Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see That man hath yet a soul-and dare be free! A little while, along thy saddening plains, The starless night of Desolation reigns; Truth shall restore the light by Nature given, And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven! Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurl'd, Her name, wither'd from the world! her nature,

Ye that the rising morn invidious mark, And hate the light-because your deeds are dark; Ye that expanding truth invidious view, And think, or wish, the song of HOPE untrue; Perhaps your little hands presume to span The march of Genius, and the powers of man; Perhaps ye watch, at Pride's unhallow'd shrine, Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine:« Here shall thy triumph, Genius, cease; and here Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career.»

Tyrants! in vain ye trace the wizard ring; In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring: What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep, Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep? No!-the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand': It roll'd not back when Canute gave command!

Man! can thy doom no brighter soul allow? Still must thou live a blot on Nature's brow? Shall War's polluted banner ne'er be furl'd? Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world? What! are thy triumphs, sacred Truth, belied? Why then hath Plato lived-or Sidney died?

Ye fond adorers of departed fame,
Who warm at Scipio's worth, or Tully's name!
Ye that, in fancied vision, can admire
The sword of Brutus, and the Theban lyre!
Wrapt in historic ardour, who adore

Each classic haunt, and well-remember'd shore,
Where Valour tuned, amid her chosen throng,
The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song:
Or wandering thence, behold the later charms
Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms!
See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,
And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell!
Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,
Hath Valour left the world-to live no more?
No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,
And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye?
Hampden no more, when suffering Freedom calls,
Encounter Fate, and triumph as he falls;
Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm?

Yes! in that generous cause, for ever strong,
The patriot's virtue and the poet's song,
Still, as the tide of
ages rolls away,

Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!

Yes! there are hearts, Prophetic HOPE may trust,
That slumber yet in uncreated dust,
Ordain'd to fire th' adoring sons of earth
With every charm of wisdom and of worth;
Ordain'd to light, with intellectual day,
The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,

Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow, And rival all but Shakspeare's name below!

And say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan
Heaven's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man,
When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame,
That embryo spirit, yet without a name,—
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Lybian's adamantine bands?
Who, sternly marking on his native soil
The blood, the tears, the anguish and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!

cup,

Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day
That breaks
is far away;
your bitter
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,
And holy men give Scripture for the deed;
Scourged, and debased, no Briton stoops to save
A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave!

Eternal Nature' when thy giant hand
Had heaved the floods, and fix'd the trembling land,
When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee,
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil;
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamp'd us in a heavenly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge!
No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name, and weep!

Lo! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,
The quiver'd chief of Congo loved to reign;
With fires proportion'd to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scour'd with wild feet his sun-illumined zone,
The
spear, the hon, and the woods, his own!
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man!

The plunderer came!-alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles;
For ever fall'n! no son of Nature now,
With Freedom charter'd on his manly brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!

The shrill horn blew; (10) at that alarum knell His guardian angel took a last farewell! That funeral dirge to darkness hath resign'd The fiery grandeur of a generous mind! Poor fetter'd man! I hear thee whispering low Unhallow'd vows to Guilt, the child of Woe! Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbour there A wish but death-a passion but despair?

'The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires! So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh! So virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!

But not to Lybia's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!—
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!

How long your tribes have trembled and obey'd!
How long was Timour's iron sceptre sway'd, (11)
Whose marshall'd hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Raged o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory scymitar,-
Stunn'd with the cries of death each gentle gale,
And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale!
Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,
When Brama's children perish'd for his name;
The martyr smiled beneath avenging power,
And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour!

When Europe sought your subject realms to gain, And stretch'd her giant sceptre o'er the main, Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape, And braved the stormy spirit of the Cape; (12) Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye? Did Peace descend, to triumph and to save, When freeborn Britons cross'd the Indian wave? Ah, no!-to more than Rome's ambition true, The nurse of Freedom gave it not to you! She the bold route of Europe's guilt began, And, in the march of nations, led the van!

Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone, And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own, Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries; Could lock, with impious hands, their teeming store, While famish'd nations died along the shore: (13) Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair; Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name, And barter, with their gold, eternal shame!

But hark! as bow'd to earth the Bramin kneels, From heavenly climes propitious thunder peals; Of India's fate her guardian spirits tell, Prophetic murmurs breathing on the shell, And solemn sounds that awe the list'ning mind, Roll on the azure paths of every wind.

Foes of mankind! (her guardian spirits say,)
Revolving ages bring the bitter day,

When Heaven's unerring arm shall fall on you,
And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew;
Nine times have Brama 's wheels of lightning hurl'd
His awful presence o'er the alarmed world; (14)
Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame,
Convulsive trembled, as the Mighty came;
Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain-
But Heaven shall burst her starry gates again!
He comes! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring wrath, and thunders from on high,
Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form,
Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm!
Wide waves his flickering sword; his bright arms glow
Like summer suns, and light the world below!

Earth, and her trembling isles in Ocean's bed, Are shook; and Nature rocks beneath his tread!

« To pour redress on India's injured realm, The oppressor to dethrone, the proud to whelm; To chase destruction from her plunder'd shore With arts and arms that triumph'd once before, The tenth Avatar comes! at Heaven's command Shail Seriswattee wave her hallow'd wand! And Camdeo bright, and Ganesa sublime, (15) Shall bless with joy their own propitious clime!Come, Heavenly Powers! primeval peace restore! Love!-Mercy!-Wisdom!-rule for evermore!»

PART II.

ANALYSIS.

APOSTROPHE to the power of Love-its intimate connection with generous and social Sensibility-allusion to that beautiful passage in the beginning of the book of Genesis, which represents the happiness of Paradise itself incomplete, till love was superadded to its other blessings-the dreams of future felicity which a lively imagination is apt to cherish, when hope is animated by refined attachment-this disposition to combine, in one imaginary scene of residence, all that is pleasing in our estimate of happiness, compared to the skill of the great artist who personified perfect beauty, in the picture of Venus, by an assemblage of the most beautiful features he could find-a summer and winter evening described, as they may be supposed to arise in the mind of one who wishes, with enthusiasm, for the union of friendship and retirement.

Hope and Imagination inseparable agents-even in those contemplative moments when our imagination wanders beyond the boundaries of this world, our minds are not unattended with an impression that we shall some day have a wider and distinct prospect of the universe, instead of the partial glimpse we now enjoy.

The last and most sublime influence of Hope is the concluding topic of the poem-the predominance of a belief in a future state over the terrors attendant on dissolution-the baneful influence of that sceptical philosophy which bars us from such comforts-allusion to the fate of a suicide-episode of Conrad and Ellenore -conclusion.

IN joyous youth, what soul hath never known
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own?
Who hath not paused while Beauty's pensive eye
Ask'd from his heart the homage of a sigh?
Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,
The
power of grace, the magic of a name?

There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow,
Cold as the rocks on Torneo's hoary brow!
There be, whose loveless wisdom never fail'd,
In self-adoring pride securely mail'd:-
But, triumph not, ye peace-enamour'd few!
Fire, Nature, Genius, never dwelt with you!
For you no fancy conseerates the scene
Where rapture utter'd vows, and wept between ;
T is yours, unmoved, to sever and to meet;
No pledge is sacred, and no home is sweet!

Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed, The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead? No; the wild bliss of Nature needs alloy, And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy! And say, without our hopes, without our fears, Without the home that plighted love endears, Without the smile from partial beauty won, Oh! what were man?-a world without a sun.

Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour, There dwelt no joy in Eden's bower! rosy In vain the viewless seraph lingering there, At starry midnight charm'd the silent air; In vain the wild-bird caroll'd on the steep, To hail the sun, slow wheeling from the deep; In vain, to soothe the solitary shade, Aerial notes in mingling measure play'd; The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;— Still slowly pass'd the melancholy day, And still the stranger wist not where to stray. The world was sad!—the garden was a wild! Aud man, the hermit, sighi'd-till woman smiled!

True, the sad power to generous hearts may bring Delirious anguish on his fiery wing; Barr'd from delight by fate's untimely hand, By wealthless lot, or pitiless command; Or doom'd to gaze on beauties that adorn The smile of triumph or the frown of scorn; While Memory watches o'er the sad review, Of joys that faded like the morning dew; Peace may depart-and life and nature seem A barren path, a wildness, and a dream!

But can the noble mind for ever brood,
The willing victim of a weary mood,
On heartless cares that squander life away,
And cloud young Genius brightening into day?-
Shame to the coward thought that e'er betray'd
The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade!—(16)
If HOPE's creative spirit cannot raise

One trophy sacred to thy future days,

Scorn the dull crowd that haunt the gloomy shrine,
Of hopeless love to murmur and repine!
But, should a sigh of milder mood express
Thy heart-warm wishes, true to happiness,
Should Heaven's fair harbinger delight to pour
Her blissful visions on thy pensive hour,
No tear to blot thy memory's pictured page,
No fears but such as fancy can assuage:
Though thy wild heart some hapless hour may miss
The peaceful tenor of unvaried bliss
(For love pursues an ever-devious race,
True to the winding lineaments of grace);
Yet still may IOPE her talisman employ
To snatch from Heaven anticipated joy,
And all her kindred energies impart
That burn the brightest in the purest heart.

When first the Rhodian's mimic art array'd The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade, The happy master mingled on his piece Each look that charm'd him in the fair of Greece. To faultless Nature true, he stole a grace From every finer form and sweeter face;

And as he sojourn'd on the Ægean isles,
Woo'd all their love, and treasured all their smiles;
Then glow'd the tints, pure, precious, and refined,
And mortal charms seem'd heavenly when combined!
Love on the picture smiled! Expression pour'd
Her mingling spirit there-and Greece adored!

So thy fair hand, enamour'd Fancy! gleans
The treasured pictures of a thousand scenes;
Thy pencil traces on the lover's thought
Some cottage-home, from towns and toil remote,
Where love and lore may claim alternate hours,
With Peace embosom'd in Idalian bowers!
Remote from busy Life's bewilder'd way,
O'er all his heart shall Taste and Beauty sway!
Free on the sunny slope, or winding shore,
With hermit steps to wander and adore!
There shall he love, when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears,
To watch the brightening roses of the sky,
And nuse on Nature with a poet's eye!—
And when the sun's last splendour lights the deep,
The woods and waves, and murmuring winds asleep;
When fairy harps th' Hesperian planet hail,
And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale,
His path shall be where streamy mountains swell
Their shadowy grandeur o'er the narrow dell,
Where mouldering piles and forests intervene,
Mingling with darker tints the living green;
No circling hills his ravish'd eye to bound,
Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, blazing all around.

The moon is up-the watch-tower dimly burnsAnd down the vale his sober step returns; But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey The still sweet fall of music far away; And oft he lingers from his home awhile To watch the dying notes!—and start, and smile!

Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep
The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the wither'd heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm,
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er,
The ice-chain'd waters slumbering on the shore,
How bright the faggots in his little hall
Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall!

How blest he names, in Love's familiar tone,
The kind fair friend, by Nature mark'd his own;
And, in the waveless mirror of his mind,
Views the fleet years of pleasure left behind,
Since Anna's empire o'er his heart began!
Since first he call'd her his before the holy man!