The man to solitude accustom'd long Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue, Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees, Have speech for him, and understood with ease; After long drought when rains abundant fall, Ile hears the herbs and flow'rs rejoicing all; Knows what the freshness of their hue implies, How glad they catch the largess of the skies; But, with precision nice still, the mind

He scans of ev'ry locomotive kind;

Birds of all feather, beasts of ev'ry name,

That serve mankind, or shun them, wild or tame;
The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears
Have all articulation in his ears;

Ile spells them true by intuition's light,
And needs no glossary to set him right.

This truth premis'd was needful as a text, To win due credence to what follows next.

Awhile they mus'd; surveying ev'ry face,
Thou hadst suppos'd them of superiour race;
Their periwigs of wool, and fears combin'd
Stamp'd on each countenance such marks of mind,
That sage they seem'd as lawyers o'er a doubt,
Which, puzzling long, at last they puzzle out;
Or academick tutors, teaching youths,

Sure ne'er to want them, mathematick truths;
When thus a mutton, statelier than the rest,
A ram, the ewes and wethers sad, address'd.

Friends! we have liv'd too long. I never heard
Sounds such as these, so worthy to be fear'd.
Could I believe, that winds for ages pent

In Earth's dark womb have found at last a vent,
And from their prison-house below arise,
With all these hideous howlings to the skies,
I could be much compos'd, nor should appear,
For such a cause, to feel the slightest fear

Yourselves have seen, what time the thunders ro.l'd
All night, me resting quiet in the fold,
Or heard we that tremendous bray alone,
I could expound the melancholy tone;
Should deem it by our old companion made,
The ass; for he, we know, has lately stray'd,
And being lost, perhaps, and wand'ring wide,
Might be suppos'd to clamour for a guide.
But ah! those dreadful yells what soul can hear
That owns a carcass and not quake for fear?
Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-claw'd,
And fang'd with brass, the demons are abroad,
I hold it therefore wisest and most fit,
That, life to save, we leap into the pit.

Him answer'd then his loving mate and true,
But more discreet than he, a Cambrian ewe.

How! leap into the pit our life to save?
To save our life leap all into the grave?
For can we find it less? Contemplate first
The depth how awful! falling there we burst ;
Or should the brambles, interpos'd, our fall
In part abate, that happiness were small :
For with a race like theirs no chance I see

Of peace or case to creatures clad as we.
Meantime, noise kills not. Be it Dapple's bray,
Or be it not, or be it whose it may,

And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues
Of demons utter'd from whatever lungs,
Sounds are but sounds, and till the cause appear,
We have at least commodious standing here.
Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast
From Earth or Hell, we can but plunge at last.

While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals, For Reynard, close attended at his heels By panting dog, tir'd man, and spatter'd horse, Through mere good fortune, took a diff'rent course

The flock grew calm again, and I tae road
Foll'wing, that led me to my own abode.
Much wonder'd that the silly sheep had found
Such cause of terrour in an empty sound,
So sweet to huntsman, gentleman, and hound.

MORAL.

Beware of desp'rate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.

༅་་་

BOADICEA

AN ODE.

1.

WHEN the British warriour queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods.

II.

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Ev'ry burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief

III.

Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs

'Tis because resentment ties

All the terrours of our tongues.

Rome shal. perish--write that word
In the blood that she hast spill'd;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

V.

Rome, for empire far renown'd,
Tramples on a thousand states;

Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

VI.

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize Harmony the path to fame.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings
Shall a wider world command.

Such the bard's prophetick words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre

X.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rush'd to battle, fought, and died;
Dying hurl'd them at the foe.

XI.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due·
Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

HEROISM.

THERE was a time when Etna's silent fire Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire ; When, conscious of no danger from below, She tower'd a cloudcapt pyramid of snow. No thunders shook with deep intestine sound The blooming groves that girdled her around. Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines, (Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines,) The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assur'd, In peace upon her sloping sides matur'd. When on a day, like that of the last doom, A conflagration lab'ring in her womb, She teem'd and heav'd with an infernal birth, That shook the circling seas and solid earth. Dark and voluminous the vapours rise, And hang their horrours in the neighb'ring skies, While through the stygian veil that blots the day, In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play. But O! what muse, and in what pow'rs of song, Can trace the torrent. as it burns along? Havock and devastation n the van, It marches o'er the prostrate works of man, Vines, olives, herbage, forests, disappear, And all the charms of a Sicilias year