The delegated Maid Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaimed, “Thou mild-eyed Form! wherefore, ah! wherefore fled?

The power of Justice, like a name all light,
Shone from thy brow; but all they, who unblamed
Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness.
Ah! why, uninjured and unprofited,

Should multitudes against their brethren rush?
Why sow they guilt, still reaping misery?
Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace! are sweet,
As after showers the perfumed gale of eve,
That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek:
And gay thy grassy altar piled with fruits.
But boasts the shrine of demon War one charm,
Save that with many an orgie strange and foul,
Dancing around with interwoven arms,
The maniac Suicide and giant Murder
Exult in their fierce union! I am sad,
And know not why the simple peasants crowd
Beneath the chieftains' standard!" Thus the Maid.

To her the tutelary Spirit replied:
"When luxury and lust's exhausted stores
No more can rouse the appetites of kings;
When the low flattery of their reptile lords
Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear;
When eunuchs sing, and fools buffoonery make,
And dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain :
Then War and all its dread vicissitudes
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant hearts;
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,
Insipid royalty's keen condiment !
Therefore, uninjured and unprofited,

(Victims at once and executioners)
The congregated husbandmen lay waste
The vineyard and the harvest. As along

The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line, Though hushed the winds and cloudless the high

noon,

Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease,

In sports unwieldy toss his island-bulk,
Ocean behind him billows, and before

A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand.
And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark,
Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War,
And War, his strained sinews knit anew,
Still violate the unfinished works of Peace.
But yonder look! for more demands thy view!"
He said: and straightway from the opposite isle
A vapour sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled
From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence,
Travels the sky for many a trackless league,
Till o'er some death-doomed land, distant in vain,
It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the plain,
Facing the isle, a brighter cloud arose,

And steered its course which way the vapour went.

The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean. But long time passed not, ere that brighter cloud Returned more bright: along the plain it swept; And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged A dazzling form, broad-bosomed, bold of eye, And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound. Not more majestic stood the healing God, When from his bow the arrow sped that slew Huge Python. Shrieked Ambition's giant throng, And with them hissed the locust-fiends that crawled

And glittered in Corruption's slimy track.

Great was their wrath, for short they knew their

reign :

And such commotion made they, and uproar,

As when the mad tornado bellows through
The guilty islands of the western main,
What time departing from their native shores,
Eboe, or Koromantyn's plain of palms,

* The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a pass. port to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of which the thoughts are better than the language in which they are conveyed.

Ω σκότου πύλας, Θάνατε, προλείπων
Ες γενος σπευδοις υποζευχθεν Ατα
Ου ξενισθηση γεννων σπαραγμοίς
Ουδ' ολολυγμω,

Αλλα και κυκλοισι χοροιτυποισι
Κ' ασματων χαρα φοβερος μεν έτσι,
Αλλ' όμως Ελευθερία συνοικεῖς,
Στυγνε Τυραννε!

Δασκίοις επι πτερύγεσσι σησι
Α! θαλασσιον καθορωντες οίδμα
Αιθεροπλαγκτοις υπό ποσσ' ανειτι
Πατριδ ἐπ' αιαν.

Ενθα μαν Ερασται Ερωμένησιν
Αμφι πηγησιν κιτρινων υπ' άλσων,
Ουσ' υπό βροτοις επαθον βροτοι, τα
Δεινα λεγοντι.

LITERAL TRANSLATION.

Leaving the gates of darkness, O Death! hasten thou to a race yoked with misery! Thou wilt not be received with lacerations of cheeks, nor with funereal ululation-but with circling dances, and the joy of songs. Thou art terrible indeed, yet thou dwelleth with Liberty, stern Genius! Borne on thy dark pinions over the swelling of Ocean, they return to their native country. There, by the side of fountains beneath citron-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, being men, they had endured from men.

The infuriate spirits of the murdered make
Fierce merriment, and vengeance ask of Heaven.
Warmed with new influence, the unwholesome plain
Sent up its foulest fogs to meet the morn:
The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in Blood!

"Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven! (To her the tutelary Spirit said)

Soon shall the morning struggle into day,
The stormy morning into cloudless noon.

Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand—
But this be thy best omen- -Save thy Country!"
Thus saying, from the answering Maid he passed,
And with him disappeared the heavenly Vision.

86

Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven! All conscious Presence of the universe! Nature's vast Ever-acting Energy! In will, in deed, Impulse of All to All! Whether Thy love with unrefracted ray Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought, Scatter new frenzies on the infected throng, Thou both inspiring and predooming both, Fit instruments and best, of perfect end: Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven!"

And first a landscape rose,

More wild and waste and desolate than where
The white bear, drifting on a field of ice,
Howls to her sundered cubs with piteous rage
And savage agony.

THE first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended animation. But as in my very first conception of the tale I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness no less than with the liveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come, in the course of the present year. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel version of two monkish Latin hexameters :