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!

Keswick.

ODE,

WRITTEN DURING THE WAR WITH AMERICA,

1814.

1.

WHEN shall the Island Queen of Ocean lay
The thunderbolt aside,

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

2.

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

Not long may men, with vain ambition drunk,
And insolent in wrong,

Afflict with their misrule the indignant land
Where Washington hath left
His aweful memory

A light for after times!

Vile instruments of fallen Tyranny,
In their own annals, by their countrymen,
For lasting shame shall they be written down.
Soon may the better Genius there prevail !
Then will the Island Queen of Ocean lay
The thunderbolt aside,

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

3.

But not in ignominious ease,
Within the Bower of Peace supine,
The Ocean Queen shall rest!
Her other toils await,..

A holier warfare, . . nobler victories;
And amaranthine wreaths,

Which, when the laurel crown grows sere,
Will live for ever green.

1.

Hear me, O England! rightly may I claim Thy favourable audience, Queen of Isles, My Mother-land revered!

For in the perilous hour, When weaker spirits stood aghast, And reptile tongues, to thy dishonour bold, Spit their dull venom on the public ear, My voice was heard,..a voice of hope, Of confidence and joy,...

Yea of such prophecy

As Wisdom to her sons doth aye

vouchsafe,

When with pure heart and diligent desire

They seek the fountain springs,

And of the Ages past

Take counsel reverently.

5.

Nobly hast thou stood up

Against the foulest Tyranny that ere,
In elder or in later times,

Hath outraged human kind,

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 miseries and of crimes.

6.

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!

7.

For still doth Ignorance

Maintain large empire here,

Dark and unblest amid surrounding light;
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, Mere creatures of brute life, Should grope in darkness lost!

8.

Must this reproach endure ?
Honour and praise to him

The universal friend,

The general benefactor of mankind ;