XX.

OCTOBER, 1803.

THESE times strike monied worldlings with dismay :

Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air

With words of apprehension and despair: While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,

Men unto whom sufficient for the day And minds not stinted cr untilled are given,

Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,

Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual
breath;

That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital,-and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and

death?

So did she daunt the Earth, and God defy!

And, wheresoe'er she spread her sover. eignty, Pollution tainted all that was most pure.

And honor which they do not understand.

XXVIII. ODE. I.

WHO rises on the banks of Seine, And binds her temples with the civic wreath?

What joy to read the promise of her mien! How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath!

But they are ever playing, And twinkling in the light, And, if a breeze be straying, That breeze she will invite; And stands on tiptoe, conscious she is fair, And calls a look of love into her face. And spreads her arms, as if the general air Alone could satisfy her wide embrace. -Melt, Principalities, before her melt! Her love ye hailed-her wrath have felt! But She through many a change of form

hath gone,

And stands amidst you now an armèd crea ture,

Whose panoply is not a thing put on,
But the live scales of a portentous nature;

tell

And of that joy which shook the Isthmian Field,

The rough Etolians smiled with bitter

scorn.

"'Tis known," cried they, "that he who would adorn

His envied temples with the Isthmian crown
Must either win, through effort of his own,
The prize, or be content to see it worn
By more deserving brows.-Yet so ye prop,
Sons of the brave who fought at Marathon,
Your feeble spirits! Greece her head hath
bowed,

As if the wreath of liberty thereon
Would fix itself as smoothly as a cloud
Which, at Jove's will, descends on Pelion's
top."

III.

TO THOMAS CLARKSON, ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

MARCH, 1807.

CLARKSON! it was an obstinate hill to climb:

How toilsome-nay, how dire—it was, by thee

Is known; by none, perhaps, so feelingly : But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,

Didst first lead forth that enterprise sublime,

Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,

Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,

First roused thee.-O true yoke-fellow of
Time,

Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm
Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!
The blood-stained Writing is forever torn;
And thou henceforth wilt have a good man's
calm,

A great man's happiness; thy zeal shall find

Repose at length, firm friend of human

kind!

IV.

A PROPHECY. FEBRUARY, 1807. HIGH deeds, O Germans, are to come from you!

Thus in your books the record shall be found,

"A watchword was pronounced, a potent sound