Fila lyræ vocemque paro, fufpiria furgunt,
Et mifcent numeris murmura mofta meis, Dumque tuæ memoro laudes, Euphelia, formæ, Tota anima intereà pendet ab ore Chloes.
Subrubet illa pudore, et contrahit altera frontem,
Me torquet mea mens conscia, pfallo, tremo;
Atque Cupidineâ dixit Dea cincta coronâ,
Heu! fallendi artem quam didicere parum.
WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,
Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief,
Ev'ry burning word he fpoke,
Full of rage and full of grief.
Princefs! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchlefs wrongs,
'Tis because refentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
Rome fhall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish hopeless and abhorr'd,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.
Rome for empire far renown'd
Tramples on a thousand ftates,
Soon her pride fhall kifs the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates.
Other Romans fhall arife,
Heedless of a foldier's name,
Sounds, not arms, fhall win the prize,
Harmony the path to fame.
Then the progeny that springs
From the forefts of our land,
Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Ruffians, pityless as proud,
Heav'n awards the vengeance due,
Empire is on us beftow'd,
Shame and ruin wait for you.
THERE was a time when Ætna's filent fire
Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire,
When conscious of no danger from below,
She tow'r'd a cloud-capt pyramid of fuow.
No thunders fhook with deep inteftine found
The blooming groves that girded her around,
Her unctuous olives and her purple vines,
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)
The peafant's hopes, and not in vain, affur'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 stygian veil that blots the day,
In dazzling ftreaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what mufe, and in what pow'rs of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havock and devastation 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 seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninform'd and idle mafs,
Without a foil t'invite the tiller's care,
Or blade that might redeem it from defpair.
Yet time at length (what will not time atchieve?)
Cloaths it with earth, and bids the produce live,
Once more the fpiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unfafe retreats,
Oh charming paradife of fhort-liv'd fweets!
The felf-fame gale that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the distant ear a sullen 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 restore.
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