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With her wit she engages the free,
With her modesty pleases the grave;

She is ev'ry way pleasing to me.

Doch könnte man die erstern vier als Daktylen mit Auftakt lesen. Ueberhaupt darf man es mit der Scansion nicht sehr streng nehmen, wie diese wenigen Beispiele beweisen.

National Songs.

God save the King.

God save great George our King!
Long live our noble King!

God save the King!

Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the King?

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies,

And let them fall!

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks;
On him our hope we fix:

God save us all!

The choicest gifts in store,
On George be pleased to pour
Long may he reign!

May he defend our laws,

And ever give us cause,

With heart and voice to sing,

God save the King!

O grant him long to see
Friendship and amity
Always increase,

May he his sceptre sway,

All loyal souls obey,

Join heart and voice Huzza!

God save the King!

Rule Britannia.

When Britain first at Heav'ns command

Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,
And guardian Angels sung this strain:

Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule Britannia, &c. &c.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast, that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Rule Britannia, &c. &c.

The haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy gen'rous flame,
But work their woe and thy renown.
Rule Britannia, &c. &c.

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles, thine.
Rule Britannia, &c. &c.

The muses still with freedom found,

Shall to thy happy coasts repair,

Blest Isle with matchless beauties crown'd,

And manly hearts to guard the fair.

Rule Britannia, &c. &c.

Other Songs.

The Hermit.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove:
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began;
To more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

Ah! why, all abandoned to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay;
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn;
O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:
Full quickly they pass but they never return.

«Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The Moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays:

But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again.
But man's faded glory what change shall renew?
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain! >>

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew:
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,

My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

«O pity, great Father of light!» then I cried,

<<Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee: Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.»>

And darkness and doubt are now flying away;

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn:

So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,

And Nature, all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

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For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,

And last of all thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,

When every thing that is sincerely good,

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne

Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly guided soul shall climb;
Then all this earthy grossness quit,

Beattie.

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time!

Milton.

Hymn to Contentment.
Lovely, lasting peace of mind!
Sweet delight of human kind!
Heavenly born, and bred on high,
To crown the favourites of the sky
With more of happiness below,
Than victors in a triumph know!
Whither, O whither art thou fled,
To lay thy meek, contented head?
What happy region dost thou please
To make the seat of calms and ease?

Ambition searches all its sphere
Of pomp and state, to meet thee there.
Increasing Avarice would find

Thy presence in its gold enshrined.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
To gain thy love; and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves.
The silent heart which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales;
Sees daisies open, rivers run,
And seeks (as I have vainly done)
Amusing thought; but learns to know
That Solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground:
Or in a soul exalted high,
To range the circuit of the sky,
Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below;
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
And doubts at last for knowledge rise.

<< Lovely, lasting Peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden bless'd,
And man contains it in his breast.>>

'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,

I sung my wishes to the wood,
And, lost in thought, no more perceived
The branches whisper as they waved:
It seem'd, as all the quiet place

Confess'd the presence of the Grace;
When thus she spoke

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Go, rule thy will, Bid thy wild passions all be still; Know God

and bring thy heart to know

The joys which from religion flow:

Then every Grace shall prove its guest,

And I'll be there to crown the rest.>>

O! by yonder mossy seat,

In my hours of sweet retreat;
Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy:

Raised as ancient prophets were,
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleased and bless'd with God alone:
Then, while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight;
While silver waters glide along,

To please my ear, and court my song;
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of Nature! sing.

The sun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day;
The moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves:
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of these and all I see,

Should be sung, and sung by me:
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy, or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,
Or own the next begun in this.

Messiah,

A Sacred Eclogue.

In Imitation of Virgil's Pollio.

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more O thou my voice inspire
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!

Rapt into future times, the bard begun;
A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic dove.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
O spring to light, auspicious babe! be born.

Parnell.

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