The next huge ftep reach'd the devoted fhade, Where choak'd in blood was wretched Albion laid: Where now the vanquish'd, with the victors join'd, Beneath the regal banners ftood combin'd.

Th' embattled dwarfs with rage and scorn he past,
And on their town his eye vindictive caft.
In deep foundations his ftrong trident cleaves,
And high in air th' up-rooted empire heaves
On his broad engine the vast ruin hung,
Which on the foe with force divine he flung:
Aghaft the legions, in th' approaching shade,
Th' inverted fpires and rocking domes furvey'd,
That downward tumbling on the hoft below
Crush'd the whole nation at one dreadful blow.
Towers, arms, nymphs, warriors, are together loft,
And a whole empire falls to footh fad Albion's ghost.
Such was the period, long restrain’d by fate,

And fuch the downfal of the fairy state.
This dale, a pleafing region, not unblest,
This dale poffeft they; and had ftill poffeft;
Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rash to diffolve the contract feal'd above,
The folemn vows and facred bonds of love.
Now, where his elves fo fprightly danc'd the round,
No violet breathes, nor daify paints the ground,
His towers and people fill one common grave,
A fhapeless ruin, and a barren cave.

Beneath huge hills of smoking piles he lay
Stunn'd and confounded a whole fummer's day,

A

At length awak’d (for what can long restrain
Unbody'd spirits!) but awak'd in pain :

And as he faw the defolated wood,

And the dark den where once his empire ftood,
Grief chill'd his heart: to his half-open'd eyes
In every oak a Neptune feem'd to rife:

He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,

:

The long poffeffion of a thousand years.

Through bush, through brake, through groves and
gloomy dales,

Through dank and dry, o'er streams and flowery vales,
Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,

And stept and started at each ruffling wind.
Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands
Difperfe and wander into different lands.
Part hid beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie,
In filent glooms impervious to the sky;
Part on fair Avon's margin feek repose,
Whose stream o'er Britain's midmoft region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,
And feas and oceans are but known by fame:
Some to dark woods and fecret fhade retreat :
And fome on mountains choose their airy feat.
There haply by the ruddy damfel seen,

Or fhepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,
While from their steps a circling verdure springs;
But fly from towns, and dread the courts of kings.
Mean-while fad Kenna, loth to quit the grove,
Hung o'er the body of her breathlefs love,
Try'd every art, (vain arts!) to change his doom,
And vow`d (vain vows !) to join him in the tomb.

1

What could he do? the fates alike deny

The dead to live, or fairy forms to die.

An herb there grows (the fame old * Homer tells Ulyffes bore to rival Circe's spells)

Its root is ebon-black, but fends to light

A ftem that bends with flowrets milky white,
Moly the plant, which gods and fairies know,
But fecret kept from mortal men below.
On his pale limbs its virtuous juice she shed,
And murmur'd myftic numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little shape by magic power
Grew lefs and lefs, contracted to a flower;
A flower, that firft in this fweet garden finil'd,
To virgins facred, and the fnow-drop styl'd.

The new-born plant with fweet regret fhe view'd,
Warm'd with her fighs, and with her tears bedew'd,
Its ripen'd feeds from bank to bank convey'd,
And with her lover whiten'd half the fhade.

Thus won from death each spring fhe fees him grow,
And glories in the vegetable fnow,

Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's plains,
Its parent's warmth and spotlefs name retains,
First leader of the flowery race aspires,

And foremost catches the fun's genial fires,
Mid frofts and fnows triumphant dares appear,
Mingles the feafons, and leads on the year.

Deferted now of all the pigmy race,

Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place.
In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age,
It lay accurft, the mark of Neptune's rage,
* Ody ff. Lib. x.

Till great Naffau recloath'd the desart shade,
Thence facred to Britannia's monarchs made.

'Twas then the green-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna, came,
(Kenna that gave the neighbouring town its name.)
Proud when the faw th' ennobled garden fhine,
With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line,
She vow'd to grace the mansions once her own,
And picture out in plants the fairy town.
To far-fam'd Wife her flight unfeen the fped,
And with gay prospects fill'd the craftsman's head,
Soft in his fancy drew a pleafing scheme,
And plann'd that landskip in a morning dream.
With the fweet view the fire of gardens fir'd,
Attempts the labour by the nymph inspir'd,
The walls and ftreets in rows of yew defigns,
And forms the town in all its ancient lines;
The corner trees he lifts more high in air,
And girds the palace with a verdant square;
Nor knows, while round he views the rifing fcenes,
He builds a city as he plants his greens.

With a fad pleasure the aërial maid

This image of her ancient realm furvey'd,

How chang'd, how fall'n from its primæval pride ↓
Yet here each moon, the hour her lover dy'd,
Each moon his folemn obfequies the pays,
And leads the dance beneath pale Cynthia's rays;
Pleas'd in thefe fhades to head her fairy train,
And grace the groves where Albion's kinfmen reign.

ΤΟ

TO A LADY BE FORE MARRIAGE.

H1 form'd by nature, and refin'd by art,

With charms to win, and fenfe to fix the heart! By thousands fought, Clotilda, canst thou free Thy crowd of captives, and defcend to me? Content in fhades obfcure to waste thy life, A hidden beauty, and a country wife. O! liften while thy fummers are my theme, Ah! footh thy partner in his waking dream! In fome fmall hamlet on the lonely plain,

Where Thames, through meadows, rolls his mazy train;

Or where high Windfor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample fhade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the vifionary feat

Our limes begin to fhoot, our flowers to spring,
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to fing.
Where doft thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green?
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unfeen?
Where fons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travel'd further than ten furlongs, round;
And the tann'd peafant, and his ruddy bride,
Were born together, and together died.
Where early larks beft tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night;

'Midft gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
With fweets furrounded of ten thousand dies;
All favage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of echoes fhall my woods ascend;

And