Yet Britain's floating castles sweep
Invasion from her subject deep,
Yet by her rocks secure from harm,
Securer by her patriot arm,
Iberia turns the battle's tide,
Resists the injurious Tyrant's pride,
While freely floating in the ambient sky, Sacred to Freedom's cause, their mingled ensigns fly:
ODE FOR HIS MAJESTY'S BIRTH-DAY.
THILE Europe with dejected eye
Beholds around her rural reign,
Whilom of Peace the fair domain,
The scene of desolation lie;
Or if with trembling hope she cast
Her look on hours of glory past,
And burn again with virtuous fame,
Her ancient honours to reclaim,
And brace the corslet on her breast.
And grasp the spear, and wave the crest ;
Yet lies her course through war's ensanguined flood;
Yet must she win her way thro' carnage and thro' blood.
Ah happier Britain, o'er thy plain
Still smiling Peace and Freedom reign;
And while thy sons with pitying eye,
Behold the fields of ruin round them lie;
The storms that shake each neighbour realm with fear,
Like distant thunder roll upon the ear:
They bless the halcyon hour that gave
To rule a people free and brave;
A patriot monarch all their own,
Their swords his bulwark, and their hearts his throne.
And while to this auspicious day
The Muse devotes her tributary lay,
A nation's vows in choral Pæan join
And consecrate to Fame a "verse as mean as mine.".
Yet not to selfish thoughts confin'd
Are the warm feelings of a virtuous mind;
The royal Patriot, while he views
Peace o'er his realms her bliss diffuse,
Mourns for the sorrows that afflict mankind.
Go forth, my sons, he cries; my Britons, go,
And rescue Europe from her ruthless foe.
Behold in arms Austria's imperial Lord;
Behold Iberia draw the avenging sword;
O let with their's your mingled ensigns fly,
In the great cause of injur'd Liberty!
Go forth, my sons, and to the world declare,
When suffering Freedom calls, Britannia's arms are there.
[From Mr. CAMPBELL'S Gertrude of Wyoming.]
N Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming!
wild-afwer on thy ruin'd wall
And roof-less homes a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall,
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.
Sweet land may I thy lost delights recal,
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,
Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's shore!
Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do,
But feed their flocks on green declivities,
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew,
With timbrel, when beneath the forest brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew:
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down
Would echo flagelet from some romantic town.
Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes-
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree :
And every sound of life was full of glee,
From
merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men,
While heark'ning, fearing nought their revelry,
The wild deer arch'd his neck from glades, and then
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again.
And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime
Heard but in trans-atlantic story rung,
For here the exile met from ev'ry clime,
And spoke in friendship ev'ry distant tongue :
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung,
Were but divided by the running brook;
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung,
On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook,
The blue ey'd German chang'd his sword to pruning-hook.
Nor far some Andalusian saraband,
Would sound to many a native roundelay.
But who is he that yet a dearer land
Remembers over hills and far away?
Green Albyon! what though he no more survey
Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore,
Thy pellachs rolling from the mountain bay,
Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor,
And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar !
Alas! poor Caledonia's mountaineer,
That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief,
Had forc'd him from a home he lov'd so dear!
Yet found he here a home, and glad relief,
And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf,
That fir'd his Highland blood with mickle glee;
And England sent her men, of men the chief,
Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be,
To plant the tree of life,-to plant fair freedom's tree!
Here was not mingled in the city's pomp
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp,
Nor seal'd in blood a fellow creature's doom,
Nor mourn'd the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, beloved of all,
Suffic'd where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife that seldom might befall,
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.
How rev'rend was the look, serenely aged,
He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire,"
Where all but kindly fervors were assuag'd,
Undimm'd by weakness' shade, or turpidire;
And though amidst the calm of thought entire,
Some high and haughty features might betray
A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire
That fled composure's intellectual ray,
As Etna's fires grow dim before the rising day.
I boast no song in magic wonders rife,
But yet, oh Nature! is there nought to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom-scenes of life?
And dwells in daylight truths salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathise?
Young innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smil'd,
Or blest his noonday walk-she was his only child.
The rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek-
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he liv'd to see
Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had rest her mutual heart-but she
Was gone-and Gertrude clim'd a widow'd father's knee.
ND nought within the grove was seen or heard,
But stock-doves plaining through its gloom profound,
Or winglet of the fairy humming bird,
Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round;
When lo! there enter'd to its inmost ground
A youth, the stranger of a distant land;
He was, to weet, for eastern mountains bound;
But late th' equator suns his cheek had tann'd,
And California's gales his roving bosom fann'd.
A steed, whose rein hung loosely o'er his arm,
He led dismounted; ere his leisure pace,
Amid the brown leaves, could her ear alarm,
Close he had come, and worshipp'd for a space
Those downcast features: she her lovely face
Uplift one on, whose lineaments and frame
Were youth and manhood's intermingled grace:
Iberian seem'd his boot-his robe the same,
And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became.
For Albert's home he sought-her finger fair
Has pointed where the father's mansion stood.
Returning from the copse he soon was there;
And soon has Gertrude hied from dark green wood;
Nor joyless, by the converse, understood
Between the man of age and pilgrim young,
That gay congeniality of mood,
And early liking from acquaintance sprung:
Full fluently convers'd their guest in England's tongue.
And well could he his pilgrimage of taste
Unfold, and much they lov'd his fervid strain,
While he each fair variety retrac'd
Of climes, and manners, o'er the eastern main :
Now happy Switzer's hills,-romantic Spain,-
Gay lilied fields of France, or, more refin'd,
The soft Ausonia's monumental reign;
Nor less each rural image he designed,
Than all the city's pomp and home of human kind,
Anon some wilder portraiture he draws;
Of Nature's savage glories he would speak,-
The loneliness of earth that overawes,-
Where, resting by some tomb of old Cacique,
The lama-driver on Peruvia's peak,
Nor living voice nor motion marks around;
But storks that to the boundless forest shriek,
Or wild-cane arch high flung o'er gulph profound,
That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound.
Pleas'd with his guest, the good man still would ply
Each earnest question, and his converse court;
But Gertrude, as she ey'd him, knew not why
A strange and troubling wonder stopt her short.
"In England thou hast been,-and, by report,
"An orphan's name (quoth Albert) may'st have known :
"Sad tale!-when latest fell our frontier fort,→
"One innocent-one soldier's child-alone
"Was spar'd, and brought to me, who lov'd him as my own.
"Young Henry Waldegrave! three delightful years
"These very walls his infant sports did see; "But most I lov'd him when his parting tears Alternately bedew'd my child and me:
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