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While fiery hosts in Heaven's wide circle play,

And bathe in lurid light the milky-way,

Safe from the storm, the meteor, and the shower,

Some pleasing page shall charm the solemn hourWith pathos shall command, with wit beguile,

A generous tear of anguish, or a smile

Thy woes, Arion! and thy simple tale,"

O'er all the heart shall triumph and prevail!

Charm'd as they read the verse too sadly true,

How gallant Albert, and his weary crew,

Heaved all their guns, their foundering bark to save, And toil'd-and shriek'd-and perish'd on the wave!

Yes, at the dead of night, by Lonna's steep,

The seaman's cry was heard along the deep;

There on his funeral waters, dark and wild,

The dying father blest his darling child!

Oh! Mercy, shield her innocence, he cried,

Spent on the prayer his bursting heart, and died!

Or will they learn how generous worth sublimes

C

The robber Moor, and pleads for all his crimes!

How poor Amelia kiss'd, with many a tear,

His hand blood-stain'd, but ever ever dear!

Hung on the tortured bosom of her lord,

And wept, and pray'd perdition from his sword! Nor sought in vain! at that heart-piercing cry The strings of nature crack'd with agony !

He, with delirious laugh, the dagger hurl'd,

And burst the ties that bound him to the world!

Turn from his dying words, that smite with steel

The shuddering thoughts, or wind them on the wheel

Turn to the gentler melodies that suit

Thalia's harp, or Pan's Arcadian lute;

page,

Or, down the stream of Truth's historic
From clime to clime descend from age to age!

Yet there, perhaps, may darker scenes obtrude Than Fancy fashions in her wildest mood; There shall he pause, with horrent brow, to rate What millions died-that Cæsar might be great!a Or learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore, March'd by their Charles to Dneiper's swampy shore; Faint in his wounds, and shivering in the blast,

The Swedish soldier sunk—and groan'd his last!

File after file, the stormy showers benumb,

Freeze every standard-sheet, and hush the drum!
Horseman and horse confess'd the bitter pang,

And arms and warriors fell with hollow clang:
Yet, ere he sunk in Nature's last repose,

Ere life's warm torrent to the fountain froze,

The dying man to Sweden turn'd his eye,

Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh! Imperial Pride look'd sullen on his plight,

And Charles beheld--nor shudder'd at the sight!

Above, below, in Ocean, Earth, and Sky,

Thy fairy worlds, Imagination, lie,

And HOPE attends, companion of the way,

Thy dream by night, thy visions of the day!

In yonder pensile orb, and every sphere

That

gems the starry girdle of the year;

In those unmeasured worlds, she bids thee tell,
Pure from their God, created millions dwell,

Whose names and natures, unreveal'd below,

We yet shall learn, and wonder as we know;

For, as Iona's saint, a giant form,

Throned on her towers, conversing with the storm,

(When o'er each runic altar, weed-entwin'd,

The vesper clock tolls mournful to the wind), Counts every wave-worn isle, and mountain hoar,

From Kilda to the green Ierne's shore ;

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