O GOD, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,

Are past the powers of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.

Now let me sit beneath the whitening

thorn

And mark thy spreading tints steal o'er the dale,

And watch with patient eye
Thy fair unfolding charms.

O nymph, approach! while yet the temperate sun

With bashful forehead through the cool moist air

Throws his young maiden beams,
And with chaste kisses woos

The earth's fair bosom; while the streaming veil

Of lucid clouds with wind and frequent

shade

Protects thy modest blooms From his severer blaze.

Sweet is thy reign, but short:- the red dog-star

Shall scorch thy tresses, and the mower's scythe

Thy greens, thy flowerets all
Remorseless shall destroy.

Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell:

For O not all that Autumn's lap contains,

Nor Summer's ruddiest fruits,
Can aught for thee atone,

Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights

Than all their largest wealth, and through the heart

Each joy and new-born hope
With softest influence breathes.

LIFE.

“Animula, vagula, biandula."
LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.

But this I know, when thou art fled
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,

Ah, tell where I must seek this compo and I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame
From whence thy essence came
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when
freed

From matter's base encumbering
weed?

Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour

To break thy trance and reassume thy power?

Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?

O say what art thou when no more thou'rt thee?

Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'Tis hard to part when friends are
dear;

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;

Say not Good night, but in some brighter

clime

Bid me Good morning.

1794

AN ODE, IN IMITATION OF
ALCEUS.

WHAT constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlement or labor'd mound,

Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd:

Not bays and broad-arm'd ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;

Not starr'd and spangled courts, Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No: men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endured

In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;

Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,

Prevent the long-aim'd blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:

These constitute a state, And sovereign Law, that state's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill;

Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend Discretion like a vapor sinks, And e'en the all-dazzling Crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore !

No more shall Freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?

Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave,

'Tis folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the silent grave.

A PERSIAN SONG OF HAFIZ. SWEET maid, if thou would'st charm my sight,

And bid these arms thy neck enfold;
That rosy cheek, that lily hand,
Would give thy poet more delight
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.

Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow,

And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
Whate'er the frowning zealots say:
Tell them, their Eden cannot show
A stream so clear as Rocnabad,
A bower so sweet as Mosellay.

O! when these fair perfidious maids
Whose eyes our secret haunts infest,
Their dear destructive charms display,
Each glance my tender breast invades
And robs my wounded soul of rest,
As Tartars seize their destined prey.

In vain with love our bosoms glow:
Can all our tears, can all our sighs,
New lustre to those charms impart?
Can cheeks, where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dyes,
Require the borrow'd gloss of art?