TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. ON THE THREATENED INVASION. BY DR. CHARLES BURNEY. ARM, Britons, arm! Your Country's cause, Shall He, with virtues amply known, Who menace death or slavery round our shore? Foes to your King, your Country, and your God! Shall We, who boast a Briton's name, King, Lords, and Commons, levell'd low, - Shall We, whose Laws our rights secure, . By Sires whose souls were stamp'd in Freedom's mould? No:-tread the path which erst your Fathers trod: No proud Dictator Britain knows: Foes to your King, your Country, and your God! Shall We Religion's voice neglect: Her duties spurn, her Word reject; While Priests by ruthless steel expire, And Temples sink, involv'd in Atheist fire ? No: tread the path which erst your Fathers trod: The learn'd and pious Sons of pray'r From Foes protect, with grateful care, Foes to your King, your Country, and your God! Shall We, whom Wedlock's bands entwine, And Memory lives to paint endearments past? No:-tread the path which erst your Fathers trod : Shall We, who've fondly watch'd each grace Now prematurely fix their doom, While murderous rites pollute the Victim's tomb? The trumpet sounds! Ye British Host, Friends to your King, your Country, and your God! Go-you may call it madness, folly, Oh! if you knew the pensive pleasure, S. R. ODE THE ABOLITION OF CATHOLICISM. Written on learning the Arrival of the French at Rome in 1798. ON consecrated ground Their trampled graves around, Ghosts of the good, their midnight moanings vent; Yon vacant ailes among, Where kneel'd the christian throng, Voices of weeping stray with strange lament, A dew from the chill marble breaks, While each peculiar pow'r its long-wont seat forsakes. The quaking altars round, A drear and dying sound Dismays the priest amid his mutter'd toil: Beside the golden shrine Expires the taper's shine, The guardian saints with wailings thence recoil; As were it their unwilling doom Thro' the aërial waste to rove in lonely gloom. Celestial groves of palm, Laden with sighs, the gales of Eden flow; Tears such as angels weep The unfading amaranth steep; The living waters slide more sad and slow; Mute to the sweeping hand, and on the willows hung. In coarser sackcloth fold Thy limbs of dainty mould; Fling further off thine essenc'd kerchiefs sweet; With brinier tears embathe, With looser tresses swathe, Fair Magdalena, thy lov'd prophet's feet: Forgot is now, by man below, The life of matchless love, the death of matchless woe. Nor James, nor sworded Paul, Watch in the cross-shap'd hall: Nor the first martyr of a madding crowd. Back to the desert-air Unmet shall he repair, Who guided throngs to Jordan's cleansing flood. His crown of glory sheds a paler, bluer ray. Cecilia's bright-hair'd band Of pupil cherubs stand, With veiling wings their drooping heads concealing: To hymns of praise and joy Their closed lips are coy; To anthems high in echoing air far pealing. Hush'd is her soul-dissolving tongue, Nor floats aloof her proud-voic'd organ's rolling song. |