Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, e’en to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about?

"Tis of the rushing of a host in rout,

With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the

cold!

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,

With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is overIt tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,

"Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother

hear.

VIII.

"Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep :
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,

May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth! With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice ;
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul !

O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.1

Ἰοὺ, ἰοὺ, ὦ ὢ κακά.

Ὑπ ̓ αὖ μὲ δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας πόνος
Στροβεῖ, ταράσσων φροιμίοις ἐφημίοις.

Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' ἐν τάχει παρὼν
*Αγαν γ' ἀληθόμαντιν οἰκτείρας ἐρεῖς.

I.

Eschyl. Agam. 1225.

PIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's un-
changing clime,

This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796: and was first published on the last day of that year.

Long had I listened, free from mortal fear,
With inward stillness, and a bowed mind
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the departing Year!
Starting from my silent sadness

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
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze;
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!

By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep,
I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band!
From every private bower,

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
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell :
And now advance in saintly jubilee

Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,
They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

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,
No more on murder's lurid face

The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
Manes of the unnumbered slain !

Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain!
Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,
When human ruin choked the streams,
Fell in conquest's glutted hour,
Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!
Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling!

The exterminating fiend is fled

(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
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore,

With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,

From the choired gods advancing,

The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

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
Love and uncreated Light,

By the Earth's unsolaced groaning,

Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!
By peace with proffered insult scared,
Masked hate and envying scorn!
By years of havoc yet unborn!

And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared!
But chief by Afric's wrongs,

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?