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Ye winged, ye rapid moments! stay:
Oh, Friend! as deaf, as rapid, they:
Life's little drama done, the curtain falls!-
Dost thou not hear it? I can hear,

CONTAINING, I. THe british sailor's EXULTATION. Though nothing strikes the listening ear;

II. HIS PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.

DEDICATION TO MR. VOLTAIRE.

MY Muse, a bird of passage, flies From frozen clime to milder skies:

Time groans his last; Eternal loudly calls

Nor calls in vain; the call inspires

Far other counsels and desires,

Than once prevailed: we stand on higher What scenes we see!-Exalted aim!

From chilling blasts she seeks thy cheering beam, With ardours new on spirits flame;

A beam of favour here denied:

Conscious of faults, her blushing pride
Hopes an asylum in so great a name.

To dive full deep in ancient days,*
The warrior's ardent deeds to raise,
And monarchs aggrandize-the glory thine;
Thine is the drama, how renowned;
Thine Epic's loftier trump to sound;-
But let Arion's sea-strung harp be mine.
But where's his dolphin? knowest thou where?
May that be found in thee, Voltaire!

Save thou from harm my plunge into the wave:
How will thy name illustrious raise
My sinking song! Mere mortal lays,
So patronized, are rescued from the grave.

"Tell me," say'st thou, "who courts my smile?
What stranger strayed from yonder isle ?"—
No stranger Sir! though born in foreign climes;
On Dorset Downs, when Milton's page,
With Sin and Death provoked thy rage,
Thy rage provoked, wno soothed with gentle
rhymes.

Anna's of the Einperor Charles XII. Lewis XIV.

Ambition blessed! with more than laurels

ODE THE FIRST.

THE BRITISH SAILOR'S EXULTATI

IN lofty sounds let those delight
Who brave the foe, but fear the fight,
And bold in word, of arms decline the st
'Tis mean to boast, but great to lend
To foes the counsel of a friend,
And warn them of the vengeance they

From whence arise these loud alarms?
Why gleams the South with brandished
War, bathed in blood, from cursed ambitio
Ambition mean, ignoble pride!
Perhaps their ardours may subside,
When weighed the wonders Britain's s

Hear, and revere. At Britain's nod,
From each enchanted grove and wood,
Hastes the huge oak, or shapeless fores
The mountain pines assume new forms
Spread canvass wings, and fly through
And ride o'er rocks, and dance on foam

She nods again; the labouring earth
Discloses a tremendous birth;

In smoking rivers runs her molten ore!
Thence monsters of enormous size,
And hideous aspect, threatening rise;

Hosts whirled in air, the yell of sinking throngs

The graveless dead an ocean warmed,

A firmament by mortals stormed,

To patient Britain's angry brow belongs.

Or do I dream? or do I rave?

Flame from the deck, from trembling bastions roar. Or see I Vulcan's sooty cave,

These ministers of Fate fulfil,

On empires wide, an island's will,
When thrones unjust wake vengeance.

ye powers!

In sudden night, and ponderous balls, And floods of flame, the tempest falls,

Where Jove's red bolts the giant-brothers frame.
Those swarthy gods of toil and heat,

Know, Loud peals on mountain anvils beat,

When braved Britannia's awful senate lowers.

In her grand council she surveys,
In patriot picture, what may raise,
Of insolent attempts, a warm disdain;
From hope's triumphant summit thrown,
Like darted lightning, swiftly down

The wealth of Ind', and confidence of Spain.
Britannia sheaths her courage keen,
And spares her nitrous magazine;

Her cannon slumber, till the proud aspire,

And leave all law below them, then they blaze!
They thunder from resounding seas,
Touched by their injured master's soul of fire.
Then furies rise! the battle raves!

And rends the skies, and warms the waves!
And calls a tempest from the peaceful deep,
In spite of Nature, spite of Jove,
While all serene, and hushed above,
Tumultuous winds in azure chambers sleep.
A thousand deaths the bursting bomb
Hurls from her disemboweled womb;
Chained, glowing globes in dread alliance joined,
Red-winged by strong sulphureous blasts,
Sweep in black whirlwinds, men and masts,
And leave singed, naked, blood-drowned, decks be-
hind.

Dwarf laurels rise in tented fields;

The wreath immortal Ocean yields;
There War's whole sting is shot, whole fire is spent,
Whole glory blooms. How pale, how tame,
How lambent, is Bellona's flame!
How her storms languish on the Continent!
From the dread front of ancient war
Less terror frowned; her scythed car,
Her castled elephant, and battering beam,
Stoop to those engines which deny
Superior terrors to the sky,

And boast their clouds, their thunder, and their flame.

The flame, the thunder, and the cloud,

The night by day, the sea of blood,

• House of Lords,

And panting tempests rouse the roaring flame.
Ye sons of Etna! hear my call,
Unfinished let those baubles fall,
Yon shield of Mars, Minerva's helmet blue:
Your strokes suspend, ye brawny throng!
Charmed by the magic of my song,

Drop the feigned thunder, and attempt the true.

Begin; and, first take rapid flight,*
Fierce flame, and clouds of thickest night,

And ghastly terror, paler than the dead;
Then borrow from the North his roar,
Mix groans and death; one phial pour
Of wronged Britannia's wrath; and it is made;
Gaul starts and trembles—at your dreadful trade.

ODE THE SECOND.

IN WHICH IS

THE SAILOR'S PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT
So formed the bolt ordained to break
Gaul's haughty plan, and Bourbon shake,
If Britain's crimes support not Britain's foes,
And edge their swords. O power Divine!
If blessed by thee the bold design,
Embattled hosts a single arm o'erthrows.
Ye warlike dead! who fell of old
In Britain's cause, by Fame enrolled
In deathless annal! deathless deeds inspire:
From oozy beds, for Britain's sake,
Awake, illustrious Chiefs! awake,
And kindle in your sons paternal fire.
The day commissioned from above,
Our worth to weigh, our hearts to prove,
If war's full shock too feeble to sustain,
Or firm to stand its final blow,
When vital streams of blood shall flow,
And turn to crimson the discoloured main.

That day 's arrived, that fatal hour!
"Hear us, O hear, Almighty power!
Our guide in counsel, and our strength in fight
Now War's important dye is thrown,

If left the day to man alone,

How blind is Wisdom, and how weak is Might

Alluding to Virgil's description of thunder.

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