IV.

Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye MEMORY sits: thy robe inscrib'd with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er th' etherial multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choired Gods advancing,

The SPIRIT of the EARTH made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

V.

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hush'd were harp and song :

Till wheeling round the throne the LAMPADS Seven,

(The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make;

The fervent Spirit bow'd, then spread his wings and spake !

"Thou in stormy blackness throning

"Love and uncreated Light,

"By the Earth's unsolaced groaning, "Seize thy terrors, Arm of might! "By Peace, with proffer'd insult scar'd, "Masked Hate and envying Scorn!

"By Years of Havoc yet unborn! "And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! "But chief by Afric's wrongs,

"Strange, horrible, and foul!

"By what deep guilt belongs

"To the deaf Synod, full of gifts and lies!'

By Wealth's insensate laugh! by Torture's howl!

"Avenger, rise!

"For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,

"Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow ?

"Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud! "And on the darkling foe

"Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!

"O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!

"The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! "Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! "Rise, God of Nature! rise."

VI.

The voice had ceased, the vision fled;

Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.

And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;
My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims:

Wild is the tempest of my heart;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of Death!

No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread,

When all foredone with toil and wounds.

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead !

(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See the starting wretch's head

Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse !)

VII.

Not yet enslav'd, not wholly vile,

O Albion! O my mother Isle !
Thy vallies, fair as Eden's bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers;
Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells

Echo to the bleat of flocks;

(Those grassy hills, those glitt'ring dells
Proudly ramparted with rocks)
And OCEAN mid his uproar wild
Speaks safety to his ISLAND-CHILD!

Hence, for many a fearless age,

Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore;

Nor ever proud Invader's rage

Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.

VIII.

Abandon'd of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide,
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride-

Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood,
And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!
The nations curse thee, and with eager wond'ring
Shall hear DESTRUCTION, like a vulture, scream!
Strange-eyed DESTRUCTION! who with many a dream
Of central fires thro' nether seas upthund'ring
Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies
By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise,

The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep.

IX.

Away, my soul, away !

In vain, in vain the Birds of warning singAnd hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my soul, away !

I unpartaking of the evil thing,

With daily prayer and daily toil

Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

Have wailed my country with a loud Lament. Now I recenter my immortal mind

In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.