Boadicea, an Ode.

IV.

Subrubet illa pudore, et contrahit altera frontem, Me torquet mea mens conscia, psallo, tremo; Atque Cupidineâ dixit Dea cincta corona,

Heu! fallendi artem

quam didicere parum.

BOADICEA:

AN ODE.

1.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,

Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods.

II.

Sage beneath the spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief; Ev'ry burning word he spoke Full of rage, and full of grief.

Boadicea, an Ode.

III.

Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

'Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

IV.

Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

V.

Rome, for empire far renown'd,

Tramples on a thousand states;

Soon her pride shall kiss the groundHark! the Gaul is at her gates!

VI.

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize

Harmony the path to fame.

Boadicea, an Ode.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

VIII,

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway,

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

IX.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

X.

She, with all a monarch's pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow;

Rush'd to battle, fought, and died ; Dying, hurl'd them at the foe.

Peace a Source of Happiness to Mankind.

XI.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

HEROISM.

THERE was a time when Etna's silent fire Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire; When, conscious of no danger from below, She tow'r'd a cloud-capt pyramid of snow. No thunders shook with deep intestine sound 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 sloping sides matur'd.

What Muse can trace the Torrent of War.

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 seas and solid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,

And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the stygian veil that blots the day,
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But, oh! what muse, and in what pow'rs of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devastation in the van,

It marches o'er the prostrate works of man—
Vines, olives, herbage, forests, disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.
Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninform'd and idle mass;
Without a soil t' 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.

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