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ODE TO MERCY.

STROPHE.

THOU! who sit'st a smiling bride

By Valour's arm'd and awful side,

Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd:

Who oft, with songs, divine to hear,

Win'st from his fatal grasp the spear,

And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bosom bare art found,

Pleading for him, the youth who sinks to ground:

See, Mercy, see! with pure and loaded hands,

Before thy shrine my country's Genius stands, And decks thy altar still, tho' pierc'd with many a

wound!

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And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.

I see recoil his sable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds,

Thy tender melting eyes they own;

O Maid! for all thy love to Britain shown,

Where Justice bars her iron tower,

To thee we build a roseate bower,

Thou, thou, shalt rule our queen, and share our

monarch's throne!

ODE TO LIBERTY.

STROPHE.

WHO shall awake the Spartan fife,

And call in solemn sounds to life

The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,

Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?

What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,

At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing,

(What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,

It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted

wound!

O Goddess! in that feeling hour,

When most its sounds would court thy ears,

Let not my shell's misguided power

E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.

No, Freedom! no, I will not tell,

How Rome, before thy weeping face,

With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell,

Push'd by a wild and artless race,

From off its wide ambitious base,

When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace,

With many a rude repeated stroke,

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments

broke!

EPODE 1.

Yet even, where'er the least appear'd,

Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd:

Still, 'midst the scatter'd states around,

Some remnants of her strength were found;

They saw, by what escap'd the storm,

How wondrous rose her perfect form,

How in the great, the labour'd whole,
Each mighty master pour'd his soul;
For sunny Florence, seat of art,

Beneath her vines preserv'd a part.

Till they, whom Science lov'd to name,

(Oh! who could fear it?) quench'd her flame.

And lo, an humbler relic laid

In jealous Pisa's olive shade!

See small Marino joins the theme,

Tho' least, not last in thy esteem;

Strike, louder strike th' ennobling strings

To those, whose merchant-sons were kings;

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