5.

But Thou, Supreme Disposer! may'st not speed The course of things, and change the creed,

Which hath been held aloft before Men's sight
Since the first framing of societies,
Whether, as Bards have told in ancient song,
Built up by soft seducing harmonies;

Or prest together by the appetite,

And by the power, of wrong!

SONNETS

DEDICATED TO LIBERTY.

PART SECOND.

I.

ON A CELEBRATED EVENT IN ANCIENT HISTORY.

A ROMAN Master stands on Grecian ground,
And to the Concourse of the Isthmian Games
He, by his Herald's voice, aloud proclaims
THE LIBERTY OF GREECE: the words rebound
Until all voices in one voice are drowned;
Glad acclamation by which air was rent!
And birds, high flying in the element,
Dropped to the earth, astonished at the sound!
-A melancholy Echo of that noise

Doth sometimes hang on musing Fancy's ear:
Ah! that a Conqueror's word should be so dear;
Ah! that a boon could shed such rapturous joys!
A gift of that which is not to be given

By all the blended powers of Earth and Heaven.