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Permissive signal make:

The fervent Spirit bow'd, then spread his wings and spake:
"Thou in stormy blackness throning
Love and uncreated Light,

By the Earth's unsolaced groaning,
Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!
By Peace with proffer'd insult scared,
Masked hate and envying scorn;
By years of havoc yet unborn,

And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared;
But chief by Afric's wrongs,
Strange, horrible, and foul;

By what deep guilt belongs

To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies;' By wealth's insensate laugh, by torture's howl, Avenger, rise!

For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,
Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow?
Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven, O, speak aloud!
And on the darkling foe

Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!
O, dart the flash! O, rise and deal the blow!
The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries!

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!
Rise, God of Nature, rise!"

The voice had ceased, the vision fled;
Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;
My cars throb hot; my eye-balls start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims;
Wild is the tempest of my heart;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of death!

No stranger agony confounds

The soldier on the war-field spread, When all fordone with toil and wounds,

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See! the starting wretch's head

Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse!)

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,
O Albion! O my mother Isle!
Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers;
Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks;
(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells
Proudly ramparted with rocks;)
And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild
Speaks safety to his island-child.
Hence for many a fearless age
Has social Quiet loved thy shore;
Nor ever proud Invader's rage

Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.

Abandon'd of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide,
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride,-
'Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood,
And join'd the wild yelling of famine and blood!
The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering
Shall hear Destruction, like a Vulture, scream!
Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream
Of central fires through nether seas upthundering
Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies
By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,
"If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

O Albion! thy predestined ruins rise,
The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,
Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep.

Away, my soul, away!

In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing,-
And, hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey
Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind!
Away, my soul, away!

I unpartaking of the evil thing,
With daily prayer and daily toil
Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

Have wail'd my country with a loud Lament.
Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.

FRANCE. AN ODE.

YE Clouds, that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control!
Ye Ocean-Waves, that, wheresoc'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws!

Ye Woods, that listen to the night-birds singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches swinging
Have made a solemn music of the wind!
Where, like a man beloved of God,

Through glooms, which never woodman trod,
How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound!
O'ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high!

And O ye Clouds that far above me soar'd! Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea, every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.

When France in wrath her giant limbs uprear'd,

And with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea, Stamp'd her strong foot, and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and fear'd! With what a joy my lofty gratulation

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band:

And when, to whelm the disenchanted nation,
Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand,
The Monarchs march'd in evil day,
And Britain join'd the dire array;
Though dear her shores and circling ocean,
Though many friendships, many youthful loves
Had swoln the patriot emotion,

And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves,
Yet still my voice, unalter'd, sang defeat

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance,
And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat!
For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim

I dimm'd thy light or damp'd thy holy flame;
But bless'd the pæans of deliver'd France,
And hung my head and wept at Britain's name.

"And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream
- With that sweet music of deliverance strove!
Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove
A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream!
Ye storms, that round the dawning East assembled,
The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light!"

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled,
The dissonance ceased, and all seem'd calm and bright;
When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory
Conceal'd with clustering wreaths of glory;
When, insupportably advancing,

Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp;
While, timid looks of fury glancing,

Domestic treason, crush'd beneath her fatal stamp,
Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore;

Then I reproach'd my fears that would not flee;
"And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore
In the low huts of them that toil and groan!
And, conquering by her happiness alone,

Shall France compel the nations to be free,

Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own."

Forgive me, Freedom! O, forgive those dreams!
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent,

I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain'd streams!
Heroes, that for your peaceful country perish'd,
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows
With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I cherish'd
One thought that ever bless'd your cruel foes!
To scatter rage and traitorous guilt
Where Peace her jealous home had built;
A patriot-race to disinherit

Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear;
And with inexpiable spirit

To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer, -
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,
And patriot only in pernicious toils!

Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind?
To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey?
To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils
From freemen torn? to tempt and to betray?

5 Coleridge's Table Talk, under date July 23, 1832, has the following: "No man was more enthusiastic than I was for France and the Revolution: it had all my wishes, none of my expectations. Before 1793, I clearly saw, and often enough stat

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game
They burst their manacles and wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain!
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour;

But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power.
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee,)
Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions,
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,

The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves!
And there I felt thee!-on that sea-cliff's verge,
Whose pines, scarce travell'd by the breeze above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge!
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.
FEBRUARY, 1797.

FEARS IN SOLITUDE.

(Written in April, 1798, during the alarm of an invasion.)
A GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills,
A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place
No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.
The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,
Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,
All golden with the never-bloomless furze,
Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell,
Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate
As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,

ed in public, the horrid delusion, the vile mockery of the whole affair."-The subju. gation of Switzerland was long a favourite object with the revolutionary leaders in France. Machinations to that end were begun as early as 1791; and in the Fall of 1792, the National Convention unanimously passed a decree which placed France openly at war with all established governments. A military invasion of Switzerland soon followed; and the sanguinary work was continued from time to time till 1798, when, at length the French carried through their purpose. This wanton and unprovoked assault on the ancient freedom and independence of the Swiss disenchanted many of the sympathisers with the French cause, both in England and elsewhere. Sir James Mackintosh denounced it as "an act in comparison with which all the deeds of rapine and bloodshed perpetrated in the world are innocence itself." But the Swiss did not at that time stay conquered; and the final extinction of their old Confederacy did not take place till 1802. Perhaps, after all, that great crime has earned our thanks, in having prompted the composition of this mighty Ode. See page 192, note 6.

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