7

To charge their foes they march, a glitt'ring band,
And in their van doth bold Azuriel ftand.

What rage
Let chiefs imagine, and let lovers guess!
Forth iffuing from his ranks, that strove in vain
To check his course, athwart the dreadful plain
He ftrides indignant: and with haughty cries
To fingle fight the fairy prince defies.

that hour did Albion's foul poffefs,

Forbear, rafh youth, th' unequal war to try;
Nor, fprung from mortals, with immortals vie.
No god ftands ready to avert thy doom,

Nor

yet thy grandfire of the waves is come.

My words are vain-no words the wretch can move,
By beauty dazzled, and bewitch'd by love:
He longs, he burns to win the glorious prize,
And fees no danger, while he fees her eyes.
Now from each hoft the eager warriors start,
And furious Albion flings his hafty dart:
'Twas feather'd from the bee's tranfparent wing,
And its shaft ended in a hornet's fting;

But, tofs'd in rage, it flew without a wound,

High o'er the foe, and guiltless pierc'd the ground.
Not fo Azuriel's: with un-erring aim

Too near the needle-pointed javelin came,

Drove through the seven-fold shield, and filken vest,
And lightly ras'd the lover's ivory breast.

Rous'd at the smart, and rifing to the blow,
With his keen fword he cleaves his fairy foe,
Sheer from the fhoulder to the waist he cleaves,
And of one arm the tott'ring trunk bereaves.

His useless steel brave Albion wields no more,
But fternly smiles, and thinks the combat o'er ;
So had it been, had aught of mortal strain,
Or less than fairy felt the deadly pain.
But empyreal forms, howe'er in fight
Gafh'd and dismember'd, easily 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 fome nice virgin's hands,
In its old strength and priftine beauty stands;
The tumults of the boiling Bohea braves,
And holds fecure the Coffee's fable waves;
So did Azuriel's arm, if fame say true,
Rejoin the vital trunk whence first it grew;
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 say,
• Kenna farewel:' and figh'd his foul away.

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 storms.
O'er foaming mountains, and through bursting 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 stood,
Hung o'er the mountains, and o'erlook'd the wood.
To Brumpton's grove one ample stride he took,
(The valleys trembled, and the forefts fhook)
The next huge step reach'd the devoted fhade,
Where choak'd in blood was wretched Albion laid:

Where

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 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 host 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 reftrain'd by Fate,
And fuch the downfal of the fairy state.
This dale, a pleafing region, not unbleft,

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 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 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 streams and flowery vales,
Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,
And stop'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,

Whose stream o'er Britain's midmoft region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,

And feas and oceans are but known by fame;

Some