They breathe a foul to animate thy clay.

• Bright Rapture calls, and foaring, as the fings,

• Waves in the eye of Heav'n, her manycolour'd wings.

• The verse adorn again

• Fierce War, and faithful Love *,

• And Truth fevere, by fairy Fiction dreft, • In bufkin'd measures move t

• Pale Grief and pleasing Pain,

• With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

A Voice †, as of the Cherub-choir, ⚫ Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings || leffen on my ear, • That loft in long futurity expire.

Fierce wars and faithful loves fhall moralize my fong.

Spenfer's proeme to the Fairy Queen.

+ Shakespeare.

+++

Milton.

The fucceffion of Poets after Milton's time,

• Fond impious Man, think'ft thou yon fanguine cloud,

'Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the Orb of day!

To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

⚫ And warms the nations with redoubled ray. ⚫ Enough for me: with joy I fee

• The different doom our Fates affign: • Be thine Despair, and fceptred Care; • To triumph, and to die, are mine'. He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,

Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endlefs night.

THE

FATAL SISTERS.

AN OD E.

(From the NORSE-TONGUE,)

IN THE

ORCADES of THORMODUS, TORTÆUS; HAFNIÆ, 1797, Folio: and alfo in BARTHOLINUS.

Fitt er orpit fycir valfalli, &c,

BRITIST

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Author once had thoughts (in concert with a friend) of giving the Hiftory of English Poetry. In the Introduction to it he meant to have produced fome fpecimens of the style that reigned in ancient times among the neighbouring nations, or those who had fubdued the greater part of this Inland, and were our progenitors; the following three imitations made a part of them. He has long fince dropped his defign; especially, after he had heard, that it was already in the hands of a person well qualified to do it juftice, both by his taste and his researches into antiquity,

PREFACE.

In the eleventh century, Sigurd, Earl of the Orkney Islands, went with a fleet of fhips, and a confiderable body of troops, into Ireland, to the affiftance of Siatryg with the filken beard, who was then making war on his father-in-law Brian King of Dublin: the Earl and all his forces were cut to pieces, and Siftryg was in danger of a total defeat; but the enemy had a greater lofs by the death of Brian their King, who fell in the action. On Christmas-day, the day of the battle, a native of Caithness in Scotland, saw, at a distance, a number of perfons on horseback, riding full speed towards a hill, and feeming to enter into it. Curiofity led him to follow them, till looking through an opening in the rocks, he