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النشر الإلكتروني

Now, now, ye joyous sportsmen, ye, whose hearts
Are unifon'd to the ecftatic cry

Of the full pack, now give your steeds the rein!
Your's is the day-mine was, and is no more;
Yet ever as I hear you in the wind,

Tho' chill'd and hovering o'er my winter hearth,
Forth, like fome Greenwich veteran, if chance
The conqu❜ring name of Rodney meets his ear,
Forth I must come to fhare the glad'ning found,
To fhew my fears and boast of former feats. 1!
They fay our clime's inconftant, changefulTrue!
It gives the lie to all aftrology,

Makes: the diviner mad and almost mocks:

Philofophy itself; Cameleon-like

Our sky puts on all colours, blushing now,
Now louring like a froward pettish child; <br /
This hour a zephyr, and the next a stormy
Angry and pleas'd by fits-Yet take our clime,
Take it for all in all and day by day, :
Thro? all the varying seasons of the year,
For the mind's vigour and the body's strength,
Where is it's rival? Beauty is it's own :
Not the voluptuous region of the Nile,
Not aromatic India's fpicy breath,

Nor evening breeze from Tagus, Rhone or Loire
Can tinge the maiden cheek with bloom fo fresh.
Here too, if exercise and temperance call,

! Health fhall obey their fummons; every fount,
Each rilling ftream conveys it to our lips;
In every zephyr we inhale her breath;
The fhepherd tracks her in the morning dew,
As o'er the graffy down or to the heath
Steaming with fragrance he condu&ts his flock.
! But oh! defend me from the baneful easty
Screen me, ye groves Uye interpoling hills,

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Rife up and cover me! Agues and rheums,
All Holland's marshes strike me in the gale;
Like Egypt's blight his breath is all alive;
His very dew is poison, honey-sweet,
Teeming with putrefaction; in his fog
The locuft and the caterpillar fwarm,
And vegetable nature falls before them:
Open, all quarters elfe, and blow upon me,
But bar that gate, O regent of the winds!
It gives the food that melancholy doats on,
The quick'ner that provokes the flanderer's spleen,
Makes green the eye of Jealousy and feeds
The fwelling gorge of Envy till it bursts :
'Tis now the poet's unpropitious hour;
The ftudent trims his midnight lamp in vain,
And beauty fades upon the painter's eye;
Hang up thy pallet, Romney! and convene
The gay companions of thy social board;
Apelles' felf would throw his pencil by,
And fwear the skies confpir'd against his art.

But what must Europe's fofter climes endure,
Thy coaft, Calabria! or the neighbouring ifle,
Of antient Ceres once the fruitful feat?
Where is the bloom of Enna's flowery field,
Mellifluous Hybla, and the golden'vale
Of rich Panormus, when the fell Siroc,
Hot from the furnace of the Libyan fands,
Breathes all it's plagues upon them? Hapless isle!
Why must I call to mind thy past renown ?
Is it this defolating blast alone,

That strips thy verdure? Is it in the gulph
Of yawning earthquakes that thy glory finks?
Or hath the flood that thund'ring Ætna pours
From her convuls'd and flaming entrails whelm'd
In one wide ruin every noble spark

of

Of pristine virtue, genius, wifdom, wit?
Ah no! the elements are not in fault;
Nature is ftill the fame: 'Tis not the blaft
From Afric's burning fands, it is the breath
Of Spain's defpotic matter lays thee low;
'Tis not alone the quaking earth that reels
Under thy tottering cities, 'tis the fall
Of freedom, 'tis the pit which flavery digs,
That buries every virtue; 'tis the flood
Of fuperftition, the infatiate fires

Of perfecuting zealots that devour thee;
These are the Titans who difturb thy peace,
This is thy grave, O Sicily! the hell
Deeper than that, which heathen poets feign'd
Under thy burning mountain, that engulphs
Each grace and every mufe, arts, arms and all
That elegance infpires or fame records.

Return, ye victims of caprice and spleen, Ye fummer friends, daughters more fitly call'd Than fons of Albion, to your native shores Return, felf-exiles as you are, and face This only tyrant which our isle endures, This hoary-headed terror of the year, Stern winter-What, tho' in his icy chains Imprison'd for a time e'en father Thames Checks his imperial current, and beholds His wealthy navigation in arreft, Yet foon, like Perfeus on his winged fleed, Forth from the horns of the celestial Ram Spring, his deliverer, comes-down, down at once The frighted monster dives into the earth, Or bursts afunder with a hideous crash, As thro' his stubborn ribs th' all-conqu'ring fun Drives his refulgent fpear: The ranfom'd floods,

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As at a fignal, rife and clap their hands ;

The mountains shout for joy; the laughing hours
Dance o'er the eastern hills and in the lap

Of marriageable earth their odours fling,
Wreaths of each vernal flowret, whilft the choir
Of feather'd fongsters make the groves refound
With Nature's hymenæals-all is joy.

Hail, bounteous Spring! primæval season, hail!
Nature's glad herald! who to all the tribes
That link creation's scale, from lordly man
To the small infect, that eludes his fight,
Proclaims that univerfal law of life,

The first great bleffing of the new-born world,
Increase and multiply!--No fooner heard

By fultry climes, than ftrait the rebel fun

Mounts his bright throne, and o'er the withering earth. Scatters his bold Titanian fires around,

And cancels Heaven's high edict; Nature feels

Quick growth and quick decay; the verdant scene
Glitters awhile and vanishes at once.

Not fuch the tints that Albion's landscape wears,
Her mantle dipt in never-fading green,
Keeps fresh its vernal honours thro' the year;
Soft dew-drops nurse her rose's maiden bloom,
And genial fhowers refresh her vivid lawn.
Thro' other lands indignant of delay
Spring travels homeward with a stranger's hafte
Here he reposes, dwells upon the scene
Enamour'd, native here prolongs his stay,
And when his fiery fucceffor at length

Warns him from hence, with ling'ring ftep and flow,
And many a ftream of falling tears he parts,

Like one, whom furly creditors arrest

In

In a fond confort's arms and force him thence.

But now, my Mufe, to humbler themes defcend! 'Tis not for me to paint the various gifts Which freedom, fcience, art, or fav'ring Heav'n Shower on my native ifle; quench'd are the fires, Which young ambition kindled in my breaft; Morning and noon of life's fhort day are past, And what remains for me ere night comes on, But one still hour perchance of glimmering eve For fober contemplation? Come, my Muse, Come then! and as from some high mountain's top The careful fhepherd counts his ftraggling flock, So will we take one patient last furvey Of this unquiet, babbling, anxious world; We'll fcan it with a calm but curious eye; Silence and folitude are all our own;

Their's is the tumult, their's the throng; my foul

Is fitted to the task-for, oh fair truth!

Yet I am thine, on thy perennial base

I will infcribe my monumental verfe,

And tho' my heart with kindred ardor beats

To every brave compatriot, yet no ties,
Tho dignified with friendship's fpecious name,
Shall hackle my free mind, nor any space
Lefs than the world's wide compass bound my love.
No more; for now the hofpitable gates

Of wealthy Attalus invite their guest;

I paus'd and look'd, and yielding to the wish
That fortune had bequeath'd me fuch a lot,

A momentary figh furpriz'd my heart :

Flocks, herds, and fields of golden grain, of these
I envied not the owner; but I saw

The curling finoke from cottages afcend,
And heard the merry din of childish sports;

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