MERCY.

ODE ΤΟ

STROPHE.

Thou, who fit'st a smiling bride

By Valour's arm'd and aweful side,

Gentleft of sky-born forms, and best ador'd:

Who oft with fongs, divine to hear,

Win'ft from his fatal grafp the spear,

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And hid'ft in wreaths of flowers his bloodlefs fword! Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bofom bare art found,

Pleading for him the youth who finks to ground:
See Mercy, fee, with pure and loaded hands,
Before thy fhrine my country's genius ftands,
And decks thy altar ftill, though pierc'd with many a

wound!

ANTISTROPHE.

When he whom ev'n our joys provoke,

The fiend of Nature join'd his yoke,

And rufh'd in wrath to make our ifle his prey;
Thy form, from out thy fweet abode,

O'ertook him on his blasted road,

And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.
I fee recoil his fable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds,

Thy tender melting eyes they own;

O Maid, for all thy love to Britain shown,
Where Juftice bars her iron tower,

To thee we build a rofeate bower,

[throne !

Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and fhare our monarch's

ODE ΤΟ

LIBERTY.

STROPHE.

W

HO fhall awake the Spartan fife,

And call in folemn founds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in fullen hue,
At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alceus, fancy-bleft,

Shall fing the fword, in myrtles drest,

At Wisdom's fhrine a while its flame concealing, (What place fo fit to feal a deed renown'd?)

Till the her brighteft lightnings round revealing, It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound! O Goddess, in that feeling hour,

When moft its founds would court thy ears,

Let not my fhell's misguided power,

E'er draw thy fad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,
How Rome, before thy 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 sons of spoil awoke,
And all the blended work of strength and grace,

With many a rude repeated stroke,

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments

broke.

EPODE.

EPODE.

2.

Yet, ev'n wherec'er the leaft appear'd,
Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd;
Still, 'midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her ftrength were found;
They faw, by what escap'd the storm,
How wondrous rofe her perfect form;
How in the great, the labour'd whole,
Each mighty mafter pour'd his foul;
For funny Florence, feat of art,
Beneath her vines preserv'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,
Though leaft, not last in thy esteem ;
Strike, louder ftrike th' ennobling strings
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 feek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:
(Where, when the favour'd of thy choice,
The daring archer heard thy voice;

VOL. II.

S

Forth

Forth from his eyrie rouz'd in dread,
The ravening eagle northward fled.)
Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
With thofe to whom thy ftork is dear :
Those whom the rod of Alva bruis'd,
Whose crown a British queen refus'd!
The magic works, thou feel'it the strains,
One holier name alone remains;
The perfect spell fhall then avail,
Hail, Nymph, ador'd by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE.

Beyond the measure vaft of thought,
The works, the wizard Time has wrought!
The Gaul, 'tis held of antique ftory,

Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse ftrand †,
No fea between, nor cliff fublime and hoary,
He pafs'd with unwet feet through all our land.

* The Dutch, amongst whom there are very fevere penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almoft 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 should become extinct, they fhould lofe their liberties.

This tradition is mentioned by feveral of our old hiftorians. Some naturalifts too have endeavoured to fupport the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correfpondent difpofition of the two oppofite coafts. I do not remember that any poetical ufe has been hitherto made of it.

To

To the blown Baltic then, they say,

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 ev'n Nature's felf confounding, Withering her giant fons with ftrange uncouth furThis pillar'd earth fo firm and wide,

By winds and inward labours torn, In thunders dread was push'd afide,

And down the shouldering billows borne.

And fee, like gems, her laughing train,

The little ifles on every fide,

[prize.

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,

For thou haft made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode !

This

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. however was fo mifconftrued by the fea-lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, the punished the whole ifland, 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 sea, or were on a fudden wrecked upon its cliffs.