-Nor can'st thou, D'Arcy, feel resentment long; For D'Arcy's tears bedewed his hand; "Let each meet each, as friend to friend, All things by all forgot, forgiven. And that dear Saint-may she once more descend All hearts shall sing Adieu to sorrow!' St. Pierre has found his child to-day; And old and young shall dance to-morrow." Had Louis* then before the gate dismounted, Like Henry when he heard recounted† The generous deeds himself had done, *Louis the Fourteenth. Alluding to a popular story related of Henry the Fourth of France; similar to ours of "The King and Miller of Mansfield." (What time the miller's maid Colette Sung, while he supped, her chansonnette) Then when St. Pierre addressed his village-train, A joy by him unsought and unpossessed, To love, and to be loved again. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. ODE TO SUPERSTITION. WRITTEN IN 1785. I. 1. HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence! Thy chain of adamant can bind That little world, the human mind, And sink its noblest powers to impotence. Clot his shaggy mane with gore, With flashing fury bid his eyeballs shine; Meek is his savage, sullen soul, to thine! Thy touch, thy deadening touch, has steeled the breast, Whence, thro' her April shower, soft Pity smiled ; Has closed the heart each godlike virtue blessed, To all the silent pleadings of his child.* At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, tho' Nature bids him weep! *The sacrifice of Iphigenia. I. 2. When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,* Thou dartedst thy huge head from high, Night waved her banners o'er the sky, And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth. Rocking on the billowy air, Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The spirit of the water rides the storm, I. 3. O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns, And holds each mountain-wave in chains, * Lucretius, I. 63. By thee inspired, on India's sands, Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. Blooming in her bridal vest: She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! She clasps her lord to part no more, And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost, Weave the airy web of Fate; While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,‡ Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. *The funeral rite of the Hindoos. The Fates of the Northern Mythology. See MALLETT'S Antiquities. An allusion to the Second Sight. |