III.

Princefs! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchlefs wrongs,

'Tis because refentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

IV.

Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;

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 fhall kifs the ground

Hark! the Gaul is at her gates.

Other Romans fhall arise,

VI.

Heedlefs of a foldier's name,

Sounds, not arms, fhall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forefts of our land,

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

VIII.

Regions Cæfar never knew,

Thy pofterity shall sway,

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

IX.

Such the bard's prophetic words,

Pregnant with celeftial fire,

Bending as he fwept the chords

Of his sweet but awful lyre.

X.

She, with all a monarch's pride,

Felt them in her bofom glow, Rufh'd to battle, fought and died,

Dying, hurl'd them at the foe.

Ruffians,

XI.

Ruffens, pitylefs as proud,

Tieav'n awards the vengeance due,

Empire is on us beflow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

HEROIS M.

THERE was a time when Etna's filent fire

Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire,
When confcious of no danger from below,
She tow'r'd a cloud-capt pyramid of fnow.
No thunders fhook with deep intestine found
The blooming groves that girdled her around,
Her unctuous olives and her purple vines,
(Unfelt the fury of thofe bursting mines)
The peafant's hopes, and not in vain, affur'd,

In peace upon her floping fides 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 feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rife,

And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the stygian veil that blots the day,
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what mufe, and in what pow'rs of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havock and devastation in the van,

It marches o'er the proftrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forefts disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.
Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,

See it an uninform'd and idle mass,

Without a foil t' invite the tiller's care,

Or blade that might redeem it from defpair.

Yet time at length (what will not time atchieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live,

Once

Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.

Oh bliss precarious, and unfafe retreats,

Oh charming paradife of fhort-liv'd sweets!
The self-fame gale that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the diftant ear a fullen found,

Again the mountain feels th' imprifon'd foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below,

Ten thousand swains the wafted scene deplore,

That only future ages can restore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws,

Who write in blood the merits of

your cause,

Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence,

Glory your aim, but justice your pretence;

Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride infpires.

Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain, And tells you where ye have a right to reign,