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One man in this most awful point of time Draws on thy danger, as he caused thy crime. Wait not too long the event,

For now whole Europe comes against thee bent! His wiles and their own strength the nations know: Wise from past wrongs, on future peace intent, The people and the princes with one mind From all parts move against the general foe: One act of justice, one atoning blow, One execrable head laid low,

Even yet, O France! averts thy punishment. Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind! Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

Oh if thou lovest thine ancient fame, Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! By the bones which bleach on Jaffa's beach; By the blood which on Domingo's shore Hath clogg'd the carrion-birds with gore; By the flesh which gorged the wolves of Spain, Or stiffen'd on the snowy plain

Of frozen Moscovy;

By the bodies which lie all open to the sky, Tracking from Elbe to Rhine the Tyrant's flight; By the widow's and the orphan's cry;

By the childless parent's misery;
By the lives which he hath shed;
By the ruin he hath spread;

By the prayers which rise for curses on his head;
Redeem, O France! thine ancient fame!
Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame!
Open thine eyes!-too long hast thou been blind!
Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind?

By those horrors which the night
Witness'd when the torches' light
To the assembled murderers show'd
Where the blood of Condé flow'd;
By thy murder'd Pichegru's fame;

By murder'd Wright,--an English name;
By murder'd Palm's atrocious doom;

By murder'd Hofer's martyrdom;
Oh by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt,
The Villain's own peculiar private guilt,
Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind!
Take vengeance for thyself and for mankind!
Pluck from the Upstart's head thy sullied crown!
Down with the Tyrant, with the Murderer down!

ODE

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1814. WHEN shall the Island Queen of Ocean lay The thunderbolt aside,

And, twining olives with her laurel crown, Rest in the Bower of Peace?

Not long may this unnatural strife endure
Beyond the Atlantic deep;

Not long may men, with vain ambition drunk
And insolent in wrong,
Aftlict with their misrule the indignant land
Where Washington hath left
His awful memory

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Nobly hast thou stood up

Against the foulest Tyranny that ere

In elder or in later times,

Hath outraged humankind!

O glorious England, thou hast borne thyself
Religiously and bravely in that strife!
And happier victory hath blest thine arms
Than in the days of yore,

Thine own Plantagenets achieved,
Or Marlborough, wise in council as in field,
Or Wolfe, heroic name!

Now gird thyself for other war! Look round thee, and behold what ills Remediable and yet unremedied

Afflict man's wretched race!

Put on the panoply of faith! Bestir thyself against thine inward foes, Ignorance and Want, with all their brood Of miscries aud of crimes.

Powerful thou art : imperial Rome,
When in the Augustan age she closed
The temple of the two-faced God,
Could boast no power like thine.

Less opulent was Spain

When Mexico her sumless riches sent
To that proud monarchy;

And Hayti's ransack'd caverns gave their gold;
And from Potosi's recent veins
The unabating stream of treasure flow'd.
And blest art thou, above all nations blest,

For thou art Freedom's own beloved Isle!

The light of Science shines
Conspicuous like a beacon on thy shores:
Thy martyrs purchased at the stake
Faith uncorrupt for thine inheritance;
And by thine hearths Domestic Purity,
Safe from the infection of a tainted age,
Hath kept her sanctuaries.

Yet, O dear England! powerful as thou art,
And rich and wise and blest,
Yet would I see thee, O my Mother-land,
Mightier and wealthier, wiser, happier still!

For still doth Ignorance
Maintain large empire here,
Dark and unblest amid surrounding lights;
Even as within this favour'd spot,
Earth's wonder and her pride,

The traveller on his way
Beholds with weary eye

Bleak moorland, noxious fen, and lonely heath,
In drear extension spread.

Oh grief, that spirits of celestial seed, Whom ever-teeming Nature hath brought forth, With all the human faculties divine

Of sense and soul endued,-
Disherited of knowledge and of bliss,
The creatures of brute life,
Should grope in darkness lost!

Must this reproach endure?
Honour and praise to him
The universal friend,
The general benefactor of mankind;
He who from Coromandel's shores
His perfected discovery brought;
He by whose generous toils

This foul reproach ere long shall be effaced,
This root of evil be eradicate!
Yea, generations yet unborn
Shall owe their weal to him,

And future nations bless
The honour'd name of Bell.

Now may that blessed edifice

Of public good be rear'd
Which holy Edward trac'd,

The spotless Tudor, he whom Death
Too early summon'd to his heavenly throne!
For Brunswick's line was this great work reserved,
For Brunswick's fated line;

They who from papal darkness, and the thrall
Of that worst bondage which doth hold
The immortal spirit chain'd,

Saved us in happy hour.

Fitly for them was this great work reserved;
So, Britain, shall thine aged monarch's wish

Receive its due accomplishment,
That wish which with the good,
(Had he no other praise,)

Through all succeeding times would rank his name,
That all within his realms
Might learn the Book, which all
Who rightly learn, shall live!

From public fountains the perennial stream
Of public weal must flow.

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Queen of the Seas enlarge thyself, Send thou thy swarms abroad! For in the years to come, Though centuries or milleniums intervene, Where'er thy progeny,

Thy language and thy spirit shall be found,—
If on Ontario's shores,

Or late explored Missouri's pastures wide,
Or in that Austral world long sought,
The many-isled Pacific,-yea where waves,
Now breaking over coral reefs, affright
The venturous mariner,

When islands shall have grown, and cities risen
In cocoa groves embower'd;-
Where'er thy language lives,

By whatsoever name the land be call'd,
That land is English still.
Thrones fall, and Dynasties are chang'd;
Empires decay and sink
Beneath their own unwieldy weight;
Dominion passeth like a cloud away:
The imperishable mind

Survives all meaner things.

Train up thy children, England, in the ways Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread

Of wholesome doctrine. Send thy swarms abroad! Send forth thy humanizing arts,

Thy stirring enterprise,

Thy liberal polity, thy Gospel light!

Illume the dark idolater,

Reclaim the savage! O thou Ocean Queen,

Be these thy toils when thou hast laid
The thunderbolt aside.

He who hath blest thine arms

Will bless thee in these holy works of Peace! Father! thy kingdom come, and as in Heaven Thy will be done on Earth!

Suppressed Poems.

[The following comprise the MINOR POEMS which were expunged by the author in the last edition, with some which have subsequently appeared in the Annuals, and other miscellaneous collections; and also a few which have never before been published.]

TO THE EXILED PATRIOTS

MUIR AND PALMER.

MARTYRS of Freedom! ye who firmly good,

Stept forth the champions in her glorious cause; Ye, who against Corruption nobly stood

For Justice, Liberty, and equal laws ;

Ye, who have urged the cause of man so well,
Firm when Corruption's torrent swept along;
Ye, who so firmly stood, so nobly fell,

Accept one honest Briton's grateful song.

Take from one honest heart the meed of praise; Let Justice strike her high-toned harp for you; Take from the minstrel's haud the garland bays Who feels your energy and sorrows too.

But be it yours to triumph in disgrace,

Above the storms of Fate be yours to tower
Unchanged in Virtue or by Time or Place,

Unscared is Justice by the throne of Power.
No, by the tyrant's heart let fear be known,
Let the Judge tremble who perverts his trust,
Let proud Oppression totter on his throne;

Fear is a stranger to the good and just.

And is there aught amid the tyrant's state,

Or aught in mighty Nature's ample reign,

So excellently good, so grandly great,

As Freedom struggling with Oppression's chain? Swells not the soul with ardour at the view?

fall.

Bounds not the breast at Freedom's sacred call?
Ye, noble Martyrs, then she feels for you,
Glows in your cause, and crimsons at your
And shall Oppression vainly think by Fear
To quench the fearless energy of Mind,
And glorying in your fall, exult it here,
As though no free-born soul was left behind?

Thinks the proud tyrant, by the pliant law,
The hireling Jury and the Judge unjust,
To strike the soul of Liberty with awe,
And scare the friends of Freedom from their trust?

As easy might the Despot's empty pride

The onward course of rushing Ocean stay:

As easy might his jealous caution hide

From mortal eyes the Orb of general day.

For like that general Orb's eternal flame

Glows the mild force of Virtue's constant light;
Though clouded by Misfortune, still the same,
For ever constant and for ever bright.

Not till eternal Chaos shall that light

Before Oppression's fury fade away;
Not till the Sun himself be quenched in night,
Not till the frame of Nature shall decay.

Go then-secure in steady Virtue-go,

Nor heed the peril of the stormy seas;
Nor heed the felon's name-the felon's woe,
Contempt and pain and sorrow and disease.

Though cankering cares corrode the sinking frame,
Though Sickness rankle in the sallow breast,
Though Death himself should quench the vital flame,
Think but for what ye suffer, and be blest.

So shall your great examples fire each soul,

So in each free-born breast for ever dwell, Till MAN shall rise above the unjust control, Stand where ye stood, and triumph where ye fell. Ages unborn shall glory in your shame, And curse the ignoble spirit of the time, And teach their lisping infants to exclaimHe who allows Oppression, shares the crime.

The sixth day of the first decade of the fourth month of the third 1 year of the French Republic, OxE AND INDIVISIBLE,

THE KNELL.

IN days of yore, when Superstition's sway

Bound blinded Europe in her sacred spell, The wizard priest enjoined the parting knell, To fright the hovering Devil from his prey. If some poor rustic died who could not pay,

Still slept the priest and silent hung the bell. Then if a yeoman died, his children paid

One bell, to save his parting soul from hell; And if a Bishop Death's dread call obeyed,

Through all the diocese was heard the toll, For much his pious brethren were afraid

Lest Satan should receive the good man's soul. But when Death's levelling hand laid low the King,

Since Kings in both worlds very well are known, Through all his kingdoms every bell must ring, For Satan comes with legions for his own.

MUSINGS

ON THE WIG OF A SCARE-CROW.

ALAS for this world's changes and the lot

Of sublunary things! Yon Wig that there Moves with each motion of the inconstant air, Invites my pensive mind to serious thought. Was it for this its curious cawl was wrought,

Close as the tender tendrils of the vine, With clustered curls? Perhaps the artist's care Its borrowed beauties for some lady fair

Arranged with nicest art and fingers fine; Or for the forehead framed of some Divine Its graceful gravity of grizzled grey;

Or whether on some stern schoolmaster's brow Sate its white terrors, who shall answer now? On yonder rag-robed pole for many a day

Have those dishonour'd locks endur'd the rains, And winds, and summer sun, and winter snow, Scaring with vain alarms the robber crow,

Till of its former form no trace remains,
None of its ancient honours! I survey
Its alter'd state with moralizing eye,
And journey sorrowing on my lonely way,
And muse on Fortune's mutability.

THE IVY.

I STOOD beneath the castle wall,
And mark'd the ivy bower
That, fragrant in its autumn bloom,

Wreathed round the mouldering tower.

The plant insinuates its roots

To rend the ruined wall,

And yet with close and treacherous arms
Suspends awhile its fall.

I mus'd upon its ancient strength,
Its hastening dissolution,
And thought upon the ivy friends
Who prop our Constitution.

TO THE RAINBOW.
LOVELIEST of the meteor-train,
Girdle of the summer rain,
Finger of the dews of air,
Glowing vision fleet as fair,
While the evening shower retires
Kindle thy unhurting fires,
And among the meadows near
Thy refulgent pillar rear:
Or amid the dark-blue cloud
High thine orbed glories shroud,
Or the moisten'd hills between
Bent in mighty arch be seen,
Through whose sparkling portals wide
Fiends of storm and darkness ride.

Like Cheerfulness, thou art wont to gaze
Always on the brightest blaze;
Canst from setting suns deduce
Varied gleams and sprightly hues ;
And on louring gloom imprint
Smiling streaks of gayest tint.

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TO MR UNDERWOOD, ON HIS SETTING OUT FOR A

GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION IN CORNWALL, JULY 1795.

SEARCHER of Wisdom! in the earth's dark womb

Thou those drear caves shalt visit, where the day
Has never glimmer'd through the eternal gloom :
Go there, and journeying in thy distant way,
Sometimes remember me. I too would share
Thy lot, and haply might beguile the road

With converse, tedious else; but me the load
Wearying, and hard weighs down of anxious care.
Hence dark of mind, and hence my furrow'd brow
Lowers stern and sullen. There was once a day
When thou hast heard me pour a happier lay:
This boots not to remember; and know thou
That not without a sinking of the heart,
My Friend, I shall behold thee hence depart.

SONNET.

THAT Gooseberry-bush attracts my wandering eyes,
Whose vivid leaves, so beautifully green,
First opening in the early spring are seen:

I sit and gaze, and cheerful thoughts arise

Of that delightful season drawing near,

When those grey woods shall don their summer dress, And ring with warbled love and happiness.

sit and think that soon the advancing year With golden flowers shall star the verdant vale:

Then may the enthusiast youth at eve's lone hour, Led by mild Melancholy's placid power, Go listen to the soothing nightingale, And feed on meditation; while that I Remain at home, and feed on gooseberry-pie.

SONNET.

WHAT though no sculptured monument proclaim Thy fate-yet, Albert, in my breast I bear Inshrined the sad remembrance: yet thy name

Will fill my throbbing bosom. When DESPAIR, The child of murdered HOPE, fed on thy heart,

Loved honoured friend, I saw thee sink forlorn, Pierced to the soul by cold Neglect's keen dart, And Penury's hard ills, and pitying Scorn, And the dark spectre of departed Joy,

Inhuman MEMORY. Often on thy grave Love I the solitary hour to employ,

Thinking on other days; and heave the sigh Responsive, when I mark the high grass wave, Sad sounding as the cold breeze rustles by.

SONNET.

HARD by the road, where on that little mound
The high grass rustles to the passing breeze,
The child of Misery rests her head in peace.
Pause there in sadness: that unhallowed ground
Inshrines what once was Isabel. Sleep on,

Sleep on, poor Outcast! lovely was thy cheek,
And thy mild eye was eloquent to speak
The soul of Pity. Pale and woe-begone,
Soon did thy fair cheek fade, and thine eye weep
The tear of anguish for the babe unborn,
The helpless heir of Poverty and Scorn.

She drank the draught that chill'd her soul to sleep. I pause and wipe the big drop from mine eye, Whilst the proud Levite scowls and passes by.

SONNET.

TO ARISTE.

ARISTE! Soon to sojourn with the crowd,
In soul abstracted must thy minstrel go;
Mix in the giddy, fond, fantastic show,
Mix with the gay, the envious, and the proud.
I go but still my soul remains with thee,

Still will the eye of fancy paint thy charms,
Still, lovely Maid, thy imaged form I see,

And every pulse will vibrate with alarms. When scandal spreads abroad her odious tale, When envy at a rival's beauty sighs, When rancour prompts the female tongue to rail, And rage and malice fire the gamester's eyes, I turn my wearied soul to her for ease, Who only names to praise, who only speaks to please.

SONNET.

BE his to court the Muse, whose humble breast The glow of genius never could inspire;

Who never, by the future song possest,

Struck the bold strings, and waked the daring lyre.
Let him invoke the Muses from their grove,
Who never felt the inspiring touch of love.
If I would sing how beauty's beamy blaze
Thrills through the bosom at the lightning view,
Or harp the high-ton'd hymn to virtue's praise,
Where only from the minstrel praise is due,

I would not court the Muse to prompt my lays,
My Muse, ARISTE, would be found in you!
And need I court the goddess when I move
The warbling lute to sound the soul of love?

SONNET.

LET ancient stories sound the painter's art,

Who stole from many a maid his Venus' charms, Till warm devotion fir'd each gazer's heart,

And every bosom bounded with alarms.

He cull'd the beauties of his native isle,

From some the blush of beauty's vermeil dyes,
From some the lovely look, the winning smile,
From some the languid lustre of the eyes.
Low to the finish'd form the nations round
In adoration bent the pious knee;
With myrtle wreaths the artist's brow they crown'd,
Whose skill, ARISTE, only imaged thee.

Ill-fated artist, doom'd so wide to seek
The charms that blossom on ARISTE'S cheek!

SONNET.

I PRAISE thee not, ARISTE, that thine eye
Knows each emotion of the soul to speak;
That lilies with thy face might fear to vie,
And roses can but emulate thy cheek.

I praise thee not because thine auburn hair
In native tresses wantons on the wind;
Nor yet because that face, surpassing fair,

Bespeaks the inward excellence of mind:
'Tis that soft charm thy minstrel's heart has won,
That mild meek goodness that perfects the rest;
Soothing and soft it steals upon the breast,

As the soft radiance of the setting sun,
When varying through the purple hues of light,
The fading orbit smiles serenely bright.

SONNET.

DUNNINGTON CASTLE.

THOU ruin'd relique of the ancient pile,

Rear'd by that hoary bard, whose tuneful lyre
First breath'd the voice of music on our isle ;
Where, warn'd in life's calm evening to retire,
Old CHAUCER Slowly sunk at last to night;

Still shall his forceful line, his varied strain,
A firmer, nobler monument remain,
When the high grass waves o'er thy lonely site.
And yet the cankering tooth of envious age

Has sapp'd the fabric of his lofty rhyme;
Though genius still shall ponder o'er the page,

And piercing through the shadowy mist of time, The festive Bard of EDWARD'S court recall,

As fancy paints the pomp that once adorn'd thy wall.

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