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a dream

      Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering

       Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies

       By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

       If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 145

       O Albion! thy predestin’d ruins rise,

      The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,

      Muttering distemper’d triumph in her charméd sleep.

      IX

      Away, my soul, away!

       In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing — 150

      And hark! I hear the famish’d brood of prey

      Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind!

       Away, my soul, away!

       I unpartaking of the evil thing,

       With daily prayer and daily toil 155

       Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

       Have wail’d my country with a loud Lament.

      Now I recentre my immortal mind

       In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content;

      Cleans’d from the vaporous passions that bedim 160

      God’s Image, sister of the Seraphim.

      'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows’

      MS. Note by S. T. C.

      Title] Ode for the last day of the Year 1796, C. I.: Ode on the

      Departing Year

      When lo! far onwards waving on the wind

      I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR.

      From Poverty’s heart-wasting languish

      From Distemper’s midnight anguish

      Seiz’d in sore travail and portentous birth

      (Her eyeballs flashing a pernicious glare)

      Sick Nature struggles! Hark! her pangs increase!

      Her groans are horrible! but O! most fair

      The promis’d Twins she bears — Equality and Peace!

      Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir

       Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre

      When shall sceptred SLAUGHTER cease?

      A while he crouch’d, O Victor France!

      Beneath the lightning of thy lance;

      With treacherous dalliance courting PEACE —

      But soon upstarting from his coward trance

      The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

      His ancient hatred of the dove-eyed Maid.

      A cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

      And sure he deem’d that orb was set in night:

      For still does MADNESS roam on GUILT’S bleak dizzy height!

      With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace.

      But soon up-springing from his dastard trance

      The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

      His hatred of the blest and blessing Maid.

      One cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

      And sure he deem’d that orb was quench’d in night:

      For still, &c.

      To juggle this easily-juggled people into better

       humour with the supplies (and themselves, perhaps, affrighted

       by the successes of the French) our Ministry sent an

       Ambassador to Paris to sue for Peace. The supplies are

       granted: and in the meantime the Archduke Charles turns the

       scale of victory on the Rhine, and Buonaparte is checked

       before Mantua. Straightways our courtly messenger is commanded

       to uncurl his lips, and propose to the lofty Republic to

       restore all its conquests, and to suffer England to

       retain all hers (at least all her important ones), as

       the only terms of Peace, and the ultimatum of the negotiation!

      The friends of Freedom in this country are idle. Some are

       timid; some are selfish; and many the torpedo torch of

       hopelessness has numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope

       that (if the above account be accurate — it is only the French

       account) this dreadful instance of infatuation in our Ministry

       will rouse them to one effort more; and that at one and the

       same time in our different great towns the people will be

       called on to think solemnly, and declare their thoughts

       fearlessly by every method which the remnant of the

       Constitution allows.

      Aye Memory sits: thy vest profan’d with gore.

      Thou with an unimaginable groan

      Gav’st reck’ning of thy Hours!

      On every Harp on every Tongue

      While the mute Enchantment hung:

      Like Midnight from a thundercloud

      Spake the sudden Spirit loud.

      Like Thunder from a Midnight Cloud

      Spake the sudden Spirit loud

      For ever shall the bloody island scowl?

      For ever shall her vast and iron bow

      Shoot Famine’s evil arrows o’er the world,

      Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below;

      Rise, God of Mercy, rise! why sleep thy bolts unhurl’d?

      For ever shall the bloody Island scowl?

      For aye, unbroken shall her cruel Bow

      Shoot Famine’s arrows o’er thy ravaged World?

      Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below —

      Rise, God of Nature, rise, why sleep thy Bolts unhurl’d?

      ‘In Europe the smoking villages of Flanders and the

       putrified fields of La Vendée — from Africa the unnumbered

       victims of a detestable Slave-Trade. In Asia the desolated

       plains of Indostan, and the millions whom a rice-contracting

       Governor caused to perish. In America the recent enormities of

       the Scalp-merchants. The four quarters of the globe groan

       beneath the intolerable iniquity of the nation.’

      At coward distance, yet with kindling pride —

      Safe ‘mid thy herds and cornfields thou hast stood,

      And join’d the yell of Famine and of Blood.

      All nations curse thee: and with eager wond’ring

      1797.

      Mid thy Cornfields and Herds thou in plenty hast stood

      And join’d the loud yellings of Famine and Blood.

      1803.

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