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For outlaw'd SHERWOOD's tales of Robin | To crown the bards that haunt her classic Hood?

grove,

Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's

Bard,

And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no

more,

And tell the tale of what she was before;
To future times her faded fame recal,
And save her glory, though his country fall.

Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope
To conquer ages, and with time to cope?
New eras spread their wings, new nations
rise,
And other victors fill the applauding skies:
A few brief generations fleet along,
Whose sons forget the poet and his song:
E'en now what once-loved minstrels scarce
may claim

The transient mention of a dubious name!
When Fame's loud trump hath blown it's
noblest blast,

Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at
last,

And Glory, like the Phonix midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons,
Expert in science, more expert at puns?
Shall these approach the Muse? ah, no!
she flies,

And even spurns the great Seatonian prize,
Though printers condescend the press to soil
With rhyme by HOARE, and epic blank by
HOYLE:

Not him whose page,if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.
Ye who in Granta's honours would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a fullgrown ass-
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.
There CLARKE, still striving piteously "to
please,"

Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees,
A would-be satirist a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the

mean,

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fires,

And modern Britons justly praise their sires.

For me, who thus unask'd have dared

to tell

My country what her sons should know
too well,

Zeal for her honour bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age.
No just applause her honour'd name shall
lose,

As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse.
Oh, would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name !
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour,
"Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been,
Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty

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Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale:
And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height,
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my
sight:

Thence shall I stray through beauty's
native clime,
Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd
with snows sublime.
But should I back return, no letter'd rage
Shall drag my common-place-book on the
stage:

And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind-
Himself a living libel on mankind.
Oh, dark asylum of a Vandal race!
At once the boast of learning, and disgrace:
So sunk in dulness and so lost in shame, Let vain VALENTIA rival luckless Carr,
That SMYTHE and HODGSON scarce redeem | And equal him whose work he sought to mar;

thy fame!

But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath is

wove,

Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of Virtu;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian
freaks,

Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques ;

And make their grand saloons a general | And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,

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Who conquers me shall find a stubborn fee. The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall

From lips that now may seem imbued with gall,

Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes:

But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,

I've learned to think and sternly speak the
truth;

Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me;
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or
hiss:

Nay, more, though all my rival rhymesters
frown,

My page, though nameless, never disavow'd;
And now at once I tear the veil away:
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay, I too can hunt a poetaster down;
Unscared by all the din of MELBOURNE-house, And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
By LAMB's resentment, or by HOLLAND'S To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared to do; how far my lay
By JEFFREY's harmless pistol,HALLAM's rage, | Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let
EDINA'S brawny sons and brimstone page.
others say;
Our men in buckram shall have blows This let the world, which knows not how
to spare,

spouse,

enough, And feel they too are "penetrable stuff:" Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

Pallas te hac vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et pænam scelerato ex sanguiné sumit.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race

be run, Along Morea's hills the setting sun: Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light! O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,

Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it
glows:

On old Egina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulph, unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing
glance,

And tenderest tints, along their summits
driven,

Mark his gay course and own the hues of

heaven;

Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast, When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last:

How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!
Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still:
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful
dyes;

Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phœbus never frown'd
before;

But ere he sunk below Citharon's head,

The cup of woe was quaff'd—the spirit fled; | Not such as erst, by her divine command,
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly- Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic
Who lived and died as none can live or die!
hand;

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Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle Ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was deep indented, and her lance
Seem'd weak and shaftless, e'en to mortal
glance;

The olive-branch, which still she deign'd
to clasp,

Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her
grasp:
And,ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled
slow,

And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek
of woe.

"Mortal! ('twas thus she spake) that blush of shame

Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk,
Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble name-
And, dun and sombre mid the holy calm, First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm, Now honour'd less by all-and least by me:
All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye- Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:-
And dull were his that pass'd them heed-Seekst thou the cause? O mortal, look

less by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long array of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile.

As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, Alone and friendless, on the magic shore Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore, Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan, Sacred to gods, but not secure from man, The past return'd, the present seem'd to

cease,

AndGlory knew no clime beyond her Greece.
Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky,
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god;
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's
glare,

around!
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire;
'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and
Goth,

Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both!
Survey this vacant violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain;
These Cecrops placed - this Pericles adorn'd—
That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science
mourn'd:

What more I owe let gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plun-
derer came,

Th' insulted wall sustains his hated name.
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer.
Arms gave the first his right—the last had

none,

But basely stole what less barbarians won!
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf-the filthy jackal last :
Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make
their own;

Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair The last base brute securely gnaws the bone. O'er the chill marble, where the startling | Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are tread

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crost

See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.”

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye :

"Daughter of Jove! inBritain's injured name, | Europe's worst dauber and poorBritain's best, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim! With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er, Frown not on England—England owns him | And own himself an infant of fourscore: Be all the bruisers call'd from all St. Giles, That art and nature may compare their

not

Athene, no! the plunderer was a Scot!
Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's

towers

styles;

coxcombs creep,

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, Survey Bootia- Caledonia's ours; And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. And well I know within that bastard-land | Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering Hath wisdom's goddess never held command: A barren soil, where nature's germs,confined, To stern sterility can stint the mind; Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,

Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth.
Each genial influence nurtured to resist,
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy
plain

Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain,
Till burst at length each watery head o'er-
flows,

but north,

To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep: While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,

On giant-statues casts the curious eye; The room with transient glance appear to skim,

Yet marks the mighty back and length limb;

Mourns o'er the difference of now and then; Exclaims, "these Greeks indeed were proper men;"

Draws slight comparisons of these with

those,

Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride | And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux:
Despatch her scheming children far and wide; When shall a modern maid have swaing
Some east, some west, some- every where
like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation, mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd
in the dust,

In quest of lawless gain they issue forth;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Bœotia gave a Pindar birth-
So may
her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand:
As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched

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race!"

"Mortal," the blue-eyed maid resumed,

"once more,

Bear back my mandate to thy native shore; Though fallen, alas! this vengeance still is mine,

To turn my counsels far from lands like |
thine.

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did the deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his
seed:

Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate!
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest native gusto-is to sell:
To sell, and make (may shame record the
day!)

May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Link'd with the fool who fired th' Ephesian
dome,

Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine
In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accursed-
Perchance the second viler than the first:
So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn!
Though not for him alone revenge shall
wait,

But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her law-
less son

To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic blazing from afar –
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war:
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had
made;

Far from such councils, from the faithless
field

She fled--but left behind her Gorgon-shield; A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone, And left lost Albion hated and alone. Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race Shall shake your usurpation to its base; Lo! there rebellion rears her ghastly head, And glares the Nemesis of native dead, The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey! Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood, Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West, | And claims his long arrcar of northern blood.

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So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave | Then in the senate of your sinking state, Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave. Show me the man whose counsels may have Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand weight. she hates,

But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates. * Bear witness bright Barrossa, thou canst tell Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.

While Lusitania, kind and dear ally, Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly. Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won; The Gaul retires for once, and all is done! * But when did Pallas teach that one retreat Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat? Look last at home-ye love not to look there, On the grim smile of comfortless despair, Your city saddens, loud though revel howls, | Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls:

Vain is each voice whose tones could once
command;

F'en factions cease to charm a factious land
While jarring sects convulse a sister-isle,
And light with maddening hands the mu-
tual pile.

""Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain,

The Furies seize her abdicated reign;
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kind-
ling brands,

And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her
chains.

The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering
files,

smiles;

See all alike of more or less bereft-
No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
"Blest paper credit" who shall dare to sing? | O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona
It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:
Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late;
Then raves for ***; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were
friends:

Him senates hear whom never yet they
heard,

Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd:
So once of yore each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log;
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

"Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour; Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd

power;

Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth
a dream.

Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind,
No more the hirelings, purchased near
and far,

Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear
away,

Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores;
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting
loom,

And desperate mans him 'gainst the common
doom.

|

The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero, bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that decorates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary
charms,

And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught-
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight;
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are
but begun.

His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,-
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd
dame,

The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field, Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.

Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burghers mark the blazing
town?

How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled
Thames?

Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was
thine

That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them
most?

The law of heaven and earth is life for life;
And she who raised in vain regrets the
strife.

London, 1812.

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