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9.

Our pride misleads, our timid likings kill.
-Long may these homely Works devised of old,
These simple Efforts of Helvetian skill,
Aid, with congenial influence, to uphold
The State, -the Country's destiny to mould;
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold;
Filling the soul with sentiments august

The beautiful, the brave, the holy, and the just!

10.

No more; - Time halts not in his noiseless march
Nor turns, nor winds, as doth the liquid flood;
Life slips from underneath us, like that arch
Of airy workmanship whereon we stood,
Earth stretched below, Heaven in our neighbourhood.
Go forth, my little Book! pursue thy way;
Go forth, and please the gentle and the good;
Nor be a whisper stifled, if it say

That treasures, yet untouched, may grace some future Lay.

XXXVI.

ΤΟ ENTERPRISE.*

KEEP for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on a chalky cliff of Britain's Isle,
A slender Volume grasping in thy hand
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate) -
Ah, spare the exulting smile,
And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light;
But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away

From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

1.

BOLD Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,

While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee ENTERPRISE.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom she to young Ambition bore,
When Hunter's arrow first defiled

The Grove, and stained the turf with gore ;
Thee winged Fancy took, and nursed

* This poem having risen out of the "Italian Itinerant," &c. (page 334.) it is here annexed.

On broad Euphrates' palmy shore,
Or where the mightier Waters burst
From caves of Indian mountains hoar!
She wrapped thee in a panther's skin ;
And thou, whose earliest thoughts held dear
Allurements that were edged with fear,
(The food that pleased thee best, to win)
With infant shout wouldst often scare
From her rock-fortress in mid air
The flame-eyed Eagle-often sweep,
Paired with the Ostrich, o'er the plain;
And, tired with sport, wouldst sink asleep
Upon the couchant Lion's mane !
With rolling years thy strength increased;
And, far beyond thy native East,
To thee, by varying titles known,
As variously thy power was shown,
Did incense-bearing Altars rise,
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From Suppliants panting for the skies!

2.

What though this ancient Earth be trod
No more by step of Demi-god
Mounting from glorious deed to deed
As thou from clime to clime didst lead,
Yet still, the bosom beating high,
And the hushed farewell of an eye
Where no procrastinating gaze
A last infirmity betrays,
Prove that thy heaven-descended sway
Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.

By thy divinity impelled,

The Stripling seeks the tented field;
The aspiring Virgin kneels; and, pale
With awe, receives the hallowed veil,
A soft and tender Heroine
Vowed to severer discipline;
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the Ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground and a couch of rest;
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
Thou to his dangers dost enchain
The Chamois-chaser awed in vain
By chasm or dizzy precipice;
And hast Thou not with triumph seen
How soaring Mortals glide serene
From cloud to cloud, and brave the light
With bolder than Icarian flight?
How they in bells of crystal dive,
Where winds and waters cease to strive,
For no unholy visitings,
Among the monsters of the Deep,
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?
Or, adverse tides and currents headed,
And breathless calms no longer dreaded,
In never-slackening voyage go
Straight as an arrow from the bow;
And, slighting sails and scorning oars,
Keep faith with Time on distant shores.

Within our fearless reach are placed The secrets of the burning Waste, Egyptian Tombs unlock their Dead, Nile trembles at his fountain head;

Thou speak'st-and lo! the polar Seas

Unbosom their last mysteries.

- But oh! what transports, what sublime reward,
Won from the world of mind, dost thou prepare
For philosophic Sage, or high-souled Bard,
Who, for thy service trained in lonely woods,
Hath fed on pageants floating through the air,
Or calentured in depth of limpid floods;
Nor grieves-tho' doomed thro' silent night to bear
The domination of his glorious themes,
Or struggle in the net-work of thy dreams!

3.

If there be movements in the Patriot's soul,
From source still deeper, and of higher worth,
'Tis thine the quickening impulse to control,
And in due season send the mandate forth;
Thy call a prostrate Nation can restore,

When but a single Mind resolves to crouch no more.

4.

Dread Minister of wrath!

Who to their destined punishment dost urge

The Pharaohs of the earth, the men of hardened heart!

Not unassisted by the flattering stars,

Thou strew'st temptation o'er the path

When they in pomp depart,

With trampling horses and refulgent cars
Soon to be swallowed by the briny surge;
Or cast, for lingering death, on unknown strands;

Or stifled under weight of desert sands

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