WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. But dearly must we prize thee; we who find In thee a bulwark of the cause of men; And I by my affection was beguiled. WORDSWORTH. THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that reg ulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the Departing Year, &c. as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. I. SPIRIT Who Sweepest the wild harp of Time! With inward stillness, and a bowed mind; I saw the train of the departing Year! Then with no unholy madness Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796 and was first published on the last day of that year. II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish ! Or where, his two bright torches blending, Love illumines manhood's maze; Or where o'er cradled infants bending Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the hand Raises its fateful strings from sleep, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth, Weep and rejoice! Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell, III. I marked Ambition in his war-array! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin choked the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Rush around her narrow dwelling! Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb. IV. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone. From the choired gods advancing, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, V. Throughout the blissful throng, Hushed were harp and song: Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make : The fervent Spirit bowed, 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 |