No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,

How Rome, before thy weeping face,
With heaviest found, a giant-ftatue, fell,
Push'd by a wild and artless race,

From off its wide ambitious base,

When Time his northern fons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace,

With many a rude repeated ftroke,

[broke

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments

EPODE.

2.

Yet even, where'er the leaft appear'd,

Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd ;

Still, 'midft the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her ftrength were found;
They faw, by what escap'd the storm,

How wonderous rofe her perfect form ;
How in the great, the labour'd whole,

Each mighty mafter pour'd his foul!

7

For

For funny Florence, feat of art,

Beneath her vines preferv'd a part,

Till they, whom science lov'd to name,

(O who could fear it?) quench'd her flame.

And lo, an humbler relic laid

In jealous Pifa's olive fhade!

See fmall Marino joins the theme,

Tho' leaft, not laft in thy efteem;

Strike, louder ftrike th' ennobling ftrings

To thofe, whofe merchant fons were kings;
To him, who, deck'd with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride:
Hail port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure :
Nor e'er her former pride relate,

To fad Liguria's bleeding state.

Ah no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:

(Where,

(Where, when the favour'd of thy choice,

The daring archer heard thy voice;
Forth from his eyrie rous'd in dread,

The ravening Eagle northward fled.)

Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,

*

With those to whom thy Stork is dear:

Those whom the rod of Alva bruis'd,

Whose crown a British queen refus'd!
The magic works, thou feel'ft the ftrains,
One holier name alone remains ;

The perfect spell shall then avail,

Hail Nymph, ador'd by Britain, hail!

ANTIST ROPHE.

Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works, the wizzard Time has wrought!

* The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are faid to entertain a fuperftitious fentiment, that if the whole fpecies of them fhould become extinct, they should lofe their liberties.

The Gaul, 'tis held of antique ftory,
Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand *,

No fea between, nor cliff fublime and hoary,
He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land.

To the blown Baltic then, they fay, The wild waves found another way, Where Orcas howls, his wolfifh mountains rounding; Till all the banded weft at once 'gan rife, A wide wild ftorm even Nature's felf confounding, Withering her giant fons with frange uncouth

furprise.

This pillar'd earth so firm and wide,

By winds and inward labours torn,

In thunders dread was push'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 corre fpondent difpofition of the two oppofite coafts. I don't remember that any poetical ufe 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 search the main,

Where thousand 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 fhe 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, bccafioned 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, fhe punish'd the whole island, by covering it with a mift, fo 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 a fudden wrecked upon its cliffs,

Thy