For Kenna's fudden bridal bids prepare,
And to Azuriel gives the weeping fair.

If fame in arms, with ancient birth combin'd,
And faultless beauty, and a spotless mind,
To love and praise can generous fouls incline,
That love, Azuriel, and that praise were thine.
Blood, only less than royal, fill'd thy veins,
Proud was thy roof, and large thy fair domains.
Where now the skies high Holland-house invades,
And short-liv'd Warwick fadden'd all the shades,
Thy dwelling flood; nor did in him afford
A nobler owner, or a lovelier lord.

For thee a hundred fields produc'd their store,
And by thy name ten thousand vaffals swore;
So lov'd thy name, that, at their monarch's choice,
All Fairy shouted with a genʼral voice.

Oriel alone a fecret rage fupprefs'd,

That from his bofom heav'd the golden veft.
Along the banks of Thame his empire ran,
Wide was his range, and populous his clan.
When cleanly fervants, if we trust old tales,
Befides their wages had good fairy vails,
Whole heaps of filver tokens, nightly paid
The careful wife or the neat dairy-maid,

Sunk

'Where-e'er my footsteps in the dance are seen,

May toadstools rife, and mildews blast the green,

May the keen east-wind blight my fav'rite flowers, And fnakes and spotted adders haunt my bowers. ⚫ Confin'd whole ages in an hemlock fhade, There rather pine I a neglected maid; 'Or worse, exil'd from Cynthia's gentle rays, • Parch in the fun a thousand fummer-days,

⚫ Than any prince, a prince of fairy line,

In facred wedlock plight his vows with mine.'
She ended and with lips of rofy hue

Dipt five times over in ambrofial dew,

Stifled his words. When, from his covert rear'd,
The frowning brow of Oberon appear'd.

A fun-flower's trunk was near, whence (killing fight!)
The monarch iffu'd half an ell in height:

Full on the pair a furious look he cast,

Nor spoke, but gave his bugle-horn a blast,

That through the woodland echo'd far and wide,
And drew a fwarm of subjects to his fide..
A hundred chofen knights, in war renown'd,
Drive Albion banish'd from the facred ground;
And twice ten myriads guard the bright abodes,
Where the proud king, amidst his demi-gods,

For

For Kenna's fudden bridal bids prepare,

And to Azuriel gives the weeping fair.

If fame in arms, with ancient birth combin'd,
And faultless beauty, and a spotless mind,
To love and praise can generous fouls incline,
That love, Azuriel, and that praise were thine.
Blood, only less than royal, fill'd thy veins,
Proud was thy roof, and large thy fair domains.
Where now the skies high Holland-house invades,
And fhort-liv'd Warwick fadden'd all the shades,
Thy dwelling ftood; nor did in him afford
A nobler owner, or a lovelier lord.

For thee a hundred fields produc'd their store,
And by thy name ten thousand vaffals swore;
So lov'd thy name, that, at their monarch's choice,
All Fairy shouted with a genʼral voice.

Oriel alone a fecret rage fupprefs'd,

That from his bofom heav'd the golden veft.
Along the banks of Thame his empire ran,
Wide was his range, and populous his clan.
When cleanly fervants, if we truft old tales,
Befides their wages had good fairy vails,
Whole heaps of filver tokens, nightly paid
The careful wife or the neat dairy-maid,

Sunk

1

Sunk not his stores. With fimiles and powerful bribes
He gain'd the leaders of his neighbour tribes,
And ere the night the face of heav'n had chang'd,
Beneath his banners half the fairies rang'd.

Mean-while driven back to earth, a lonely way
The chearless Albion wander'd half the day,
A long, long journey, choak'd with brakes and thorns,
Ill-meafur'd by ten thousand barley-corns.

Tir'd out at length, a spreading stream he spy'd
Fed by old Thame, a daughter of the tide :

'Twas then a spreading stream, though now, its fame
Obfcur'd, it bears the creek's inglorious name,
And creeps, as through contracted bounds it strays,
A leap for boys in these degenerate days.

On the clear crystal's verdant bank he stood,
And thrice look'd backward on the fatal wood,
And thrice he groan'd, and thrice he beat his breast,
And thus in tears his kindred gods address'd.

If true, ye watery powers, my lineage came

From Neptune mingling with a mortal dame; Down to his court, with coral gardens crown'd, Through all your grottoes waft my plaintive found, And urge the god, whofe trident shakes the earth, To grace his off-spring, and affert my birth.'

He

He faid. A gentle Naiad heard his

prayer,

And, touch'd with pity for a lover's care,

Shoots to the fea, where low beneath the tides
Old Neptune in th' unfathom'd depth refides.
Rous'd at the news the fea's ftern fultan swore
Revenge, and scarce from present arms forbore;
But first the nymph his harbinger he fends,

And to her care his fav'rite boy commends.

As thro' the Thames her backward courfe fhe guides,
Driven up
his current by the refluent tides,
Along his banks the pygmy legions spread

She spies, and haughty Oriel at their head.
Soon with wrong'd Albion's name the hoft fhe fires,
And counts the ocean's god among his fires;

'The ocean's god, by whom shall be o'erthrown

(Styx heard his oath) the tyrant Oberon.

• See here beneath a toadstool's deadly gloom

'Lies Albion: Him the Fates your leader doom. • Hear and obey; 'tis Neptune's powerful call,

By him Azuriel and his king shall fall.'

She faid. They bow'd: and on their shield up-bore With fhouts their new-faluted emperor.

Even Oriel fmil'd: at least to fmile he ftrove,

And hopes of vengeance triumph'd over love.

See