So had it been, had aught of mortal strain,
Or less than fairy felt the deadly pain.
But empyreal forms, howe'er in fight
Gash'd and difmember'd, eafily unite.
As fome frail cup of China's pureft mold,
With azure varnish'd, and bedrop'd with gold,
Tho' broke, if cur'd by fome nice virgin's hands,
In its old ftrength and priftine beauty ftands;
The tumults of the boiling Bohea braves,
And holds fecure the Coffee's fable waves:
So did Azuriel's arm, if fame fay true,
Rejoin the vital trunk whence firft it grew ;
And, whilst in wonder fix'd poor Albion stood,
Plung'd the curs'd fabre in his heart's warm blood,
The golden broidery tender Milkah wove,
The breast to Kenna facred and to love,

Lie rent and mangled: and the gaping wound
Pours out a flood of purple on the ground.
The jetty luftre fickens in his

eyes:
On his cold cheeks the bloomy freshness dies;
Oh Kenna, Kenna, thrice he try'd to say,
• Kenna farewel:' and figh'd his foul away.
His fall the Dryads with loud fhrieks deplore,
By fifter Naiads echo'd from the shore,
Thence down to Neptune's fecret realms convey'd,
Through grots, and glooms, and many a coral shade.
The fea's great fire, with looks denouncing war,
The trident shakes, and mounts the pearly carr:
D 4

With

With one ftern frown the wide-fpread deep deforms,
And works the madding ocean into storms.

O'er foaming mountains, and through bursting tides,
Now high, now low, the bounding chariot rides,
'Till through the Thames in a loud whirlwind's roar
It shoots and lands him on the deftin'd fhore.
Now fix'd on earth his tow'ring ftature ftood,
Hung o'er the mountains, and o'erlook'd the wood.
To Brumpton's grove one ample stride he took,
(The valleys trembled, and the forefts fhook)
The next huge ftep reach'd the devoted fhade,
Where choak'd in blood was wretched Albion laid :
Where now the vanquish'd, with the victors join'd,
Beneath the regal banners ftood combin'd.

Th'embattel'd dwarfs with rage and scorn he paft,
And on their town his eye vindictive cast.
Its deep foundations his ftrong trident cleaves,
And high in air th' up-rooted empire heaves ;
On his broad engine the vast ruin hung,
Which on the foe with force divine he flung;
Aghaft the legions in th' approaching shade,
Th' inverted fpires and rocking domes furvey'd,
That downward tumbling on the hoft below
Crush'd the whole nation at one dreadful blow.
Towers, arms, nymphs, warriors, are together loft,
And a whole empire falls to footh fad Albion's ghost,
Such was the period, long reftrain'd by Fate,

And fuch the downfal of the fairy ftate.

This

This dale, a pleafing region, not unblest,
This dale poffefs'd they; and had ftill poffefs'd,
Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rafh to diffolve the contract feal'd above,
The folemn vows and facred bonds of love.
Now, where his elves fo brightly danc'd the round,
No violet breathes, nor daify paints the ground,
His towers and people fill one common grave,
A fhapeless ruin, and a barren cave.

Beneath huge hills of fmoaking piles he lay
Stun'd and confounded a whole fummer's day.
At length awak'd (for what can long restrain
Unbody'd spirits!) but awak'd in pain :
And as he faw the defolated wood,

And the dark den where once his empire flood,
Grief chill'd his heart: to his half-open'd eyes
In every oak a Neptune feem'd to rife:

He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,
The long poffeffion of a thousand years.

Thro' bush,thro' brake, thro' groves and gloomy dales, Thro' dank and dry, o'er ftreams and flowery vales, Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,

And stop'd and started at each russling wind.
Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands
Difperfe and wander into different land;
Part did beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie,
In filent glooms impervious to the fky;

Part

Part on fair Avon's margin feek repose,
Whofe ftream o'er Britain's midmoft region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,

And feas and oceans are but known by fame:
Some to dark woods and fecret fhades retreat,
And fome on mountains chufe their airy feat.
There haply by the ruddy damfel feen,

Or fhepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,
While from their fteps a circling verdure fprings;
But fly from towns, and dread the courts of kings,
Mean-while fad Kenna, loth to quit the grove,
Hung o'er the body of her breathless love,
Try'd every art (vain arts!) to change his doom,
And vow'd (vain vows !) to join him in the tomb,
What could fhe do? the Fates alike deny

The dead to live, or fairy forms to die

An herb there grows (the fame old + Homer tells
Ulyffes bore to rival Circe's spells)

Its root is ebon-black, but fends to light
A ftem that bends with flow'rets milky white,
Moly the plant, which gods and fairies know,
But fecret kept from mortal men below.
On his pale limbs its virtuous juice she shed,
And murmur'd myftick numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little fhape by magick power
Grew lefs and lefs, contracted to a flower;

+ Odyf. l. 10,

A flower,

A flower, that firft in this fweet garden fmil'd,
To virgins facred, and the Snow-drop ftyl'd.

The new-born plant with fweet regret fhe view'd,
Warm'd with her fighs, and with her tears bedew'd,
Its ripen'd feeds from bank to bank convey'd,

And with her lover whiten'd half the fhade.

Thus won from death each spring she fees him grow,
And glories in the vegetable fnow,

Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's plains,
Its parent's warmth and spotless name retains;
First leader of the flowery race afpires,
And foremost catches the fun's genial fires,
'Midft frofts and fnows triumphant dares appear,
Mingles the feafons, and leads on the year.
Deferted now of all the pygmy race,

Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place.
In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age,
It lay accurs'd, the mark of Neptune's rage;
'Till great Naffau recloath'd the defart shade,
Thence facred to Britannia's monarchs made.
'Twas then the
green-r
-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna, came,
(Kenna that gave the neighb'ring town its name)
Proud when the faw th' ennobled garden shine
With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line.
She vow'd to grace the manfions once her own,
And picture out in plants the fairy town.
To far-fam'd Wife her flight unfeen she sped,
And with gay profpects fill'd the craftsman's head,

Soft