The Gaul, 'tis held of antique ftory, No fea between, nor cliff fublime and hoary, To the blown Baltic then, they say, The wild waves found another way, Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding; Till all the banded weft at once 'gan rise, A wide wild storm even Nature's self confounding, Withering her giant fons with strange uncouth furprise. This pillar'd earth fo firm and wide, By winds and inward labours torn, In thunders dread was pufh'd afide, And down the shouldering billows born. This tradition is mentioned by feveral of our old hiftorians. Some naturalifts too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correfpondent difpofition of the two oppofite coafts. I don't re member that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it. And And fee, like gems, her laughing train, The little ifles on every fide, Mona *, once hid from those who fearch the main, Where thoufand Elfin fhapes abide, And Wight who checks the weftering tide, For thee confenting heaven has each bestow'd, A fair attendant on her fovereign pride : To thee this bleft divorce she ow'd, [abode! For thou haft made her vales thy lov'd, thy laft SECOND EPODE: Then too, 'tis faid, an hoary pile, 'Midft the green navel of our isle, *There is a tradition in the isle of Man, that a mermaid becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the fhore, and opened her paffion to him, but was received with a coldness, occafioned by his horror and furprize at her appearance. This however was fo mifconftrued by the sea-lady, that in revenge for his treatment of her, she punish'd the whole island, by covering it with a mist, so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the fea, or were on futiden wrecked upon its cliffs. Thy Thy fhrine in fome religious wood, Tho' now with hopeless toil we trace Or Roman's felf o'erturn'd the fane, Hear Hear their conforted Druids fing Their triumphs to th' immortal string. How may the poet now unfold, What never tongue or numbers told? How learn delighted, and amaz'd, What hands unknown that fabric rais'd? In Gothic pride it seems to rife! Ye forms divine, ye laureate band, Now footh her, to her blissful train Even Anger's blood-fhot eyes in fleep: O DE, |