While they alone with envy sigh,*
Whose rancour to thy parent dead

Aim'd, ere his funeral rites were paid,
With vain vindictive rage to starve his progeny.

IV.

From earth and these the Muse averts her view,
To meet in yonder sea of ether blue

A beam, to which the blaze of noon is pale;
In purpling circles now the glory spreads,
A host of angels now unveil their heads,

While Heav'n's own music triumphs on the gale.
Ah see, two white-rob'd Seraphs lead
Thy Father's venerable shade;

He bends from yonder cloud of gold,
While they, the ministers of light,

Bear from his breast a mantle bright,

And with the Heav'n-wove robe thy youthful limbs enfold.

V.

"Receive this mystic gift, my Son!" he cries,
"And, for so wills the Sov'reign of the Skies,
"With this receive, at ALBION's anxious hour,

"A double portion of my patriot zeal,

"Active to spread the fire it dar'd to feel

"From the full fountain of the tongue
"To roll the rapid tide along,

"Till a whole nation caught the flame.
"So on thy Sire shall Heav'n bestow
"A blessing TULLY fail'd to know,
"And redolent in thee diffuse thy Father's fame.

VI.

"Nor thou, ingenious Boy! that fame despise
"Which lives and spreads abroad in heav'n's pure eyes,
"The last best energy of noble mind,*
"Revere thy Father's shade; like him disdain
"The tame, the timid, temporizing train,

Awake to self, to social interest blind :
"Young as thou art, occasion calls,
"Thy country's scale or mounts or falls
"As thou and thy compatriots strive;
"Scarce is the fatal moment past

"That trembling ALBION deem'd her last : "O knit the union firm, and bid an empire live.

VII.

"Proceed, and vindicate fair Freedom's claim,

"Give life, give strength, give substance to her name;

NOTE.

* In allusion to a fine and well-known passage in Milton's Lycidas.

"The legal Rights of Man with fraud contest, “Yes, statch them from Corruption's baleful power, "Who dares, in day's broad eye, those rights devour, “While prelates bow, and bless the harpy feast. “ If foil'd at first, resume thy course, "Rise +trengthen'd with Antæan force, “So shall thy toil in conquest end. "Let others doat on meaner things, "On broider'd stars, and azure strings,

"To claim thy Sov'reign's love, be thou thy country's "friend."*

VARIATION.

* The concluding line in this Ode, when first printed, ran thus:

"Be thine the Muse's wreath; be thou the people's friend.” But when it was recollected, that very soon after its publication, a person, too well known in the political world, usurped the name of friend of the people, for no better reason than that of promoting his own success in an election contest at Westminster, it will not be wondered at, that the Author should now choose to alter that conclusion.

This he has done, not only on moral and prudential, but, he trusts, also on constitutional principles; as he firmly believes, that no Englishman will now (he writes at the conclusion of the year 1795) honour that person with such an appellation, except the very few, who think the people of England and an English mob, synonymous terms.

ODE XV.*

SECULAR.

November the Fifth, MDCCLXXXVIII.

I.

It is not Age, creative Fancy's foe,
Foe to the finer feelings of the soul,
Shall dare forbid the lyric rapture flow:
Scorning its chill control,

And

He, at the vernal morn of youth,
Who breathed to liberty and truth,

Fresh incense from his votive lyre,

In life's autumnal eve, again

Shall, at their shrine, resume the strain,

sweep the veteran chords with renovated fire.

II.

Warm to his own, and to his country's breast, Twice fifty brilliant years the theme have borne, And each, through all its varying seasons, blest

By that auspicious morn,

NOTE.

*First published on the day of its date.

Which gilding NASSAU's patriot prow,
Gave Britain's anxious eye to know

The source whence now her blessings spring;
She saw him from that prow descend,

And in the hero, hail'd the friend:

A name, when Britain speaks, that dignifies her KING.

III.

In solemn state she led him to the throne

Whence bigot zeal and lawless power had fled,

Where Justice fix'd the abdicated crown

On his victorious head.

Was there an angel in the sky,

That glow'd not with celestial joy,

When freedom in her native charms,
Descended from her throne of light,
On eagle plumes, to bless the rite,

Recall'd by Britain's voice, restored by NASSAU's arms.

IV.

Since then, triumphant on the car of time,
The sister years in gradual train have roll❜d,
And seen the goddess from her sphere sublime,
The sacred page unfold,

Inscribed by her's and NASSAU's hands,
On which the hallow'd charter stands,
That bids Britannia's sons be free;

And, as they pass'd, each white-robed year