There palaces and hallow'd domes display
Majestic ruins, awful in decay!

Thy very duft, though undistinguish'd trod,
Compos'd, perhaps, fome hero, great and good,
Who nobly for his country loft his blood!
Ev'n with the grave, the haughty spoilers war,
And death's dark manfions wide difclose to air:
O'er kings and faints infulting ftalk, nor dread
To fpurn the ashes of the glorious dead.

See the Britannic lions wave in air!

See! mighty Marlbrough breathing death and war!
From Albion's fhores, at Anna's high commands,
The dauntless hero pours his martial bands:
As when in wrath ftern Mars the thunderer fends
To fcourge his foes; in pomp the God defcends,
He mounts his iron car: with fury burns:
The car fierce-rattling thunders as it turns.
Gloomy he grafps his adamantine shield,
And scatters armics o'er th' enfanguin'd field:
With delegated wrath thus Marlborough glows,
In vengeance rufhing on his country's foes.
See round the hoftile towers embattled ftands
His banner'd hoft, embodied hands by bands!
Hark! the fhrill trumpet fends a mortal found,
And prancing horses shake the folid ground;
The furly drums beat terrible afar,
With all the dreadful mufic of the war;
From the drawn fwords cffulgent flames arife,
Flash o'er the plains, and lighten to the skies ;

The

The heavens above, the fields and floods beneath,
Glare formidably bright, and shine with death;
In fiery storms descends a murderous shower,
Thick flash the lightnings, fierce the thunders roar :
As when in wrathful mood Almighty Jove
Aims his dire bolts red-hissing from above;
Through the fing'd air, with unrefifted sway,
The forky vengeance rends its flaming way;
And while the firmament with thunder roars,
From their foundations hurls imperial towers;
So rush the globes with many a fiery round,
Tear up the rock, or rend the stedfaft mound:
Death shakes aloft her dart, and o'er her prey
Stalks with dire joy, and marks in blood her way;
Mountains of heroes flain deform the ground,
The shape of man half bury'd in the wound;
And lo! while in the shock of war they clofe,
While fwords meet fwords, and foes encounter foes,
The treacherous earth beneath their footsteps cleaves,
Her entrails tremble, and her bofom heaves;

Sudden in bursts of fire eruptions rise,

And whirl the torn battalions to the skies.

Thus earthquakes, rumbling with a thundering found, Shake the firm world, and rend the cleaving ground; Rocks, hills, and groves, are toft into the sky, And in one mighty ruin nations die.

See! through th' encumber'd air the ponderous bomb Bears magazines of death within its womb,

The glowing orb difplays a blazing train,

And darts bright horror through th' ethereal plain ;
* It mounts tempeftuous, and with hideous found
Wheels down the heavens, and thunders o'er the ground:
Th' imprifon'd deaths rufh dreadful in a blaze,
And mow a thousand lives, a thousand ways;

Earth floats with blood, while spreading flames arise From palaces, and domes, and kindle half the skies.

Thus terribly in air the comets roll,

And shoot malignant gleams from pole to pole; 'Tween worlds and worlds they move, and from their hair Shake the blue plague, the peftilence, and war.

But who is he, who stern bestrides the plain, Who drives triumphant o'er huge hills of flain? Serene, while engines from the hostile tower Rain from their brazen mouths an iron fhower? While turbid fiery smoke obfcures the day, Hews through the deathful breach his defperate way? Sure Jove defcending joins the martial toil, Or is it Marlborough, or the great Argyle?

VARIATIONS.

* Ev'n the ftern fouls of heroes feel difmay; Proud temples nod, afpiring towers give way, Dreadful it mounts, tempeltuous in its flight, It finks, it falls, earth groans beneath its weight. Th' imprifon'd deaths rufh out in fmoke and fire, The mighty bleed, heaps crush'd on heaps expire. †The barriers burft, wide-spreading flames arise.

Thus

Thus when the Grecians, furious to destroy,
Level'd the ftructures of imperial Troy;
Here angry Neptune hurl'd his vengeful mace,
There Jove o'erturn'd it from its inmost base;

Though brave, yet vanquish'd, fhe confefs'd the odds, Her fons were heroes, but they fought with Gods.

Ah! what new horrors rife? in deep array The fquadrons form! aloft the standards play! The captains draw the fword! on every brow Determin'd valour lours! the trumpets blow! See! the brave Briton delves the cavern'd ground Through the hard entrails of the stubborn mound! And, undifinay'd by death, the foe invades Through dreadful horrors of infernal shades! In vain the wall's broad bafe deep-rooted lies, In vain an hundred turrets threat the skies! Lo! while at ease the bands immur'd repofe, Nor careless dream of fubterranean foes, Like the Cadmæan hoft, embattled swarms Start from the earth, and clafh their founding arms, And, pouring war and flaughter from beneath, Wrap towers, walls, men, in fire, in blood, in death.

So fome fam'd torrent dives within the caves Of opening earth, ingulph'd with all his waves ; High o'er the latent ftream the shepherd feeds His wandering flock, and tunes the sprightly reed: Till from fome rifted chafm the billows rife, And foaining burft tumultuous to the skies;

Then roaring dreadful o'er the delug'd plain,
Sweep herds and hinds in thunder to the main.

Bear me, ye friendly powers, to gentler fcenes,
To fhady bowers, and never-fading greens!
Where the fhrill trumpet never founds alarms,
Nor martial din is heard, nor clash of arms;
Hail ye foft feats! ye limpid springs and floods !
Ye flowery meads, ye vales, and woods!
Ye limpid floods, that ever murmuring flow
Ye verdaut meads, where flowers eternal blow!
Ye fhady vales, where zephyrs ever play!
Ye woods, where little warblers tune their lay!

Here grant me, heaven, to end my peaceful days,
And fteal myself from life by flow decays;
Draw health from food the temperate garden yields,
From fruit, or herb, the bounty of the fields;
Nor let the loaded table groan beneath
Slain animals, the horrid feast of death:
With age unknown to pain or forrow bleft,
To the dark grave retiring as to reft;
While gently with one figh this mortal frame
Diffolving turns to afhes whence it came,
While my freed foul departs without a groan,
And, joyful, wings her flight to worlds unknown.
Ye gloomy grots! ye awful folemn cells,
Where holy thoughtful Contemplation dwells,
Guard me from splendid cares and tiresome state,
That pompous mifery of being great!

Happy! if by the wife and tearn'd belov'd;
But happiest above all if felf-approv'd!

Con