An Ode on the Peace

I.

As wand'ring late on Albion's shore

That chains the rude tempestuous deep,

I heard the hollow surges roar

And vainly beat her guardian steep;

I heard the rising sounds of woe

Loud on the storm's wild pinion flow;

And still they vibrate on the mournful lyre,

That tunes to grief its sympathetic wire.

II.

From shores the wide Atlantic laves,

The spirit of the ocean bears

In moans, along his western waves,

Afflicted nature's hopeless cares:

Enchanting scenes of young delight,

How chang'd since first ye rose to sight;

Since first ye rose in infant glories drest

Fresh from the wave, and rear'd your ample breast.

III.

Her crested serpents, discord throws

O'er scenes which love with roses grac'd;

The flow'ry chain his hands compose,

She wildly scatters o'er the waste:

Her glance his playful smile deforms,

Her frantic voice awakes the storms,

From land to land, her torches spread their fires,

While love's pure flame in streams of blood expires.

IV.

Now burns the savage soul of war,

While terror flashes from his eyes,

Lo! waving o'er his fiery car

Aloft his bloody banner flies:

The battle wakes—with awful sound

He thunders o'er the echoing ground,

He grasps his reeking blade, while streams of blood

Tinge the vast plain, and swell the purple flood.

V.

But softer sounds of sorrow flow;

On drooping wing the murm'ring gales

Have borne the deep complaints of woe

That rose along the lonely vales—

Those breezes waft the orphan's cries,

They tremble to parental sighs,

And drink a tear for keener anguish shed,

The tear of faithful love when hope is fled.

VI.

The object of her anxious fear

Lies pale on earth, expiring, cold,

Ere, wing'd by happy love, one year

Too rapid in its course, has roll'd;

In vain the dying hand she grasps,

Hangs on the quiv'ring lip, and clasps

The fainting form, that slowly sinks in death,

To catch the parting glance, the fleeting breath.

VII.

Pale as the livid corse her cheek,

Her tresses torn, her glances wild,—

How fearful was her frantic shriek!

She wept—and then in horrors smil'd:

She gazes now with wild affright,

Lo! bleeding phantoms rush in sight—

Hark! on yon mangled form the mourner calls,

Then on the earth a senseless weight she falls.

VIII.

And see! o'er gentle André's tomb,

The victim of his own despair,

Who fell in life's exulting bloom,

Nor deem'd that life deserv'd a care;

O'er the cold earth his relicks prest,

Lo! Britain's drooping legions rest;

For him the swords they sternly grasp, appear

Dim with a sigh, and sullied with a tear.

IX.

While Seward sweeps her plaintive strings,

While pensive round his sable shrine,

A radiant zone she graceful flings,

Where full emblaz'd his virtues shine;

The mournful loves that tremble nigh

Shall catch her warm melodious sigh;

The mournful loves shall drink the tears that flow

From Pity's hov'ring soul, dissolv'd in woe.

X.

And hark, in Albion's flow'ry vale

A parent's deep complaint I hear!

A sister calls the western gale

To waft her soul-expressive tear;

'Tis Asgill claims that piercing sigh,

That drop which dims the beauteous eye,

While on the rack of Doubt Affection proves

How strong the force which binds the ties she loves.

XI.

How oft in every dawning grace

That blossom'd in his early hours,

Her soul some comfort lov'd to trace,

And deck'd futurity in flowers!

But lo! in Fancy's troubled sight

The dear illusions sink in night;

She views the murder'd form—the quiv'ring breath,

The rising virtues chill'd in shades of death.

XII.

Cease, cease ye throbs of hopeless woe;

He lives the future hours to bless,

He lives, the purest joy to know,

Parental transports fond excess;

His sight a father's eye shall chear,

A sister's drooping charms endear:—

The private pang was Albion's gen'rous care,

For him she breath'd a warm accepted prayer.

XIII.

And lo! a radiant stream of light

Defending, gilds the murky cloud,

Where Desolation's gloomy night

Retiring, folds her sable shroud;

It flashes o'er the bright'ning deep,

It softens Britain's frowning steep—

'Tis mild benignant Peace, enchanting form!

That gilds the black abyss, that lulls the storm.

XIV.

So thro' the dark, impending sky,

Where clouds, and fallen vapours roll'd,

Their curling wreaths dissolving fly

As the faint hues of light unfold—

The air with spreading azure streams,

The sun now darts his orient beams—

And now the mountains glow—the woods are bright—

While nature hails the season of delight.

XV.

Mild Peace! from Albion's fairest bowers

Pure spirit! cull with snowy hands,

The buds that drink the morning showers,

And bind the realms in flow'ry bands:

Thy smiles the angry passions chase,

Thy glance is pleasure's native grace;

Around thy form th' exulting virtues move,

And thy soft call awakes the strain of love.

XVI.

Bless, all ye powers! the patriot name

That courts fair Peace, thy gentle stay;

Ah! gild with glory's light, his fame,

And glad his life with pleasure's ray!

While, like th' affrighted dove, thy form

Still shrinks, and fears some latent storm,

His cares shall sooth thy panting soul to rest,

And spread thy vernal couch on Albion's breast.

XVII.

Ye, who have mourn'd the parting hour,

Which love in darker horrors drew,

Ye, who have vainly tried to pour

With falt'ring voice the last adieu!

When the pale cheek, the bursting sigh,

The soul that hov'ring in the eye,

Express'd the pains it felt, the pains it fear'd—

Ah! paint the youth's return, by grief endear'd.

XVIII.

Yon hoary form, with aspect mild,

Deserted kneels by anguish prest,

And seeks from Heav'n his long-lost child,

To smooth the path that leads to rest!—

He comes!—to close the sinking eye,

To catch the faint, expiring sigh;

A moment's transport stays the fleeting breath,

And sooths the soul on the pale verge of death.

XIX.

No more the sanguine wreath shall twine

On the lost hero's early tomb,

But hung around thy simple shrine

Fair Peace! shall milder glories bloom.

Lo! commerce lifts her drooping head

Triumphal, Thames! from thy deep bed;

And bears to Albion, on her sail sublime,

The riches Nature gives each happier clime.

XX.

She fearless prints the polar snows,

Mid' horrors that reject the day;

Along the burning line she glows,

Nor shrinks beneath the torrid ray:

She opens India's glitt'ring mine,

Where streams of light reflected shine;

Wafts the bright gems to Britain's temp'rate vale,

And breathes her odours on the northern gale.

XXI.

While from the far-divided shore

Where liberty unconquer'd roves,

Her ardent glance shall oft' explore

The parent isle her spirit loves;

Shall spread upon the western main

—Harmonious concord's golden chain,

While stern on Gallia's ever hostile strand

From Albion's cliff she pours her daring band.

XXII.

Yet hide the sabre's hideous glare

Whose edge is bath'd in streams of blood,

The lance that quivers high in air,

And falling drinks a purple flood;

For Britain! fear shall seize thy foes,

While freedom in thy senate glows,

While peace shall smile upon thy cultur'd plain,

With grace and beauty her attendant train.

XXIII.

Enchanting visions sooth my sight—

The finer arts no more oppress'd,

Benignant source of pure delight!

On her soft bosom love to rest.

While each discordant sound expires,

Strike harmony! strike all thy wires;

The fine vibrations of the spirit move

And touch the springs of rapture and of love.

XXIV.

Bright painting's living forms shall rise;

And wrapt in Ugolino's woe^[1],

Shall Reynolds wake unbidden sighs;

And Romney's graceful pencil flow,

That Nature's look benign pourtrays^[2],

When to her infant Shakspeare's gaze

The partial nymph “unveil'd her awful face,”

And bade his “colours clear” her features trace.

XXV.

And poesy! thy deep-ton'd shell

The heart shall sooth, the spirit fire,

And all the passion sink, or swell,

In true accordance to the lyre.

Oh! ever wake its heav'nly sound,

Oh! call thy lovely visions round;

Strew the soft path of peace with fancy's flowers,

With raptures bless the soul that feels thy powers.

XXVI.

While Hayley wakes thy magic string,

His shades shall no rude sound profane,

But stillness on her folded wing,

Enamour'd catch his soothing strain:

Tho' genius breathe its purest flame

—Around his lyre's enchanting frame;

Tho' music there in every period roll,

More warm his friendship, and more pure his soul.

XXVII.

While taste refines a polish'd age,

While her own Hurd shall bid us trace

The lustre of the finish'd page

Where symmetry sheds perfect grace;

With sober and collected ray

To fancy, judgment shall display

The faultless model, where accomplish'd art

From nature draws a charm that leads the heart.

XXVIII.

Th' historic Muse illumes the maze

For ages veil'd in gloomy night,

Where empire with meridian blaze

Once trod ambition's giddy height:

Tho' headlong from the dang'rous steep

Its pageants roll'd with wasteful sweep,

Her tablet still records the deeds of fame

And wakes the patriot's, and the hero's flame.

XXIX.

While meek philosophy explores

Creation's vast stupendous round;

Sublime her piercing vision soars,

And bursts the system's distant bound.

Lo! mid' the dark deep void of space

A rushing world^[3] her eye can trace!—

It moves majestic in its ample sphere,

Sheds its long light, and rolls its ling'ring year.

XXX.

Ah! still diffuse thy genial ray,

Fair Science, on my Albion's plain!

And still thy grateful homage pay

Where Montagu has rear'd her fane;

Where eloquence and wit entwine

Their attic wreath around her shrine;

And still, while Learning shall unfold her store,

With their bright signet stamp the classic ore.

XXXI.

Enlight'ning Peace! for thine the hours

That wisdom decks in moral grace,

And thine invention's fairy powers,

The charm improv'd of nature's face;

Propitious come! in silence laid

Beneath thy olive's grateful shade,

Pour the mild bliss that sooths the tuneful mind,

And in thy zone the hostile spirit bind.

XXXII.

While Albion on her parent deep

Shall rest, may glory light her shore,

May honour there his vigils keep

Till time shall wing its course no more;

Till angels wrap the spheres in fire,

Till earth and yon fair orbs expire,

While chaos mounted on the wasting flame,

Shall spread eternal shade o'er nature's frame.

Footnotes

“Ugolino's woe”—a celebrated picture by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, taken from DANTE.
“Nature's look benign pourtrays”—a subject Mr. ROMNEY has taken from GRAY'S Progress of Poesy.
Alluding to Mr. Herschel's wonderful discoveries, and particularly to his discovery of a new planet called the Georgium Sidus.