So had it been, had aught of mortal strain,
Or less than fairy felt the deadly pain.
But empyreal forms, howe'er in fight
Gash'd and difmember'd, cafily unite,
As fome frail cup of China's pureft mold,
With azure varnish'd, and bedrop'd with gold,
Tho' broke, if cur'd by some nice virgin's hands,
In its old ftrength and pristine beauty stands;
The tumults of the boiling Bohea braves,
And hold fecure the Coffee's fable waves:
So did Azuriel's arm, if fame say true,
Rejoin the vital trunk whence first it grew s
And, whilft in wonder fix'd poor Albion stood,
Plung'd the curs'd fabre in his heart's warm blood.
The golden broidery tender Milkah wove,
The breast to Kenna facred and to love,
Lie rent and mangled: and the gaping wound
Pours out a flood of purple on the ground.
The jetty luftre fickens in his eyes :
On his cold cheeks the bloomy freshness dies
Oh Kenna, Kenna, thrice he try'd to fay,
• Kenna farewel;' and figh'd his foul
His fall the Dryads with loud fhrieks deplore, By fifter Naiads echo'd from the shore, Thence down to Neptune's fecret realms convey'd, Through grots, and glooms, and many a coral fhade, The fea's great fire, with looks denouncing war, The trident shakes, and mounts the pearly carr:
With one stern frown the wide-spread deep deforms,
And works the madding ocean into ftorms.
O'er foaming mountains, and through burfting tides,
Now high, now low, the bounding chariot rides,
'Till through the Thames in a loud whirlwind's roar
It fhoots, and lands him on the deftin'd fhore.
Now fix'd on earth his tow'ring ftature ftood,
Hung o'er the mountains, and o'erlook'd the wood.
To Brumpton's grove one ample ftride he took,
(The valleys trembled, and the forefts fhook)
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' embattel'd dwarfs with rage and scorn he past, And on their town his eye vindictive cast. Its deep foundations his ftrong trident cleaves, And high in air th' up-rooted empire heaves; On his broad engine the vaft 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 Crufh'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 pleasing region, not unblest,
This dale poffefs'd they; and had ftill poffefs'd,
Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rafh to diffolve the contract feal'd above,
The folemn vows and facred bonds of love.
Now, where his elves fo brightly danc'd the round,
No violet breathes, nor daify paints the ground,
His towers and people fill one common grave,
A shapeless ruin, and a barren cave.
Beneath huge hills of fmoaking piles he lay
Stun'd and confounded a whole fummer's day.
At length awak'd (for what can long restrain
Unbody'd spirits!) but awak'd in pain :
And as he saw the defolated wood,
And the dark den where once his empire flood,
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.
Thro' bush, thro' brake, thro' groves and gloomy dales, Thro' dank and dry, o'er ftreams and flowery vales, Direct they fled; but often look'd behind, And ftop'd and started at each rufsling wind. Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands Difperfe and wander into different lands; Part did beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie, In filent glooms impervious to the sky;
Part on fair Avon's margin feek repose,
Whofe ftream o'er Britain's midmost region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,
And feas and oceans are but known by fame:
Some to dark woods and fecret shades retreat,
And some on mountains chufe their airy feat.
There haply by the ruddy damfel feen,
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 breathless love,
Try'd every art (vain arts !) to change his doom,
And vow'd (vain vows!) to join him in the tomb,
What could fhe 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 flow'rets 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 mystick numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little shape by magick power
Grew less and lefs, contracted to a flower;
A flower, that firft in this fweet garden smild,
To virgins facred, and the Snow-drop styl❜d.
The new-born plant with fweet regret the 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 shade.
Thus won from death each spring the fees him grow,
And glories in the vegetable fnow,
Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's plains,
Its parent's warmth and spotless name retains ;
Firft leader of the flowery race afpires,
And foremost catches the fun's genial fires,
'Midft frofts and fnows triumphant dares appear,
Mingles the seasons, and leads on the year.
Deferted now of all the pygmy race,
Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place.
In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age,
It lay accurs'd, the mark of Neptune's rage;
"Till great Naffau recloath'd the defart shade,
Thence facred to Britannia's monarchs made.
'Twas then the green-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna, came,
(Kenna that gave the neighb'ring 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 she sped,
And with gay prospects fill'd the craftsman's head,
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