To him, who deck'd with pearly pride,

In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride:

Hail, port of glory, wealth, and pleasure!

Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure:
Nor e'er her former pride relate,

To sad Liguria's bleeding state.

Ah, no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:

(Where, when the favour'd of thy choice,

The daring archer heard thy voice;

Forth from his eyrie rous'd in dread,

The ravening eagle northward fled.)

Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,

With those to whom thy Stork is dear:

* The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague; of the arms of which they make a part. The common

Those whom the rod of Alva bruis'd,

Whose crown a British queen refus'd,

The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,

One holier name alone remains;

The perfect spell shall then avail,

Hail Nymph! ador'd by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE.

Beyond the measure vast of thought,

The works, the wizard Time has wrought!

The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,

Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand,*

No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary, He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land.

people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

* This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the corres pondent disposition of the two opposite coasts.

To the blown Baltic then, they say,

The wild waves found another way,

Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding, Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,

A wide wild storm even Nature's self confounding,

Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth

surprise.

This pillar'd earth, so firm and wide,

By winds and inward labours torn,

In thunders dread was push'd aside,

And down the shouldering billows borne.

And see like gems, her laughing train,

The little isles on every side;

Mona*, once hid from those who search the main,

Where thousand Elfin shapes abide,

* There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on

And Wight who checks the westering tide,

For thee consenting Heaven has each bestow'd,

A fair attendant on her sovereign pride:

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd,

For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last

abode!

SECOND EPODE.

Then, too, 'tis said, an hoary pile,

'Midst the green navel of our isle,

Thy shrine in some religious wood,
O soul-enforcing Goddess! stood;

There oft the painted native's feet

Were wont thy form celestial meet:

the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, however, was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that in revenge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island with a mist, so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were upon a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.

Tho' now with hopeless toil we trace

Time's backward rolls, to find its place;

Whether the fiery-tressed Dane,

Or Roman's self, o'erturn'd the fane;

Or in what heaven-left age it fell;

"Twere hard for modern song to tell.

Yet still, if Truth those beams infuse,

Which guide at once, and charm the Muse, Beyond yon braided clouds that lie,

Paving the light-embroider'd sky:

Amidst the bright pavilion'd plains,

The beauteous model still remains.
There happier than in islands blest,
Or bowers by Spring or Hebe drest,
The chiefs who fill our Albion's story,

In warlike weeds, retir'd in glory,