Whose veil effays her blush to hide,

Who checks the tear that hastes to glide?
A mitred Priest's oppreffive fway

She fees her drooping race obey:

Their vines unprun'd, their fields untill'd,
Their streets with want and mifery fill'd.
And who is She, the Martial Maid

Along that cliff fo careless laid,

Whose brow fuch laugh unmeaning wears,

Whofe eye fuch infolence declares,

Whose tongue defcants, with scorn so vain,

On flaves of Ebro or of Seine?

What griefly Churl*, what Harlot bold†,
Behind her, chains enormous hold?

Tho' Virtue's warning voice be near,

Alas, fhe will not, will not hear!

And now the finks in fleep profound,

And now they bind her to the ground,

⚫ Avarice.

+ Luxury,

R 3

O what

O what is He, his ghaftly form,

So half obfcur'd in cloud and storm,

Swift ftriding on?-beneath his ftrides

Proud Empire's firmest base fubfides;

Behind him dreary waftes remain,

Oblivion's dark chaotic reign!

Ruin,

THE

MEXICAN PROPHECY:

AN ODE.

DE SOLIS, in his Hiftory of the Conqueft of Mexico, informs us, that, on the approach of Cortez to the neighbourhood of that city, the Emperor Motezuma fent a number of magicians to attempt the deftruction of the Spanish army. As the forcerers were practifing their incantations, a dæmon appeared to them in the form of their idol Tlcatlepuca, and foretold the fall of the Mexican Empire, Qn this legend is founded the following Poem. The conqueft of Mexico was undertaken from motives of avarice, and accompanied with circumftances of cruelty; but it produced the fubverfion of a tyrannical government, and the abolition of a deteftable religion of horrid rites and human facrifices.