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The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses life.
Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks,
Where once they fed their wanton flocks:
Thy ravish'd virgins shriek in vain ;
Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it then, in every clime,
Through the wide-spreading waste of time,
Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise,
Still shone with undiminish'd blaze?
Thy tow'ring spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay

No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night:
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

O baneful cause, oh fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their father stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames, and murd'ring steel!

The pious mother, doom'd to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend;
And stretch'd beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn*.

[* This Ode by Dr. Smollett, does rather more honour to the author's feelings than his taste. The mechanical part, with regard to numbers and language, is not so perfect as so short a work as this requires; but the pathetic it contains, particularly in the last stanza but one, is exquisitely fine.-GOLDSMITH.]

ODE TO LEVEN-WATER.

ON Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,

I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.

Pure stream, in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source;
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,
With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread;
While, lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride ;
The salmon, monarch of the tide ;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par.
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And edges flower'd with eglantine.

Still on thy banks so gaily green, May numerous herds and flocks be seen, And lasses chaunting o'er the pail, And shepherds piping in the dale, And ancient faith that knows no guile, And industry embrown'd with toil, And hearts resolved, and hands prepared, The blessings they enjoy to guard.

ODE TO INDEPENDENCE.

STROPHE.

THY spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the North,
A goddess violated brought thee forth,
Immortal Liberty, whose look sublime
Hath bleach'd the tyrant's cheek in every varying
What time the iron-hearted Gaul
With frantic superstition for his guide,
Arm'd with the dagger and the pall,
The sons of Woden to the field defied :
The ruthless hag, by Weser's flood,
In Heaven's name urged the infernal blow;
And red the stream began to flow:
The vanquish'd were baptized with blood!

ANTISTROPHE,

The Saxon prince in horror fled
From altars stain'd with human gore;
And Liberty his routed legions led
In safety to the bleak Norwegian shore.

[cline.

[ Are not these noble verses? They are the introduction of Smollett's Ode to Independence.-BURNS.]

[ Smollett's Ode to Independence, the most characteristic of his poetical works, was published two years after his death, by the Messrs. Foulis of Glasgow; the mytholo gical commencement is eminently beautiful.-SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

There in a cave asleep she lay,

Lull'd by the hoarse-resounding main;
When a bold savage pass'd that way,
Impell'd by destiny, his name Disdain.
Of ample front the portly chief appear'd :
The hunted bear supplied a shaggy vest;
The drifted snow hung on his yellow beard;
And his broad shoulders braved the furious blast.
He stopped: he gazed: his bosom glow'd,
And deeply felt the impression of her charms :
He seized the advantage fate allow'd,
And straight compress'd her in his vigorous arms.

STROPHE

The curlew scream'd, the tritons blew
Their shells to celebrate the ravish'd rite;
Old Time exulted as he flew ;
And Independence saw the light.

The light he saw in Albion's happy plains,
Where under cover of a flowering thorn,
While Philomel renew'd her warbled strains,
The auspicious fruit of stolen embrace was born-
The mountain dryads, seized with joy,
The smiling infant to their charge consign'd;
The Doric Muse caress'd the favourite boy;
The hermit Wisdom stored his opening mind.
As rolling years matured his age,

He flourish'd bold and sinewy as his sire;
While the mild passions in his breast assuage
The fiercer flames of his maternal fire.

ANTISTROPHE

Accomplish'd thus he wing'd his way,
And zealous roved from pole to pole,
The rolls of right eternal to display,

And warm with patriot thoughts the aspiring soul.
On desert isles 'twas he that raised
Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave,
Where tyranny beheld amazed

Fair Freedom's temple, where he mark'd her grave.
He steel'd the blunt Batavian's arms

To burst the Iberian's double chain;
And cities rear'd, and planted farms,
Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain.
He, with the generous rustics, sate
On Uri's rocks in close divan;
And wing'd that arrow sure as fate,
Which ascertained the sacred rights of man.

STROPHE.

Arabia's scorching sands he cross❜d,
Where blasted nature pants supine,
Conductor of her tribes adust,

To freedom's adamantine shrine;

And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast!

He snatch'd from under fell oppression's wing;
And taught amidst the dreary waste
The all-cheering hymns of liberty to sing.

He virtue finds, like precious ore,
Diffused through every baser mould,

Even now he stands on Calvi's rocky shore,
And turns the dross of Corsica to gold;
He, guardian genius, taught my youth
Pomp's tinsel livery to despise :

My lips by him chastised to truth,
Ne'er paid that homage which the heart denies.

ANTISTROPHE,

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnish'd Vice and Vanity combined,
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread;
And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind.
While Insolence his wrinkled front uprears,
And all the flowers of spurious fancy blow;
And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,

Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow;

Where ever-dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain, Presents her cup of stale profession's froth; And pale Disease, with all his bloated train, Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.

STROPHE.

In Fortune's car behold that minion ride,
With either India's glittering spoils opprest;
So moves the sumpter-mule, in harness'd pride,
That bears the treasure which he cannot taste.
For him let venal bards disgrace the bay,
And hireling minstrels wake the tinkling string;
Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay;
And all her jingling bells fantastic Folly ring;
Disquiet, Doubt, and Dread shall intervene ;
And Nature, still to all her feelings just,
In vengeance hang a damp on every scene,
Shook from the baleful pinions of Disgust.

ANTISTROPHE,

Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
And Health, and Peace, and Contemplation
dwell.

There Study shall with Solitude recline;
And Friendship pledge me to his fellow-swains;
And Toil and Temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sustains:
And fearless Poverty shall guard the door;
And Taste unspoil'd the frugal table spread;
And Industry supply the humble store ;
And Sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed:
White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite,
Shall chase far off the goblins of the night :
And Independence o'er the day preside,
Propitious power! my patron and my pride.

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Ar length escaped from every human eye,
From every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we used to walk,

Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer sun go down the sky;

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Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side :
Who now your infant steps shall guide?

[* And in a letter to Wharton, he says, "Ilave you scen Lyttelton's Monody on his wife's death? there are parts of it too stiff and poetical, but others truly tender and elegiac as one would wish."--Works by Mitford, vol. iii. p. 49.

Among Smollett's Poems is a Burlesque on Lyttelton's Ode, but a very poor one. It is not a little curious, we may add, that Tom Jones is inscribed to Lyttelton, and that the Gosling Scrag of Peregrine Pickle was the patron of Fielding.]

Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
To every virtue would have form'd your youth,
And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?
O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone,

To weep their dire misfortune and thy own : How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe, And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe!

Now she, alas! is gone, [save? From folly and from vice their helpless age to

O best of wives! O dearer far to me
Than when thy virgin charms
Were yielded to my arms :

How can my soul endure the loss of thee?
How in the world, to me a desert grown,
Abandon'd and alone,

Without my sweet companion can I live?
Without thy lovely smile,

The dear reward of every virtuous toil,

What pleasures now can pall'd ambition give? Ev'n the delightful sense of well-earn'd praise, Unshared by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.

For my distracted mind

What succour can I find?

On whom for consolation shall I call?
Support me, every friend;
Your kind assistance lend,

To bear the weight of this oppressive woe.
Alas! each friend of mine,

My dear departed love, so much was thine,
That none has any comfort to bestow.
My books, the best relief

In every other grief,

Are now with your idea sadden'd all : Each favourite author we together read My tortured memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead.

We were the happiest pair of human kind ;
The rolling year its varying course perform❜d,
And back return'd again;
Another and another smiling came,
And saw our happiness unchanged remain :
Still in her golden chain

Harmonious concord did our wishes bind :
Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric love had raised Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton vice with envy gazed,

And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd,
With soothing hope, for many a future day,
In one sad moment broke !-
Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his supreme decree
With impious grief complain,

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade; Was his most righteous will-and be that will obey'd.

PROLOGUE TO CORIOLANUS*.

I COME not here your candour to implore
For scenes whose author is, alas! no more;
He wants no advocate his cause to plead ;
You will yourselves be patrons of the dead.
No party his benevolence confined,

No sect-it flow'd alike to all mankind.
He loved his friends-forgive this gushing tear:
Alas! I feel I am no actor here.

He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart
So clear of interest, so devoid of art,
Such generous friendship, such unshaken zeal,
No words can speak it, but our tears may tell.
Oh candid truth, O faith without a stain,
Oh manners greatly firm and nobly plain,
Oh sympathizing love of others' bliss,
Where will you find another breast like his ?
Such was the man,-the Poet well you know:
Oft has he touch'd your hearts with tender woe:
Oft in this crowded house, with just applause
You heard him teach fair Virtue's purest laws;
For his chaste muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire:
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which dying he could wish to blot.
Oh may to-night your favourable doom
Another laurel add to grace his tomb!
Whilst he superior now to praise or blame,
Hears not the feeble voice of human fame.
Yet if to those, whom most on earth he loved,
From whom his pious care is now removed,
With whom his liberal hand and bounteous heart
Shared all his little fortune could impart ;
If to those friends your kind regard shall give
What they no longer can from his receive,
That, that, even now, above yon starry pole,
May touch with pleasure his immortal soul.

[* Thomson's posthumous play, and spoken by Quin This is among the best prologues in our language: and is excelled only by Pope's before Cato, and Johnson's Drury Lane opening.]

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