Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' ἐν τάχει παρὼν ARGUMENT. THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the image of the Departing Year, &c. as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. SPIR I. PIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time! Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear! This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796: and was first published on the last day of that year. Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime, Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish! Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the hand Raises its fateful strings from sleep, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth, Weep and rejoice! Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell: And now advance in saintly jubilee Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell, They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty! III. I marked Ambition in his war-array ! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain ! Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, Rush around her narrow dwelling! The exterminating fiend is fled (Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty armies of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! Then with prophetic song relate, Each some tyrant-murderer's fate ! IV. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore, With many an unimaginable groan Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, V. Throughout the blissful throng, Hushed were harp and song: Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make: [spake! The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and By the Earth's unsolaced groaning, And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! Strange, horrible, and foul! By what deep guilt belongs To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies!' For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud! And on the darkling foe Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud! O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow! The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature! rise." VI. The voice had ceased, the vision fled; My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start; The soldier on the war-field spread, Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead! (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled, And the night-wind clamours hoarse ! See the starting wretch's head Lies pillowed on a brother's corse !) VII. Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, Echo to the bleat of flocks; |