TO THE

PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN,

ON THE THREATENED INVASION.

BY DR. CHARLES BURNEY.

ARM, Britons, arm! Your Country's cause,
Your Monarch, Constitution, Laws,
Religion, Wives, and Infant Train,

Now call to arms !-nor let their call be vain!
No: tread the path which erst your Fathers trod:
The stake is England! Britons, rise:

Your Foes are Gauls! Those Foes chastise:
Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

Shall He, with virtues amply known,

Our King, be hurl'd from Britain's throne
By Gauls, embrued in Royal gore,

Who menace death or slavery round our shore?
No:- -tread the path which erst your Fathers trod:
Nor let the Foes' licentious pride

Your Monarch's lawful power deride:

Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

Shall We, who boast a Briton's name,
Renounce our Constitution's claim?

King, Lords, and Commons, levell'd low,-
And, tamely crouching, court the threaten'd blow? -
No:-tread the path which erst your Fathers trod :
No Foes in arms, with treacherous hate,

Shall shake your Church, shall change your State, Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

Shall We, whose Laws our rights secure,
Protecting all, or rich or poor,-

Those laws abandon:-fram'd of old

By Sires whose souls were stamp'd in Freedom's

No:

mould?

tread the path which erst your Fathers trod:

No proud Dictator Britain knows:

Nor brooks the rule of tyrant Foes:

Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

Shall We Religion's voice neglect: Her duties spurn, her Word reject; While Priests by ruthless steel expire, And Temples sink, involv'd in Atheist fire? No: tread the path which erst your Fathers trod : The learn'd and pious Sons of pray'r

From Foes protect, with grateful care,Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

Shall We, whom Wedlock's bands entwine, With dastard souls our Wives resign; While Love and Honour "blow War's blast;" And Memory lives to paint endearments past?

No:-tread the path which erst your Fathers trod : Guard female worth, and female charms,

Guard wedded Love, from Foes in arms :Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

No:

Shall We, who've fondly watch'd each grace
That seem'd to mark our Infant Race,
Now prematurely fix their doom,

While murderous rites pollute the Victim's tomb?
-tread the path which erst your Fathers trod :
Like them the ensanguin'd battle dare:
The Foes nor Child nor Matron spare:

Foes to your King, your Country, and your God!

The trumpet sounds! Ye British Host,
On British ground defend your coast:
In every clime you 've tam'd their pride,
When Kings their Rulers-Sanctity their Guide!
Now tread the path which erst your Fathers trod:
United brave the impending storm!

One dreadful phalanx, Britons, form:

Friends to your King, your Country, and your God!

Go-you may call it madness, folly,
You shall not chase my gloom away,
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay.

Oh! if you knew the pensive pleasure,
That fills my bosom when I sigh,
You would not rob me of a treasure,
Monarchs are too poor to buy.

S. R.

ODE.

THE ABOLITION OF CATHOLICISM.

Written on learning the Arrival of the French at Rome in 1798.

ON

N consecrated ground

Their trampled graves around,

Ghosts of the good, their midnight moanings vent; Yon vacant ailes among,

Where kneel'd the christian throng,

Voices of weeping stray with strange lament,

A dew from the chill marble breaks,

While each peculiar pow'r its long-wont seat forsakes.

The quaking altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Dismays the priest amid his mutter'd toil:

Beside the golden shrine

Expires the taper's shine,

The guardian saints with wailings thence recoil;
As were it their unwilling doom

Thro' the aërial waste to rove in lonely gloom.

Celestial groves of palm,
Ye are not ever calm;

Laden with sighs, the gales of Eden flow;
Tears such as angels weep

The unfading amaranth steep;

The living waters slide more sad and slow;
The golden harps are all unstrung,

Mute to the sweeping hand, and on the willows hung.

In coarser sackcloth fold

Thy limbs of dainty mould;

Fling further off thine essenc'd kerchiefs sweet;

With brinier tears embathe,

With looser tresses swathe,

Fair Magdalena, thy lov'd prophet's feet:

Forgot is now, by man below,

The life of matchless love, the death of matchless woe.

Nor James, nor sworded Paul,

Watch in the cross-shap'd hall :

Nor the first martyr of a madding crowd.
Back to the desert-air

Unmet shall he repair,

Who guided throngs to Jordan's cleansing flood.
E'en the much-lov'd disciple must not stay,

His crown of glory sheds a paler, bluer ray.

Cecilia's bright-hair'd band

Of pupil cherubs stand,

With veiling wings their drooping heads concealing:

To hymns of praise and joy

Their closed lips are coy;

To anthems high in echoing air far pealing.

Hush'd is her soul-dissolving tongue,

Nor floats aloof her proud-voic'd organ's rolling song