Sibylline Leaves. I. POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS, OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM. WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed 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. Το μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' ἐν τάχει παρὼν ARGUMENT. Eschyl. Agam. 1225. THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the *This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of December, 1796, and was first published on the last day of that year events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks 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 prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. I. SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time! With inward stillness, and a bowed mind; Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish ! Or where, his two bright torches blending, Love illumines manhood's maze; Or where, o'er cradled infants bending, Hither, in perplexed dance, Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the hand Raises its fateful strings from sleep, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth, Weep and rejoice! Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth III. I marked Ambition in his war-array ! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, The imperial hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin choked the streams, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Spirits of the uncoffined slain, Rush around her narrow dwelling! (Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty armies of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! Then with prophetic song relate, Each some tyrant-murderer's fate! IV. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore, Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glo ries shone. Then, his eye wild ardors glancing, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, V. Throughout the blissful throng, Hushed were harp and song: Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make: The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and spake ! "Thou in stormy blackness throning And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! Strange, horrible, and foul! By what deep guilt belongs To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies!' By wealth's insensate laugh! by torture's howl!' Avenger, rise! For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? Speak from thy storm-black Heaven, O speak aloud! And on the darkling foe Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud! O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow! The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature! rise." VI. The voice had ceased, the vision fled; Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs; |