ODE TO MERCY.

STROPHE.

O THOU, who sit'st a smiling bride

By valour's arm'd and awful side,
Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd;

Who oft with songs, divine to hear,

Win'st from his fatal grasp the spear,

And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bosom bare art found,

Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground:
See, Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands,
Before thy shrine my country's genius stands,
And decks thy altar still, tho' pierc'd with many a wound!

ANTISTROPHE.

When he whom ev'n our joys provoke,

The fiend of nature join'd his yoke,

And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his
Thy form, from out thy sweet abode,

O'ertook him on his blasted road,

prey;

And stop'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.

I see recoil his sable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds,
Thy tender melting eyes they own;
O maid, for all thy love to Britain shown,
Where Justice bars her iron tow'r,

To thee we build a roseate bow'r,

Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne!

ODE TO LIBERTY.

STROPHE.

WHO shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn sounds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths, in sullen hue,

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alcaeus, fancy-blest,

*

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,

*

Alluding to that beautiful fragment of Alcæus.

Εν Μυρτε κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω,
Ώσπερ Αρμοδιος και Αριστογείτων.
Φιλταθ' Αρμοδι επω Τεθνηκας
Νησοις δ' εν Μακαρων σε φασιν είναι
Εν μυρτι κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω,
Ωσπερ Αρμοδιος και Αριστογείτων,
Οτ' Αθηναίης εν θυσίαις,

Ανδρα Τυραννον Ιππαρχον εκαινέτην,
Αει Σφων κλεος εσσεται κατ' αιαν,
Φιλταθ' Αρμοδί', και Αριτογείτων.

At Wisdom's shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'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.

Yet, ev'n 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,

* Μη μη τωυτα λεγωμες, α δακρυον ηγαγε Δηοι.

Callimach. Υμνος εις Δημητρα.

How wondrous 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 Merinot 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;

*The family of the Medici.

The Venetians.

Genoa.

+ The little republic of San Marino The Doge of Venice.

¶ Switzerland.