ODE XXIV. THE FEMALE REIGN. BY THE REV. SAMUEL COBBE, M. A. WHAT can the British senate give, In charming eloquence, or sprightly wit, No! titled statues are but empty things, The sacrifice of flattery To lawless Neros, or Bourbonian kings. True virtue to her kindred stars aspires, Does all our pomp of stone and verse surpass, And mingling with etherial fires, No useless ornament requires From speaking colors, or from breathing brass. Greatest of princes! where the wand'ring sun Does o'er earth's habitable regions roll, From th' eastern barriers to the western goal, With swiftness equal to his own: Thee on the banks of Flandrian Scaldis sings The jocund swain releas'd from Gallic fear; The English voice unus'd to hear, Thee the repeating banks, thee every valley rings. The sword of heav'n how pious ANNA wields, Like an apostate angel fell : Who, by imperial favor rais'd, More than a king, contented with his own; But Lucifer's bold steps he trod, Who durst assault the throne of God; And for contented realms of blissful light, Gain'd the sad privilege to be The first in solid misery, Monarch of hell, and woes, and everlasting night. Corruption of the best is always worst: And foul ambition like an evil wind, Blights the fair blossoms of a noble mind And if a seraph fall he's doubly curst. Had guile, and pride, and envy grown In the black groves of Styx alone, Nor ever had on earth the baleful crop been sown; The Flandrian glebe, a guiltless field: And vices serve to make it keen; NASSAUS and CHURCHILLS leave the skies, If, heavenly Muse, you burn with a desire And as you sail the liquid skies, Cast on Menapian fields your weeping eyes: For weep they surely must, To see the bloody annual sacrifice; To think how the neglected dust, Which with contempt is basely trod, Was once the limbs of captains, brave and just, The mortal part of some great demi-god; Who for thrice fifty years of stubborn war, With slaught'ring arms, the gun and sword, Have dug the mighty sepulchre, And fell as martyrs on record, Of tyranny aveng'd, and liberty restor❜d. See, where at Audenard, with heaps of slain, Mowing across, bestrews the plain, And with new tenants crowds the wealthy grave. The routed battle to pursue, And with a bridegroom's passion and delight, Courting the war, and glowing for the fight, The new Salmonius meets the Celtic thunderer. Ah, cursed pride! infernal dream! Which drove him to this wild extreme, That dust a deity should seem; Be thought, as through the wond'ring streets he rode, A man immortal, or a god : With rattling brass, and trampling horse, Should counterfeit th' inimitable force Of divine thunder: horrid crime ! On his profane devoted head, Who durst affront the powers above, And their eternal flames disgrace, Too fatal, brandish'd by the real Jove, Or Pallas, who assumes, and fills his awful place : The British Pallas! who, as Homer's did For her lov'd Diomede, Her hero's mind with wisdom fills, And heav'nly courage in his heart instils. Hence through the thickest squadrons does he ride, With ANNA's angels by his side. With what uncommon speed He spurs his foaming, fiery steed, And pushes on through midmost fires, Where France's fortune, with her sons, retires! Now here, now there, the sweeping ruin flies; The southern wind afflicts the skies, Then mutt'ring o'er the deep, buffets th' unruly brine, 'Till clouds and water seem to join. Or as a dyke cut by malicious hands, O'erflows the fertile Netherlands. |