Rome shall perish-write that word

In the blood that she has spilt;

Perish hopeless and abhorr❜d,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

5.

Rome for empire far renown'd,

Tramples on a thousand states,

Soon her pride shall kifs the ground

Hark! the Gaul is at her gates.

.6.

Other Romans shall arife,

Heedlefs of a foldier's name,

Sounds, not arms, fhall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.

7.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forefts of our land,

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

8.

Regions Cæfar never knew,

Thy pofterity shall sway,

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

9.

Such the bards prophetic words,

Pregnant with celeftial fire,

Bending as he swept the chords

Of his fweet but awful lyre.

10.

She with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bofom glow,
Rush'd to battle, fought and died,
Dying, hurl'd them at the foe.

Ruffians,

II.

Ruffians, pittiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due,

Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

THERE was a time when Ætna's filent fire

Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire,
When confcious of no danger from below,
She towr'd a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.
No thunders shook with deep intestine found
The blooming groves that girdled her around,
Her unctuous olives and her purple vines,
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)

The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assur'd,
In peace upon her floping fides matur'd.

When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration lab'ring in her womb,

She teem'd and heav'd with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rife,

And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the ftygian veil that blots the day,
In dazzling streaks the vivid light'nings play.
But oh! what mufe, and in what pow'rs of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havock and devaftation in the van,

It marches o'er the proftrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forests disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving feasons, fruitlefs as they pass,

See it an uninform'd and idle mass,

Without a foil t'invite the tiller's care,

Or blade that might redeem it from despair.

Yet time at length (what will not time atchieve?)
Cloaths it with earth, and bids the produce live,

Once

Once more the fpiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the fhade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unfafe retreats,

Oh charming paradife of fhort liv'd fweets!

The self-fame gale that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the diftant ear a fullen found,

Again the mountain feels th' imprison'd foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below,

Ten thousand fwains the wafted fcene deplore,
That only future ages can reftore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your caufe, Who ftrike the blow, then plead your own defence,

Glory your aim, but justice your pretence ;
Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires.

Faft by the stream that bounds your just do

main,

And tells you where ye have a right to reign,