BOADICEA,

AN ODE.

I.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,

11.

Sage beneath the fpreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.

Princefs! if our aged eyes

III.

Weep upon thy matchlefs wrongs,

'Tis because refentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

IV.

Rome fhall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has split;
Perifh, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

V.

Rome, for empire far renowned, Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride fhall kifs the groundHark! the Gaul is at her gates!

VI.

Other Romans fhall arife,

Heedlefs of a foldier's name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forefts of our land,

Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.

VIL

Regions Cæfar never knew

Thy pofterity shall sway;

Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.

IX.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celeftial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords

Of his fweet but awful lyre.

X.

She, with all a monarch's pride, Felt them in her bofom glow: Rufhed to battle, fought, and died; Dying hurled them at the foe.

XI.

Ruffians, pitilefs as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us beftowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

VOL. II.

HEROISM

THERE was a time when Ætna's filent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire ;
When, confcious of no danger from below,
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.
No thunders fhock with deep inteftine found
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple viñes
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, affured,
In peace upon her floping tides matured.
When on a day, like that of the laft doom,
A conflagration labouring in her womb,

She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rife,

And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,
While through the ftygian veil, that blots the day,
In dazzling ftreaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what mufe, and in what powers of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?

Havoc and devaftation in the van,

It marches o'er the proftrate works of man;
Vines, olives, herbage, forefts disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving feasons, fruitlefs as they pafs,
See it an uninforrned and idle mass;
Without a foil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.
Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unsafe retreats,
Oh charming paradife of fhort-lived fweets!
The felf-fame gale, that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the diftant ear a fullen found:

Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below.

Ten thousand fwains the wafted scene deplore,

That only future ages can reftore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who ftrike the blow, then plead your own defense," Glory your aim, but justice your pretence;

Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride infpires!