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Where now the vanquish'd, with the victors join'd,
Beneath the regal banners stood combin❜d.

Th' embattel'd dwarfs with rage and fcorn he past, And on their town his eye vindictive caft.

Its deep foundations his strong 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 spires and rocking domes furvey'd,
That downward tumbling on the host 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 ftate.
This dale, a pleasing region, not unblest,

This dale poffefs'd they; and had still poffefs'd,
Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rafh to diffolve the contract seal'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,

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His towers and people fill one common grave,
A fhapeless 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 fpirits!) 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 Neptune feem'd to rife:

He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,
The long poffeffion of a thousand years.

Thro' bufh, thro' brake, thro' groves and gloomy dales, Thro' dank and dry, o'er streams and flowery vales,

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Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,

And stop'd and started at each russling 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 fky;

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

Some to dark woods and fecret fhades retreat,
And some on mountains chuse 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 fprings;
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 she 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 mystic numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little fhape by magic power
Grew lefs and lefs, contracted to a flower;

* Odyff. 1. 10.

E 4

A flower,

A flower, that first in this sweet garden fmil'd,
To virgins facred, and the Snow-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 spotless name retains;
First leader of the flowery race aspires,

And foremost catches the fun's genial fires,
'Midft frosts and snows 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 she saw th' ennobled garden fhine With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line.

She

She vow'd to grace the manfions 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,
Soft in his fancy drew a pleafing scheme,

And plan'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 streets in rows of
yew designs,
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 rising scenes,
He builds a city as he plants his greens.

With a fad pleasure the aërial maid

This image of her ancient realm survey'd ;

How chang'd, how fallen from its primæval pride!

Yet here each moon, the hour her lover dy'd,
Each moon his folemn obfequies fhe pays,

And leads the dance beneath pale Cynthia's rays;
Pleas'd in the shades to head her fairy train,

And grace the groves where Albion's kinsmen reign.

ΑΝ

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