Life rising still on life, in higher tone,
Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss.
In universal nature this clear shown,

Nor needeth proof; to prove it were, I wis, To prove the beauteous world excels the brute abyss.

"Is not the field with lively culture green,
A sight more joyous than the dead morass?
Do not the skies, with active ether clean,
And fann'd by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass
The foul November fogs, and slumberous mass,
With which sad Nature veils her drooping face?
Does not the mountain-stream, as clear as glass,
Gay dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace?

The same in all holds true, but chief in human

"Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given!
Health is the vital principle of bliss,

And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch, who slugs his life away,
Soon swallow'd in disease's sad abyss;

While he whom toil has brac'd, or manly play, Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.

Yet down his cheeks the gems of pity fell, To see the helpless wretches that remain'd, There left through delves and deserts dire to yell; Amaz'd, their looks with pale dismay were stain'd, And spreading wide their hands they meek repentance feign'd.

But, ah! their scorned day of grace was past:
For (horrible to tell!) a desert wild
Before them stretch'd, bare, comfortless, and vast,
With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defil'd.
There nor trim field, nor lively culture, smil'd;
Nor waving shade was seen, nor fountain fair;
But sands abrupt on sands lay loosely pil'd,
Through which they floundering toil'd with pain-
ful care,

Whilst Phoebus smote them sore, and fir'd the cloudless air.

Then, varying to a joyless land of bogs,
The sadden'd country a grey waste appear'd;
Where nought but putrid streams and noisome fogs
For ever hung on drizzly Auster's beard;
Or else the ground, by piercing Caurus sear'd,
Was jagg'd with frost, or heap'd with glazed

snow;

Through these extremes a ceaseless round they steer'd,

By cruel fiends still hurried to and fro, Gaunt Beggary, and Scorn, with many hell-hounds

moe.

The first was with base dunghill rags yclad, Tainting the gale, in which they flutter'd light; Of morbid hue his features, sunk, and sad; His hollow eyne shook forth a sickly light; And o'er his lank jaw-bone, in piteous plight, His black rough beard was matted rank and vile; Direful to see! an heart-appalling sight! Meantime foul scurf and blotches him defile; And dogs, where'er he went, still barked all the

while.

The other was a fell despiteful fiend: Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below: By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancor keen'd; Of man alike, if good or bad, the foe: With nose up-turn'd, he always made a show As if he smelt some nauseous scent; his eye Was cold, and keen, like blast from boreal snow; And taunts he casten forth most bitterly. Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly fry.

Ev'n so through Brentford town, a town of mud,
An herd of bristly swine is prick'd along;
The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud,
Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous

song,

And oft they plunge themselves the mire among: But aye the ruthless driver goads them on, And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng Makes them renew their unmelodious moan; Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone.

ANCIENT AND MODERN ITALY COMPARED :

BEING THE FIRST PART OF LIBERTY,

A POEM.

The Contents of Part I.

The following poem is thrown into the form of a poetical vision. Its scene the ruins of ancient Rome. The goddess of Liberty, who is supposed to speak through the whole, appears, characterized as British Liberty. Gives a view of ancient Italy, and particularly of republican Rome, in all her magnificence and glory. This contrasted by modern Italy; its valleys, mountains, culture, cities, people: the difference appearing strongest in the capital city, Rome. The ruins of the great works of Liberty more magnificent than the borrowed pomp of Oppression; and from them revived Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture. The old Romans apostrophized, with regard to the several melancholy changes in Italy: Horace, Tully, and Virgil, with regard to their Tibur, Tusculum, and Naples. That once finest and most ornamented part of Italy, all along the coast of Baïæ, how changed. This desolation of Italy applied to Britain. Address to the goddess of Liberty, that she would deduce from the first ages, her chief establishments, the description of which constitutes the subject of the following parts of this poem. She assents, and commands what she says to be sung in Britain; whose happiness, arising from freedom, and a limited monarchy, she marks. An immediate vision attends, and paints her words. Invocation.

O MY lamented Talbot! while with thee

The Muse gay rov'd the glad Hesperian round,
And drew th' inspiring breath of ancient arts;
Ah! little thought she her returning verse
Should sing our darling subject to thy shade.
And does the mystic veil, from mortal beam,
Involve those eyes where every virtue smil'd,
And all thy father's candid spirit shone?
The light of reason, pure, without a cloud;
Full of the generous heart, the mild regard ;
Honor disdaining blemish, cordial faith,
And limpid truth, that looks the very soul.
But to the death of mighty nations turn,
My strain; be there absorpt the private tear.

Musing, I lay; warm from the sacred walks,
Where at each step imagination burns:
While scatter'd wide around, awful, and hoar,
Lies, a vast monument, once glorious Rome,
The tomb of empire! ruins! that efface
Whate'er, of finish'd, modern pomp can boast.
Snatch'd by these wonders to that world where
thought

Unfetter'd ranges, Fancy's magic hand
Led me anew o'er all the solemn scene,
Still in the mind's pure eye more solemn drest.
When straight, methought, the fair majestic power
Of Liberty appear'd. Not, as of old,
Extended in her hand the cap, and rod,
Whose slave-enlarging touch gave double life:

But her bright temples bound with British oak,
And naval honors nodded on her brow.
Sublime of port: loose o'er her shoulder flow'd
Her sea-green robe, with constellations gay.
An island-goddess now; and her high care
The queen of isles, the mistress of the main.
My heart beat filial transport at the sight;
And, as she mov'd to speak, th' awaken'd Muse
Listen'd intense. Awhile she look'd around,
With mournful eye the well-known ruins mark'd,
And then, her sighs repressing, thus began.

"Mine are these wonders, all thou see'st is
mine;

But, ah, how chang'd! the falling poor remains
Of what exalted once th' Ausonian shore.
Look back through time; and, rising from the gloom,
Mark the dread scene, that paints whate'er I say.
"The great republic see! that glow'd, sublime,
With the mixt freedom of a thousand states:
Rais'd on the thrones of kings her curule chair,
And by her fasces aw'd the subject world.
See busy millions quickening all the land,
With cities throng'd, and teeming culture high:
For Nature then smil'd on her free-born sons,
And pour'd the plenty that belongs to men.
Behold, the country cheering, villas rise,
In lively prospect;-by the secret lapse

Of brooks now lost and streams renown'd in song:
In Umbria's closing vales, or on the brow
Of her brown hills that breathe the scented gale
On Baïa's viny coast; where peaceful seas,
Fann'd by kind zephyrs, ever kiss the shore;
And suns unclouded shine, through purest air:
Or in the spacious neighborhood of Rome;
Far-shining upward to the Sabine hills,
'To Anio's roar, and Tibur's olive shade;
To where Præneste lifts her airy brow;
Or downward spreading to the sunny shore,
Where Alba breathes the freshness of the main.
"See distant mountains leave their valleys dry,
And o'er the proud arcade their tribute pour,
To lave imperial Rome. For ages laid,
Deep, massy, firm, diverging every way,
With tombs of heroes sacred, see her roads:
By various nations trod, and suppliant kings;
With legions flaming, or with triumph gay.
"Full in the centre of these wondrous works,
The pride of Earth! Rome in her glory see!
Behold her demigods, in senate met;
All head to counsel, and all heart to act:
The common-weal inspiring every tongue
With fervent eloquence, unbrib'd, and bold;
Ere tame corruption taught the servile herd
To rank obedient to a master's voice.

"Her forum see, warm, popular, and loud,
In trembling wonder hush'd, when the two sires,*
As they, the private father greatly quell'd,
Stood up the public fathers of the state.
See Justice judging there, in human shape.
Hark, how with Freedom's voice it thunders high,
Or in soft murmurs sinks to Tully's tongue.
“Her tribes, her census, see; her generous troops,
Whose pay was glory, and their best reward,
Free for their country and for me to die;
Ere mercenary murder grew a trade.

"Mark, as the purple triumph waves along, The highest pomp and lowest fall of life. "Her festive games, the school of heroes, see;

* L. J. Brutus, and Virginius.

Her circus, ardent with contending youth;
Her streets, her temples, palaces, and baths,
Full of fair forms, of beauty's eldest-born,
And of a people cast in virtue's mould.
While sculpture lives around, and Asian hills
Lend their best stores to heave the pillar'd dome
All that to Roman strength the softer touch
Of Grecian art can join. But language fails
To paint this sun, this centre of mankind;
Where every virtue, glory, treasure, art,
Attracted strong, in heighten'd lustre met.

"Need I the contrast mark? unjoyous view!
A land in all, in government, in arts,
In virtue, genius, earth and heaven, revers'a,
Who but, these far-fam'd ruins to behold,
Proofs of a people, whose heroic aims
Soar'd far above the little selfish sphere
Of doubting modern life; who but, inflam'd
With classic zeal, these consecrated scenes
Of men and deeds to trace,-unhappy land,
Would trust thy wilds, and cities loose of sway?
"Are these the vales, that, once, exulting states
In their warm bosom fed? the mountains these,
On whose high-blooming sides my sons, of old,
I bred to glory? the dejected towns,
Where, mean, and sordid, life can scarce subsist,
The scenes of ancient opulence, and pomp?

"Come! by whatever sacred name disguis'd, Oppression, come' and in thy works rejoice! See Nature's richest plains to putrid fens Turn'd by thy fury. From their cheerful bounds, She raz'd th' enlivening village, farm, and seat. First, rural toil, by thy rapacious hand Robb'd of his poor reward, resign'd the plow; And now he dares not turn the noxious glebe. "Tis thine entire. The lonely swain himself, Who loves at large along the grassy downs His flocks to pasture, thy drear champain flies. Far as the sickening eye can sweep around. "Tis all one desert, desolate, and grey, Graz'd by the sullen buffalo alone; And where the rank uncultivated growth Of rotting ages taints the passing gale, Beneath the baleful blast the city pines, Or sinks enfeebled, or infected burns. Beneath it mourns the solitary road, Roll'd in rude mazes o'er th' abandon'd waste; While ancient ways, ingulf'd, are seen no more. "Such thy dire plains, thou self-destroyer! foe To human-kind! Thy mountains too, profuse, Where savage nature blooms, seem their sad plais To raise against thy desolating rod. There on the breezy brow, where thriving states, And famous cities, once, to the pleas'd Sun, Far other scenes of rising culture spread, Pale shine thy ragged towns. Neglected round, Each harvest pines; the livid, lean produce Of heartless labor: while thy hated joys, Not proper pleasure, lift the lazy hand. Better to sink in sloth the woes of life, Than wake their rage with unavailing toil. Hence drooping Art almost to Nature leaves The rude unguided year. Thin wave the gifts Of yellow Ceres, thin the radiant blush Of orchard reddens in the warmest ray. To weedy wildness run, no rural wealth (Such as dictators fed) the garden pours. Crude the wild olive flows, and foul the vine; Nor juice Cœcubian, nor Falernian, more, Streams life and joy, save in the Muse's bowl.