POEMS

OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS

OR

FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM.

א

WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed

I had, my country! Am I to be blamed?
But, when I think of Thee, and what Thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

But dearly must we prize thee; we who find

In thee a bulwark of the cause of men;

And I by my affection was beguiled. What wonder if a poet, now and then,

Among the many movements of his mind,

Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μην τάχει παρὼν

Αγαν γ' ἀληθόμαντιν μ' ἐρεῖς.

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 them for a while to the The first Epode speaks

private joys and sorrows, and devote cause of human nature in general.

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 prophecies, in

anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.