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The scourge of heaven! What terrors round him wait! Amazement in his van with Flight combined,

And Sorrow's faded form and Solitude behind.

Mighty victor! mighty lord!

Low on his funeral couch he lies:

No pitying heart, no eye, afford

A tear to grace his obsequies ?
Is the sable warrior fled?

Thy son is gone he rests among the dead.

The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born?

Gone to salute the rising Morn.

Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm

In gallant trim a gilded vessel goes :

Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm,

Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,

That hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey.

"Fill high the sparkling bowl!

The rich repast prepare!

Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast :

Close by the regal chair,

Fell Thirst and Famine scowl

A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.

Heard ye the din of battle bray,

Lance to lance, and horse to horse?

Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye towers of Julius! London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek usurper's holy head!
Above, below, the rose of snow
Twined with her blushing foe we spread :
The bristled boar in infant gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

Now, brothers! bending o'er the accursed loom,

Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom!

"Edward! lo, to sudden fate

Weave we the woof! the thread is spun :—

Half of thy heart we consecrate.

The web is wove : the work is done.

Stay! O stay! nor thus forlorn

Leave me, unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn :
In yon bright track that fires the western skies
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But O! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll!
Visions of glory! spare my aching sight;
Ye unborn ages! crowd not on my soul.
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail :
All hail! ye genuine kings!

"Girt with many a baron bold,

Britannia's issue, hail!

Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.

In the midst a form divine!

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton Line,
Her lion port, her awe-commanding face
Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.

What strings symphonious tremble in the air!
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin! hear!

They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.

Bright Rapture, calls and, soaring as she sings,

Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings.

"The verse adorn again!

Fierce War, and faithful Love,

And Truth severe by fairy Fiction dress'd,

In buskin'd measures move,

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 lessen on my ear,

That lost in long futurity expire.

Fond impious Man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised 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 see

The different doom our fates assign :

Be thine despair and sceptred care!

To triumph and to die are mine."—

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

Daughter of Jove! relentless Power!
Thou tamer of the human breast!
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best :
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth
And bade thee form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore :

What sorrow was thou badest her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

With Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy;
And leave us leisure to be good :

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer Friend, the flattering Foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend,-

Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

O, gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread Goddess! lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band,

(As by the impious thou art seen

With thundering voice and threatening mien),
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty !

Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart ;
Thy philosophic train be there,
To soften, not to wound my heart!
The generous spark extinct revive!
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

1721-1759.

TO EVENING.

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, O pensive Eve! to soothe thine ear
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs and dying gales,

O Nymph reserved! while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent whose cloudy skirts
With brede etherial wove

O'erhang his wavy bed,

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,—
Now teach me, Maid composed!

To breathe some soften'd strain :

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return.

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still
The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;