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He pranc'd along, disdaining gate or bar. Meantime, the bard on milk-white palfrey rode; An honest sober beast, that did not mar His meditations, but full softly trode; And much they moraliz'd as thus yfere they yode

They talk'd of virtue, and of human bliss. What else so fit for man to settle well? And still their long researches met in this, This truth of truths, which nothing can refel: "From virtue's fount the purest joys out-well, Sweet rills of thought that cheer the conscious soul;

While vice pours forth the troubled streams of Hell, The which, howe'er disguis'd, at last with dole Will, through the tortur'd breast, their fiery torrent roll."

At length it dawn'd, that fatal valley gay,
O'er which high wood-crown'd hills their summits

rear.

On the cool height awhile our palmers stay, And spite ev'n of themselves their senses cheer; Then to the wizard's wonne their steps they steer. Like a green isle, it broad beneath them spread, With gardens round, and wandering currents clear, And tufted groves to shade the meadow'bed, Sweet airs and song; and without hurry all seem'd glad.

"As God shall judge me, knight, we must forgive" (The half-enraptur'd Philomelus cried)

The frail good man deluded here to live, And in these groves his musing fancy hide. Ah! nought is pure. It cannot be denied, That virtue still some tincture has of vice, And vice of virtue. What should then betide But that our charity be not too nice? Come, let us those we can to real bliss entice."

"Ay, sicker," quoth the knight, "all flesh is frail,
To pleasant sin and joyous dalliance bent;
But let not brutish vice of this avail,
And think to 'scape deserved punishment.
Justice were cruel weakly to relent;
From Mercy's self she got her sacred glaive;
Grace be to those who can, and will, repent;
But penance long, and dreary, to the slave,

Who must in floods of fire his gross foul spirit lave." 1

Thus, holding high discourse, they came to where The cursed carle was at his wonted trade; Still tempting heedless men into his snare, In witching wise, as I before had said. But when he saw, in goodly gear array'd, The grave majestic knight approaching nigh, And by his side the bard so sage and staid, His countenance fell; yet oft his anxious eye Mark'd them, like wily fox who roosted cock doth spy.

Nathless, with feign'd respect, he bade give back The rabble-rout, and welcom'd them full kind; Struck with the noble twain, they were not slack His orders to obey, and fall behind. Then he resum'd his song; and unconfin'd, 'Pour'd all his music, ran through all his strings: With magic dust their eyne he tries to blind, And virtue's tender airs o'er weakness flings. What pity base his song who so divinely sings!

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But here, instead, is foster'd every ill, Which or distemper'd minds or bodies know. Come then, my kindred spirits! do not spill Your talents here. This place is but a show, Whose charms delude you to the den of woe: Come, follow me, I will direct you right,

Where pleasure's roses, void of serpents, grow, Sincere as sweet; come, follow this good knight, And you will bless the day that brought him to your sight.

"Some he will lead to courts, and some to camps; To senates some, and public sage debates, Where, by the solemn gleam of midnight-lamps, The world is pois'd, and manag'd mighty states; To high discovery some, that new-creates The face of Earth; some to the thriving mart Some to the rural reign, and softer fates; To the sweet Muses some, who raise the heart; All glory shall be yours, all nature, and all art.

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"There are, I see, who listen to my lay, Who wretched sigh for virtue, but despair. All may be done,' methinks I hear them say, 'Ev'n death despis'd by generous actions fair; All, but for those who to these bowers repair, Their every power dissolv'd in luxury, To quit of torpid sluggishness the lair, And from the powerful arms of sloth get free. "Tis rising from the dead :-Alas!-it cannot be !'

"Would you then learn to dissipate the band Of these huge threatening difficulties dire, That in the weak man's way like lions stand, His soul appal, and damp his rising fire? Resolve, resolve, and to be men aspire. Exert that noblest privilege, alone, Here to mankind indulg'd control desire: Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne, Speak the commanding word-I will-and it is done.

"Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise,

Your few important days of trial here?
Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise

Through endless states of being, still more near
To bliss approaching, and perfection clear,

Can you renounce a fortune so sublime,

Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer, And roll, with vilest brutes, thro' mud and slime? No! no!-Your heaven-touch'd heart disdains the sordid crime!"

"Enough! enough!" they cried-straight from the crowd

The better sort on wings of transport fly:
As when amid the lifeless summits proud
Of Alpine cliffs, where to the gelid sky
Snows pil'd on snows in wintry torpor lie,
The rays divine of vernal Phœbus play;
Th' awaken'd heaps, in streamlets from on high,
Rous'd into action, lively leap away,

Glad warbling thro' the vales, in their new being gay.

Not less the life, the vivid joy serene, That lighted up these new-created men, Than that which wings th' exulting spirit clean, When, just deliver'd from his fleshly den, It soaring seeks its native skies agen: How light its essence! how unclogg'd its powers, Beyond the blazon of my mortal pen! Ev'n so we glad forsook the sinful bowers, Ev'n such enraptur'd life, such energy, was ours.

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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 Baïm, 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.

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The great republic sec! 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 Baïee'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.

"

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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.

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'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? 1 "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 plain 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.

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