WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. For dearly must we prize thee; we who find In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; WORDSWORTH. ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.* Ἰοὺ, ἰοὺ, ὢ ὢ κακά. Ὑπ ̓ αὖ μὲ δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας πόνος Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' ἐν τάχει παρὼν Eschyl Agam. 1225. ARGUMENT. THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the image of the Departing Year, &c. as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. I. SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time! * Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear! This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and was first published on the last day of that year. Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime, Long had I listened, free from mortal fear, With inward stillness, and a bowed mind; Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, flight. II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From distemper's midnight anguish; And thence, where poverty doth waste and Or where, his two bright torches blending, Or where o'er cradled infants bending Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the hand Raises its fateful strings from sleep, I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band! And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth, Weep and rejoice! Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of hell: And now advance in saintly jubilee Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell! They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty! III. I marked Ambition in his war-array! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! When human ruin choked the streams, Spirits of the uncoffined slain, Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, ⚫ |