When Britain round her spear
The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.

8.

Yet in the pomp of these festivities
One mournful thought will rise within thy mind,
The thought of Him who sits

In mental as in visual darkness lost.
How had his heart been fill'd
With deepest gratitude to Heaven,
Had he beheld this day!

O King of kings, and Lord of lords,
Thou who hast visited thus heavily
The anointed head,..

Oh for one little interval,
One precious hour,

Remove the blindness from his soul,

That he may know it all,

And bless thee ere he die.

9.

Thou also should'st have seen
This harvest of thy hopes,
Thou whom the guilty act

Of a proud spirit overthrown,
Sent to thine early grave in evil hour!
Forget not him, my country, in thy joy;
But let thy grateful hand

With laurel garlands hang
The tomb of Perceval.

Virtuous, and firm, and wise,

The Ark of Britain in her darkest day

He steer'd through stormy seas;

And long shall Britain hold his memory dear, And faithful History give

His meed of lasting praise.

10.

That earthly meed shall his compeers enjoy,
Britain's true counsellors,

Who see with just success their counsels crown'd.
They have their triumph now, to him denied;
Proud day for them is this!
Prince of the mighty Isle !
Proud day for them and thee,

When Britain round her spear

The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.

ODE

TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS.

1.

CONQUEROR, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind!
The free, the happy, Island welcomes thee;
Thee from thy wasted realms,
So signally revenged;

From Prussia's rescued plains;

From Dresden's field of slaughter, where the ball,
Which struck Moreau's dear life,
Was turn'd from thy more precious head aside;
From Leipsic's dreadful day,
From Elbe, and Rhine, and Seine,
In thy career of conquest overpast;
From the proud Capital

Of haughty France subdued,

Then to her rightful line of Kings restored;
Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good,
The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just,
Thee to her honour'd shores

The mighty Island welcomes in her joy.

Thy famous ancestor,
Illustrious PETER came.

Wise traveller he, who over Europe went,
Marking the ways of men;

That so to his dear country, which then rose
Among the nations in uncultured strength,
He might bear back the stores
Of elder polity,

Its sciences and arts.

Little did then the industrious German think, .. The soft Italian, lapt in luxury, . . Helvetia's mountain sons, of freedom proud, . . The patient Hollander,

Prosperous and warlike then,..

Little thought they that in that farthest North, From PETER's race should the Deliverer spring, Destined by Heaven to save

Art, Learning, Industry,

Beneath the bestial hoof of godless Might

Vaunting the

All trampled in the dust.

As little did the French,

power of their Great Monarch then, (His schemes of wide ambition yet uncheck'd,) As little did they think,

That from rude Moscovy the stone should come, To smite their huge Colossus, which bestrode The subject Continent;

And from its feet of clay,

Breaking the iron limbs and front of brass,
Strew the rejoicing Nations with the wreck.

3.

Roused as thou wert with insult and with wrong, Who should have blamed thee if, in high-wrought mood Of vengeance and the sense of injured power, Thou from the flames which laid

The City of thy Fathers in the dust,
Had'st bid a spark be brought,
And borne it in thy tent,

Religiously by night and day preserved,
Till on Montmartre's height,
When open to thine arms,

Her last defence o'erthrown,
The guilty city lay,

Thou hadst call'd every Russian of thine host
To light his flambeau at the sacred flame,
And sent them through her streets,
And wrapt her roofs and towers,
Temples and palaces,

Her wealth and boasted spoils,
In one wide flood of fire,
Making the hated Nation feel herself
The miseries she had spread.

4.

Who should have blamed the Conqueror for that deed?
Yea, rather would not one exulting cry

Have risen from Elbe to Nile,
How is the Oppressor fallen!
Moscow's re-rising walls
Had rung with glad acclaim;
Thanksgiving hymns had fill'd
Tyrol's rejoicing vales;