SEA-PIECE:

CONTAINING

I. THE BRITISH SAILOR'S EXULTATION.

II. HIS PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.

MDCCXXXIII

THE DEDICATION.

TO MR VOLTAIRE.

My Muse, a bird of passage, flies
From frozen climes to milder skies;
From chilling blasts she seeks thy cheering beam,
A beam of favour here denied ;
Conscious of faults, her blushing pride
Hopes an asylum in so great a name.

To dive full deep in ancient days,
The warrior's ardent deeds to raise,
And monarchs aggrandise, the glory thine;
Thine is the drama; how renowned !
Thine, epic's loftier trump to sound ;—
But let Arion's sea-strung harp be mine;

But where's his dolphin? Know'st thou where ?—
May that be found in thee, Voltaire !
Save thou from harm my plunge into the wave.
How will thy name, illustrious, raise
My sinking song! Mere mortal lays,
So patronised, are rescued from the grave.

"Tell me," say'st thou, "who courts my smile?
What stranger strayed from yonder isle ?"-
No stranger, sir! though born in foreign climes.
On Dorset downs, when Milton's page,
With Sin and Death, provoked thy rage,

Thy rage provoked who soothed with gentle rhymes?
Who kindly couched thy censure's eye,
And gave thee clearly to descry

Sound judgment giving law to Fancy strong?
Who half inclined thee to confess,-

Nor could thy modesty do less,—

That Milton's blindness lay not in his song?

But such debates long since are flown;
For ever set the suns that shone

On airy pastimes, ere our brows were gray.
How shortly shall we both forget.

To thee, my patron, I my debt,

And thou to thine, for Prussia's golden key!

The present, in oblivion cast,

Full soon shall sleep, as sleeps the past;
Full soon the wide distinction die between
The frowns and favours of the great,
High-flushed Success and pale Defeat,
The Gallic gaiety and British spleen.

Ye winged, ye rapid moments, stay!—
O friend! as deaf as rapid they;
Life's little drama done, the curtain falls!
Dost thou not hear it? I can hear,

Though nothing strikes the listening ear:
Time groans his last! ETERNAL loudly calls!
Nor calls in vain: the call inspires
Far other counsels and desires

Than once prevailed; we stand on higher ground:
What scenes we see !-Exalted aim!

With ardours new our spirits flame;
Ambition blessed, with more than laurels crowned!

ODE THE FIRST.

THE BRITISH SAILOR'S EXULTATION.

IN lofty sounds let those delight,
Who brave the foe, but fear the fight,
And, bold in word, of arms decline the stroke:
'Tis mean to boast, but great to lend
To foes the counsel of a friend,

And warn them of the vengeance they provoke.

From whence arise these loud alarms?

Why gleams the south with brandish'd arms? War, bathed in blood, from cursed Ambition springs : Ambition mean! ignoble Pride!

Perhaps their ardours may subside,
When weighed the wonders Britain's sailor sings.

Hear, and revere.-At Britain's nod,

From each enchanted grove and wood Hastes the huge oak, or shadeless forest leaves;

The mountain pines assume new forms,

Spread canvas-wings, and fly through storms,
And ride o'er rocks, and dance on foaming waves.

She nods again: the labouring Earth
Discloses a tremendous birth;

In smoking rivers runs her molten ore!
Thence monsters, of enormous size

And hideous aspect, threatening rise,

Flame from the deck, from trembling bastions roar.

These ministers of Fate fulfil,

On empires wide, an island's will,

When thrones unjust wake vengeance.-Know, ye powers!

In sudden night and ponderous balls, And floods of flame, the tempest falls, When braved Britannia's awful senate lours.

In her grand council she surveys,
In patriot picture, what may raise
Of insolent attempts a warm disdain ;

From hope's triumphant summit thrown,
Like darted lightning, swiftly down,
The wealth of Ind, and confidence of Spain.
Britannia sheaths her courage keen,
And spares her nitrous magazine;
Her cannon slumber, till the proud aspire,

And leave all law below them; then they blaze,
They thunder from resounding seas,

Touch'd by their injured master's soul of fire.

Then Furies rise; the battle raves,

And rends the skies, and warms the waves,
And calls a tempest from the peaceful deep,
In spite of Nature, spite of Jove;
While, all serene and hushed, above,
Tumultuous winds in azure chambers sleep.

A thousand deaths the bursting bomb
Hurls from her disembowelled womb;
Chained glowing globes, in dread alliance joined,
Red-winged by strong sulphureous blasts,

Sweep, in black whirlwinds, men and masts,
And leave singed, naked, blood-drowned decks behind.

Dwarf laurels rise in tented fields;

The wreath immortal Ocean yields:

There War's whole sting is shot, whole fire is spent, Whole glory blooms. How pale, how tame, How lambent is Bellona's flame,

How her storms languish, on the continent !

From the dread front of ancient War Less terror frowned; her scythèd car, Her castled elephant, and battering beam, Stoop to those engines which deny Superior terrors to the sky,

And boast their clouds, their thunder, and their flame.

The flame, the thunder, and the cloud,
The night by day, the sea of blood,

Hosts whirled in air, the yell of sinking throngs,
The graveless dead, an ocean warmed,
A firmament by mortals stormed,
To patient Britain's angry brow belongs.

Or do I dream? or do I rave?
Or see I Vulcan's sooty cave,

Where Jove's red bolts the giant brothers frame?
Those swarthy gods of toil and heat,
Loud peals on mountain anvils beat,
And panting tempests rouse the roaring flame.

Ye sons of Ætna! hear my call;
Unfinished, let those baubles fall,

Yon shield of Mars, Minerva's helmet blue:
Your strokes suspend, ye brawny throng!
Charmed by the magic of my song,

Drop the feigned thunder, and attempt the true.

Begin and, first, take rapid flight,
Fierce flame, and clouds of thickest night,
And ghastly terror, paler than the dead;
Then, borrow from the North his roar;
Mix groans and death; one phial pour

Of wronged Britannia's wrath ;-and it is made:
Gaul starts, and trembles, at your dreadful trade.

ODE THE SECOND.

IN WHICH IS

THE SAILOR'S PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.

So formed the bolt, ordained to break Gaul's haughty plan, and Bourbon shake; If Britain's crimes support not Britain's foes, And edge their swords; O Power Divine! If blessed by Thee the bold design; Embattled hosts a single arm o'erthrows.

Ye warlike dead, who fell of old
In Britain's cause, by Fame enrolled
In deathless annal! deathless deeds inspire;
From oozy beds, for Britain's sake,
Awake, illustrious chiefs! awake
And kindle in your sons paternal fire.

The day commissioned from above,
Our worth to weigh, our hearts to prove,
If war's full shock too feeble to sustain ;
Or firm to stand its final blow,
When vital streams of blood shall flow,
And turn to crimson the discoloured main ;

That day's arrived, that fatal hour!-
"Hear us, O hear, Almighty Power!
Our Guide in counsel, and our strength in fight!
Now war's important die is thrown,

If left the day to man alone,

How blind is Wisdom, and how weak is Might!

"Let prostrate hearts, and awful fear, And deep remorse, and sighs sincere For Britain's guilt, the wrath Divine appease; A wrath more formidable far

Than angry Nature's wasteful war,
The whirl of tempests, and the roar of seas.

"From out the deep, to Thee we cry,
To Thee, at nature's helm on high!
Steer Thou our conduct, dread Omnipotence !
To Thee for succour we resort;

Thy favour is our only port;

Our only rock of safety, Thy defence.