hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!"

And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as the shadows.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I-POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM.

WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed
I had, my country! Am I to be blamed?
Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,

Of those unfilial tears I am ashamed.

For dearly must we prize thee; we who find

In thee a bulwark for the cause of men;

And I by my affection was beguiled.
What wonder if a poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a Lover or a Child!

WORDSWORTH.

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

Eschyl. Agam. 1225

ARGUMENT.

THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the 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 prophecies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

I.

SPIRIT 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 unchanging clime,
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!

* 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.

Starting from

my silent sadness

Then with no unholy madness

Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,
I raised the impetuous song, and solemnised 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!