The Ethiop changes not his skin.
Impious and reckless still

The rulers spurn thy voice,

And now the measure of their crimes is full.

For now around Jerusalem
The countless foes appear;

Far as the eye can reach

Spreads the wide horror of the circling siege.

Why is the warrior's cheek so pale?
Why droops the gallant youth

Who late in pride of heart

Sharpen'd his javelin for the welcome war?

Swells with the struggling woe;

Oh! he could bear his ills,

Or rush to death, and in the grave have

peace.

His parents do not ask for food,
But they are weak with want;

His wife has given her babes

Her wretched pittance, .. she makes no complaint.

The consummating hour is come!

Alas for Solyma!

How is she desolate,..

She that was great among the nations, fallen!

N 4

And thou.. thou miserable King..

Where is thy trusted flock,

Thy flock so beautiful,

Thy Father's throne, the temple of thy God?

Repentance brings not back the past;
It will not call again

Thy murder'd sons to life,

Nor vision to those eyeless sockets more.

Thou wretched, childless, blind, old man, Heavy thy punishment;

Dreadful thy present woes,

Alas more dreadful thy remember'd guilt!

Westbury, 1798,

THE DEATH OF WALLACE.

Joy, joy in London now!

He goes, the rebel Wallace goes to death;
At length the traitor meets the traitor's doom,
Joy, joy, in London now!

He on a sledge is drawn,

His strong right arm unweapon'd and in chains,
And garlanded around his helmless head
The laurel wreath of scorn.

They throng to view him now
Who in the field had fled before his sword,
Who at the name of Wallace once grew pale
And falter'd out a prayer.

Yes they can meet his eye,

That only beams with patient courage now;
Yes! they can look upon those manly limbs,
Defenceless now and bound.

And that eye did not shrink As he beheld the pomp of infamy;

Nor one ungovern'd feeling shook those limbs, When the last moment came.

What though suspended sense

Was by their legal cruelty revived;
What though ingenious vengeance lengthen❜d life
To feel protracted death;

What though the hangman's hand Graspt in his living breast the heaving heart, .. In the last agony, the last sick pang, Wallace had comfort still.

He call'd to mind his deeds

Done for his country in the embattled field;
He thought of that good cause for which he died,
And it was joy in death.

Go, Edward! triumph now!

Cambria is fallen, and Scotland's strength is crush'd
On Wallace, on Llewellyn's mangled limbs,
The fowls of Heaven have fed.

Unrivall'd, unopposed,

Go, Edward, full of glory to thy grave!
The weight of patriot blood upon thy soul,
Go, Edward, to thy God!

Westbury, 1798.

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

CLEAR shone the morn, the gale was fair, When from Coruña's crowded port

With many a cheerful shout and loud acclaim The huge Armada past.

To England's shores their streamers point, To England's shores their sails are spread. They go to triumph o'er the sea-girt land, And Rome hath blest their arms.

Along the ocean's echoing verge, Along the mountain range of rocks, The clustering multitudes behold their pomp, And raise the votive prayer.

Commingling with the ocean's roar Ceaseless and hoarse their murmurs rise, And soon they trust to see the winged bark That bears good tidings home.

The watch-tower now in distance sinks,
And now Galicia's mountain rocks

Faint as the far-off clouds of evening lie,
And now they fade away.

Each like some moving, citadel,

On through the waves they sail sublime; And now the Spaniards see the silvery cliffs, Behold the sea-girt land!