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Hurl'd down the altars of the living God,
With all the infidel's intolerance.

The last worst traitor triumph'd—triumph'd long,
Secured by matchless villany. By turns
Defending and deserting each accomplice,
As interest prompted. In the goodly soil
Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck
Its deep-fix'd roots, and dropt the dews of death,
On all who slumber'd in its specious shade.
He wove the web of treachery. He caught
The listening crowd by his wild eloquence,
His cool ferocity, that persuaded murder,
Even whilst it spake of mercy!--Never, never
Shall this regenerated country wear

The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail,
And with worse fury urge this new crusade

Than savages have known; though the leagued despots

Depopulate all Europe, so to pour

The accumulated mass upon our coasts,
Sublime amid the storm shall France arise,
And like the rock amid surrounding waves
Repel the rushing ocean.-She shall wield
The thunderbolt of vengeance-she shall blast
'The despot's pride, and liberate the world!

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR.❤

STROPHE I.

SPIRIT! who sweepest the wild harp of Time,
It is most hard with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!

Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime,
Long had I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and a bowed mind: When lo! far onwards waving on the wind I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR! Starting from my silent sadness

Then with no unholy madness,

Ere yet the enter'd cloud forbade my sight,
I raised th' impetuous song, and solemniz'd his flight.

STROPHE II.

Hither from the recent tomb,
From the prison's direr gloom,

From poverty's heart-wasting languish,
From distemper's midnight anguish;

Or where his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines manhood's maze;

This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year.

Or where o'er cradled infants bending

Hope has fixed her wishful gaze:
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes, and young-eyed Joys advance!
By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Forbids its fateful strings to sleep,

I bid you haste, a mix'd tumultuous band;
From every private bower,

And cach 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 the spell, They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

EPODE I.

I mark'd Ambition in his war-array !

I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry-
"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay!
Groans not her chariot o'er its onward way?"
Fly; mailed monarch fly!

Stunn'd by Death's "twice mortal" mace,
No more on murder's lurid face

The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
Manes of the unnumber'd slain !

Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain !

Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,

When human ruin chok'd the streams,

Fell in conquest's glutted hour,

Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!

Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir
Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre !
Spirits of th' uncoffin'd slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,
Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling!
Th' exterminating fiend is fled—
(Foul her life, and dark her doom)
Mighty army of the dead

Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb!
Then with prophetic song relate,

Each some sceptred murderer's fate!

ANTISTROPHE 1.

Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits; there, garmented with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou stored'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er th' ethereal multitude,

Whose wreathed locks with snow-white glories shon?
Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choired gods advancing,

The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,
And stood up beautiful before the cloudy seat!

ANTISTROPHE II.

On every harp, on every tongue,
While the mute enchantment hung;
Like midnight from a thunder-cloud,
Spake the sudden Spirit loud-
"Thou in storiny blackness throning
Love and uncreated light,

By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning,
Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!

By Belgium's corse impeded flood!*
By Vendée's steaming brother's blood!
By Peace with proffer'd insult scar'd,
Masked hate and envying scorn!
By years of havoc yet unborn!

And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bar'd!
But chief by Afric's wrongs,

Strange, horrible, and foul!

By what deep guilt belongs

To the deaf Senate, ' full of gifts and lies!'

By wealth's insensate laugh! by torture's howl!
Avenger, rise!

For ever shall the bloody Island scowl?

For aye, unbroken, shall her cruel bow

Shoot famine's arrows o'er thy ravag'd world?

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature, rise! Ah why those bolts unhurl'd?"

EPODE II.

The voice had ceas'd, the phantoms fled;
Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the vision to my sight,
Cold sweat-damps gather on my limbs;
My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims;
Wild is the tempest of my heart;

And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of death!

No stranger agony confounds

The soldier on the war-field spread,

When all foredone with toils and wounds,

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

The Rhine.

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