The doubling game the dauntless Scott pursues,
And, in the jaws of death, the fight renews;
Aloft in air, her tattered standards fly,
Low bends the stately mast, that pierc'd the sky;
Devouring flames consume the glowing deck,
And a third navy floats-a boundless wreck!
Gaul views, enrag'd, her strongest prop o'erthrown,
And into air her daring projects blown.
Rage, baffled Gaul, for thus, ere yonder sun,
Thrice his bright journey round the zodiac run,
In black disgrace shall all thy triumphs end,
And all thy tow'ring pride in smoke ascend.
The injur'd object of thy jealous hate,
Hurls at thy impious head the bolt of fate;
On outrag'd heaven's and man's determin'd foe,
Slow, but resistless, rolls the fatal blow!
Ye myriads, whom her direful thirst of blood
Plung'd in the rapid Rhone's empurpled flood,
Or from the cannon's rending mouth consign'd,
In mangled fragments to the blasting wind;
All whom dire Robespierre's unsparing rage
Crush'd in the blooming vigour of your age;
Or by succeeding Molocks dragg'd to death,
Who, in deep dungeons, drank infection's breath;
All, who by Hunger's pangs to madness fir'd,
On your own sabre's guiltless edge expir'd;
Or, to avoid unnumber'd horrors, quaff'd,
With pale and quiv'ring lips, th' empoison'd draught;
Shout from the grave!--in your, in Nature's cause,
Th' avenging sword insulted Britain draws!
See her bright ensigns blaze from shore to shore,
See her bold offspring round those ensigns pour ;
Her ancient nobles, warm with all the fires
That burn'd at Cressy in their daring sires ;
Her valiant knights, whose streaming banners show
Their blazon'd triumphs o'er the haughty foe;
Her gen'rous merchants, fam'd thro' every clime,
Of spotless faith, and dauntless soul sublime ;
Whose flags, thro' many a distant sea unfurl'd,
Uphold the commerce of the ravag'd world; —
In social bands remotest nations join,
Chill'd at the Pole, or scorch'd beneath the Line;
Patriots, to virtue dear, for freedom bold,
Who honor still, their proudest treasure, hold;
Her peasants glowing with a Briton's zeal,
Whose loyal hearts are oak, whose sinews steel;
All ranks, all ages, feel the high alarms,
At Glory's call, impatient rush to arms;
Ardent to meet a foe their souls disdain,
Conqu❜rors on shore, and sovereigns on the main !
To victory rush on, ye dauntless bands,
The fate of Europe trembles in your hands!
Oh! still for glory pant, for Britain burn,
Nor to the sheath the avenging blade return,
Till Liberty her trampled rights regain,
Till justice re-assume her ancient reign,
Till vanquished Gaul in blood her crimes bemoan,
And heaven's avenging arm repentant own;
Or, in the chains she forg'd for Europe, bound,
Spend her vain rage, and prostrate bite the ground!
Britons! the crisis of her fate draws near;
Advance your standards, launch th' avenging spear,
In radiant arms indissolubly join'd,
Your firmness hath subdu'd the world combin'd!
On JAMES IV. of Scotland, who fell at the Battle of Flodden, by T. CAMP BELL, Esq. (unpublished.)
WAS he that rul'd his country's heart,
With more than royal sway;
But Scotland saw her James depart,
And sadden'd at his stay.
She heard his fate-she wept her grief-
That James her lov'd, her gallant chief,
Was gone for ever more:
But this she learnt, that, ere he fell,
(Oh Men! oh Patriots! mark it well)
His fellow soldiers round his fall,
Enclos'd him like a living wall,
Mixing their kindred gore!
Nor was the day of Flodden done,
Till they were slaughter'd one by one;
And this may serve to shew:
When Kings are Patriots none will fly-
When such a King was doom'd to die,
Oh who would death forego* ?
* The gallant promise, made by our beloved monarch, that, in case of invasion, he would be found, in the hour of danger, at the head of his troops, gave birth to the above effusion.
On a Lady in Ickworth Church, Suffolk, by the Brother of the Deceased.
Lie the poor shrunk, yet dear remains of one,
With merit humble, and with virtue fair,
With knowledge modest, and with wit sincere ;
Upright in all the social paths of life,
The friend, the daughter, sister, and the wife-
So just the disposition of her soul,
Nature left reason nothing to control!
Firm, pious, patient; affable of mind;
Happy in life, and yet in death resign'd;
Just in the zenith of those golden days,
When the mind ripens, 'ere the form decays,
The hand of Fate unkindly cut her thread,
And left the world, to weep that virtue fled,
Its pride when living, and its grief when dead.
Addressed to Earl Nugent, by the late Dean of Cork, Ersckine, then Curate of Gosfield, his Lordship's Seat, in Essex. (unpublished.)
Not published in his Works, from "Hayley's Life of Cowper," 3d Vol.
URVIVOR sole, and hardly such, of all
That once lived here thy brethren, at my birth,
(Since which I number three scores winters past)
A shatter'd veteran, hollow trunk'd, perhaps,
and with excoriate forks, deform,
Relicts of ages! Could a mind, imbued
With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
I might with rev'rence kneel, and worship thee!
It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagin'd sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Lov'd not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscrib'd, as to a refuge, fled!
Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay,
Seeking her food, with case might have purloin'd
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs,
And all thy embryo vastness, at a gulp.
But fate thy growth decreed: autumnal rains,
Beneath thy parent tree, mellow'd the soil,
Design'd thy cradle, and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar'd
The soft receptacle, in which secure
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.
So fancy dreams-disprove it, if ye can
Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!
Thou fell'st mature, and in the loamy clod
Swelling with vegetable force, instinct
Did'st burst thine egg, as their's the fabled twins,
Now stars; two lobes protruding pair exact :
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And, all the elements thy puny growth
Fostering propitious, thou becam'st a twig.
Who liv'd when thou wast such? Oh! coulds't thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracular, I would not curious ask
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past!
By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, The clock of history, facts and events
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts
Recov'ring, and mis-stated setting right-
Desp'rate attempt till trees shall speak again!
Time made thee what thou wast-king of the woods! And time hath made thee what thou art--a cave For owls to roost in! Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign, and the numerous flock That grazed it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe sheltered from the storm. No flocks frequent thee now; thou hast outliv'd Thy popularity, and art become
(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth!
While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd
Of treeship-first a seedling hid in grass;
Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root
Upheav'd above the soil, and sides imboss'd
With prominent wens globose-till at the last
The rottenness, which time is charg'd to inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thee.
What exhibitions various hath the world
Witnessed, of mutability in all
That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them-skies uncertain, now the heat
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching, in a boundless sea of clouds-
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man,
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads,
Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation-yet sustain
The force that agitates not unimpair'd,
But worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.
Thought cannot spend itself comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state
Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence
Slow into such magnificent decay.
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