What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,

At Wisdom's shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renow'd?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted
wound!

O Goddess! in that feeling hour,
When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided pow'r

E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful, tears.
No, Freedom! no; I will not tell
How Rome, before thy weeping face,
With heaviest sound a giant-statue 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 barb'rous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

EPODE II.

Yet e'en where'er the least appear'd
Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd ;
Still 'midst the scatter'd states around

Some remnants of her strength were found;

They saw by what escap'd the storm,
How wond'rous rose her perfect form;
How in the great the labour'd whole
Each mighty master pour'd his soul:
For sunny Florence, seat 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 Pisa's olive shade,

See small Marino joins the theme,
Tho' least, not last, in thy esteem.
Strike! louder strike, th' ennobling strings
To those whose merchant-sons 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 sad Liguria's bleeding state.

Ah! no; more pleas'd thy haunts I seek
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak,
(Where when the favour'd of thy choice,
The daring archer heard thy voice,
Forth from his eyrie, rouz'd in dread,
The rav'ning 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'st the strains,
One holier name alone remains ;

The perfect spell shall then avail,
Hail, Nymph! ador'd by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE.

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

Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strandt;
No sea between, no cliff sublime and hoary,
He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land.

* 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 Hollan:! are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

†This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it.

To the blown Baltic then, they say,
The wild waves found another way,

Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding, Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,

A wide wild storm e'en Nature's self confounding, With'ring her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise.

This pillar'd earth, so firm and wide,
By winds and inward labours torn,
In thunders dread was push'd aside,
And down the should'ring billows borne.
And see! like gems her laughing train,
The little isles on ev'ry side,

Mona*, once hid from those who search the main,

* 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 sea shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This however was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that in revenge for this treatment of her she punished the whole island by covering it with a mist; so that all who attempted to carry on a commerce with it either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.

Where thousand elfin shapes abide,

And wight who checks the west'ring tide,
For the consenting Heav'n has each bestow'd,
A fair attendant on her sovʼreign pride;

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd,

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

SECOND EPODE.

Then too, 'tis said, an hoary pile
Midst the green naval of our isle,
Thy shrine in some religious wood,
O sole-enforcing Goddess! stood;
There oft' the painted native's feet
Were wont thy form celestial meet;
Tho' now with hopeless toil we trace
Time's backward rolls to find its place;
Whether the fiery-tressed Dane
Or Roman's self o'erturn'd the fane,
Or in what Heav'n-left age it fell,
'Twere hard for modern song to tell :
Yet still if truth those beams infuse
Which guide at once and charm the Muse,
Beyond yon braided clouds that lie

Paving the light embroider'd sky,