Hear, ye fierce demons of the air,
Preserve yon savage in the wild;
For know your monarch loves to spare
The rude north's tempest-beaten child.
Where Freedom cheers her western clime,
From Andes' brow that towers sublime,
I hurl the whelming wreaths of snow
To chasmed vales that groan below.
Down his dark rocks the vapours glide,
That mingling seem a surging deep,
While o'er the troubled aërial tide,
On sable wings I proudly sweep;
The dryads of the distant wood
Awake their wildest screams of woe,
As swift I tear the storm-fraught cloud
That lays their waving kingdoms low.
When Cancer owns the solar ray,
And pours his fervors on the day,
That shines unhailed by Freedom's smile
On dark Ambition's Indian isle,
At Retribution's dread command,
The minister of wrath I fly,
To crush the dome with giant hand
That Guilt, triumphant, reared on high: Unawed the son of Afric smiles,
As Death and Ruin scour the plain, They end his long unpitied toils,
And burst his blood-encrusted chain.
Yes, the tremendous power is mine,
To shake Oppression's hated shrine;
My hand unnerves her coward soul,
While heaven's avenging thunders roll;
I guide the flame-winged lightning's course,
I bid the struggling earthquake groan,
While the tornado's fearful force
Shakes the bright Summer's tropic throne,
I rule the spirits of the deep,
I drive them to their oozy caves,
When bounding from the cloud-crowned steep, I revel on the foaming waves.
OF METASTATIO'S "L'ONDE DEL MARE DIVISO."
PARTING from it's native main,
Glides the wave in ceaseless maze;
Aids the river's swelling train;
In the fountain's eddy plays:
Down the hill, in slow meanders,
Many a lonely region o'er;
Ever plaining as it wanders,
Murmurs to it's native shore.
Written in the Park of Wentworth-House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, on being told that the oaks on Temple Hill were sown by Lord Milton, when three years old.
HERE, rosy Light, with purest influence shine,
Here, zephyrs bland with cheering dews combine,
And latent rills, and vernal rains, to swell
The silky leaf beyond its wintry cell:
And ye, who weave the woodlands summer-bowers,
Here bend your steps ye fair etherial powers!
On this bright slope, with plastic fingers, guide
These youthful oaks to mount in sylvan pride;
Save them, sweet guardians, when mid polar snows
The Sire of Storms awakes from dread repose,
Yokes the fierce tempests to his howling car,
And calls, with thundering voice, the elements to war.
Shield their young boles, when o'er the snowy waste
In rapid triumph rides the arrowy blast;
Watch, when the swollen spring o'erleaps its bound
And robs their infant roots of fostering mound;
Guard their soft buds from mildew's baleful power,
And Jove's red bolt in heaven's indignant hour:
Nurse, and protect them, till revolving time
On this fair summit sees them rise sublime,
With grace superior this sweet scene adorn,
And yield their shade to Wentworths yet unborn.
And when in full perfection's height they stand,
Waving their ample boughs, serenely grand,
O may they bloom true emblems of his worth
Who gave their embryos to the genial earth,
While yet his little feet uncertain trod
Timid and slow along the grassy sod.
Such be the beauty of his mind matur'd,
By taste embellish'd, and to toil inur'd,
Expanded by Religion's sacred rays,
Enrich'd by classic lore of ancient days,
His bosom girt with Truth's celestial zone,
His youthful lips her pure and living throne,
Where sterling sense shall charm in mild Persuasion's
Thus, deck'd with every precious gift of Health,
High on the pedestal of Rank and Wealth,
Long may he tower, unshaken in his place,
Like the Patrician-Oak, his country's strength and grace!
ОH stay awhile thy silver horn,
That hastens now so fast away,
Adown the western pathway borne,
Closing the rear of parting day!
Sweet Queen of heaven! thou canst not find
In all thy daily circled course,
One who more feels within his mind
Thy soft persuasive beauty's force.
Thou goest o'er the lonely deep
To waste thy splendour on the tide,
Where only sea-born monsters sweep,
Unheeding of thy beamy pride;
Or on some woody mountain's head,
Canadian wilds shall drink thy ray;
Where savage tigers prowling tread,
And savage men more fierce than they;
Or on the long Atlantic shore,
The realm of trade thy view shall greet, Where busy labour plies the oar,
And jostles in the crouded street.
Unhonour'd and unnotic'd there,
Thou shalt illume the lonely sky:
Then why to these dull sons of care,
Bright Queen, dost thou so quickly fly?
|