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BOADICE A.

AN ODE.

I.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,

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Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

'Tis because refentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

IV.

Rome fhall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has split;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

V.

Rome, for empire far renowned, Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride fhall kifs the groundHark! the Gaul is at her gates!

VI.

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedlefs of a foldier's name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forefts of our land,

Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.

VIII.

Regions Cæfar never knew

Thy pofterity fhall fway;

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

IX.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celeftial 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 bofom glow: Rushed to battle, fought, and died ; Dying hurled them at the foe.

XI.

Ruffians, pitilefs as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us beftowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

VOL. II.

HEROISM.

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 snow.
No thunders fhock with deep inteftine found
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines
(Unfelt the fury of those burfting mines)
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, affured,
In peace upon her floping tides 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 shook the circling feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rife,
And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,
While through the flygian veil, that blots the day,
In dazzling freaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what mufe, and in what powers of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?

Mavoc 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, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mass;
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 shade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unsafe retreats,
Öh charming paradife of short-lived sweets!
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 fwains 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 justice your pretence; Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires!

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