Pleasing, without skill to please; Yet too innocent to blush; And thou shalt in thy daughter see, A. Philips CLVIII RULE BRITANNIA When Britain first at Heaven's command Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of her land, And guardian angels sung the strain : Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves Britons never shall be slaves. The nations not so blest as thee Still more majestic shalt thou rise, Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; The Muses, still with Freedom found, J. Thomson CLIX THE BARD Pindaric Ode Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears ! ' He wound with toilsome march his long array :— Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance; 'To arms!' cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe With haggard eyes the Poet stood; Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air) 'Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay. 'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd the stormy main : Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head. Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, On yonder cliffs, a griesly band, I see them sit; They linger yet, With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line Weave the warp and weave the woof The winding sheet of Edward's race: Give ample room and verge enough Mark the year, and mark the night, The shrieks of death thro' Berkley's roof that ring, She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs That tear st the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs The scourge of heaven! What terrors round him wait! Amazement in his van, with flight combined, Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow, and Pieasure at the helm: 'Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest, Heard ye the din of battle bray, Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havock urge their destined course, Twined with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled boar in infant-gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. 'Edward, lo! to sudden frie (Weave we the woof; The thread is spun ;) Half of thy heart we consecrate. (The web is wove; The work is done.) -Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn : But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul ! And gorgeous dames, and statesinen old In the midst a form divine ! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line: What strings symphonious tremble in the air, Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings. 'The verse adorn again Fierce war, and faithful love, And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale grief, and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice as of the cherub-choir |