Her milder sister loves to rove To mark the gurgling streamlet glide; She speeds to yonder shore, Where sturdy winter holds his northern reign, Through the cloudy-mantled sky And hear the sad scream from the grim retreat; Ten thousand dangers lurk, most fearful, most unknown. Yet lovelier oft in milder sway, The snowy Ethiop's matchless charms, Austere devotion gives the stern command, Around the tower, whose wall infolds * Heliodorus chose rather to be deprived of his see than burn his Ethiopics. + First exploit of the celebrated Regner Lodbrog. Around the patriot board, Enrapt the genius views the dauntless band; Or quell the pride of proud oppression's might, She gives them to the minstrel lore, Hands down her Launcelot's peerless name, Borne on the breath of song, To future times descends the memory of the throng. Foremost mid the peers of France, Romance the heighten'd tale has caught, And everlasting wrath to rebel reason sound. Hark! Superstition sounds to war's alarms, War stalks o'er Palestine with scorching breath, All Europe flies to arms: Enthusiast courage spreads her piercing sound, Devotion caught the cry, and woke the echo around. * Knights of the Round Table. +Instead of forging the life of a saint, Archbishop Turpin was better employed in falsifying the history of Charlemagne. A bull was issued, commanding all good citizens to believe Ariosto's poem, founded upon Turpin's history. L 2 Romance before the army flies, And hark! resound, in mingled sound, The clang of arms, the shriek of death; Darts, shields, and swords, commix'd Whirls around confus'd despair; Nor Acre's walls can check his course, Indignant, firm the warrior stood, Romance, o'erhovering, saw the monster die, And now, with more terrific mien, She quits the sad, degenerate scene; With many a talisman of mightiest pow'r, Borne in a rubied car, sublime she flies, Fire-breathing griffins waft her through the skies; Around her head the innocuous tempest lowers, To Gallia's favour'd realm she goes, And quits her magic state, and plucks her lovely rose.* Imagination waves her wizard wand, Deep yells resound amid the skies, Yclad in arms, to fame's alarms Her magic warrior flies. * Romance of the Rose, written soon after the Crusades By fiction's shield secure, for many a year Nor fiction's shield can stay the spear of ridicule. The blameless warrior comes; he first to wield By him created on the view, And many a flock o'erspreads the plain, The kindred warriors live to fame: As high the unhooding chieftain lifts the spear, Or where such valour, Sidney, but in thee? Oh, cold of heart, shall pride assail thy shade, Whom all romance could fancy Nature made? Sound, fame, thy loudest blast, For Spenser pours the tender strain, And shapes to glowing forms the motley train; The elfin tribes around Await his potent sound, And o'er his head romance her brightest splendours cast. Deep through the air let sorrow's banner wave! For penury o'er Spenser's friendless head Her chilling mantle spread; For genius cannot save! Virtue bedews the blameless poet's dust; But fame, exulting, clasps her favourite's laurel'd bust. Fain would the grateful muse to thee, Rousseau, Let my calm stream of life smooth its meek course along; Let no weak vanity dispense Her vapours o'er my better sense; But let my bosom glow with fire, Let me strike the soothing lyre, Although by all unheard the melodies expire. TO URBAN. Lo! where the livid lightning flies So boisterous riot, on his course Whilst sober Temperance, still the same, Shall shun the scene of strife; And, like the sun's enlivening flame, Let noise and folly seek the reign Urban! those better joys be ours, To So when stern time their frames shall seize, When sorrows pay for sin; When every nerve shall feel disease, And conscience shrink within; |