MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR.. STROPHE I. SPIRIT! who sweepest the wild harp of Time, Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime, With inward stillness, and a bowed mind: When lo! far onwards waving on the wind I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR! Starting from my silent sadness Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the enter'd cloud forbade my sight, STROPHE II. Hither from the recent tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From poverty's heart-wasting languish, From distemper's midnight anguish ; Or where his two bright torches blending, Love illumines manhood's maze; This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year. Or where o'er cradled infants bending Ye Woes, and young-eyed Joys advance! Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, I bid you haste, a mix'd tumultuous band; And cach domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour And with a loud and yet a louder voice Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell; And now advance in saintly jubilee Justice and Truth! They, too, have heard the spell, They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty! EPODE I. I mark'd Ambition in his war-array! . I heard the mailed Monarch's troubleus cry- Stunn'd by Death's "twice mortal" mace, The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin chok'd the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Rush around her narrow dwelling! Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! Each some sceptred murderer's fate! ANTISTROPHE I. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore Thou stored'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Whose wreathed locks with snow-white glories shon?, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, ANTISTROPHE II. On every harp, on every tongue, By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning, By Belgium's corse impeded flood!* And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bar'd! By what deep guilt belongs To the deaf Senate, 'full of gifts and lies !' By wealth's insensate laugh! by torture's howl! For ever shall the bloody Island scowl? For aye, unbroken, shall her cruel bow Shoot famine's arrows o'er thy ravag'd world? Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature, rise! Ah why those bolts unhurl'd?" EPODE II. The voice had ceas'd, the phantoms fled; And my thick and struggling breath No stranger agony confounds The soldier on the war-field spread, The Rhine. (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled, And the night-wind clamours hoarse ! See the startful wretch's head Lies pillowed on a brother's corse !) O doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile, And Ocean mid his uproar wild Hence for many a fearless age Has social quiet lov'd thy shore; Nor ever sworded foeman's rage Or sack'd thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore. Disclaim'd of heaven! mad av'rice at thy side All nations curse thee; and with eager wond'ring By livid fount, or roar of blazing stream, If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise, The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, sleep. |