<50S ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



"\Vi!ilc coid Oblivion, 'reid tliy ruins laid, 

 Folds his dark wing beneath the ivy shade. 



Ye guardian sainis ! ye warrior Rons of heaven. 

 To whose iiigh care Juda'a's state was given ! 

 O wont of old your uigl.ily watch to keep, 

 A host of gods, on Sion's towcry steep ! 

 If e'er your secret footsteps linger slill 

 J?y Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill ; 

 If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell, 

 And mourn the captive land you lov'd so well ; 

 (For oft, 'tis said, in Krdron's paloiy vale, 

 P.iystcrious harpings swell the midnight gale, 

 And, blest as balmy dews that llerinon cheer, 

 !Melt in soft cadencs on the pilgri:n*s car ;) 

 Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high 

 Jlock the weak notes of mortal minstrelsy ! 

 Yet, might your aid this Anxious breast inspire 

 V/ith one faint spark of Milton's soraph lire, 

 Then should my Muse ascend m ith bolder ilight. 

 And v,avc her eagle-plumes exulting in the light- 



Oh happy once in heaven's peculiar lovc^ 

 Delight of men belov/, and saints above ! 

 Though, Salem, now the spoiler's rufhan hand 

 lias loos'd his hell-hounds o'er thy M'iisted land ; 

 Tiiough weak, and whcrm'd beneath the storms of fate, 

 Thy house is left unto thee dcDolate ; 

 Though thy proud stones in cumbrous ruin f;ill, 

 And seas of sand o'er-top thy mouldering wall ; 

 Yet shall the Muse to fancy's ardent view 

 Each shadowy trace of faded pomp renew : , 

 And as the Seer on Pisgah's topmost I)row, 

 Yv ith glistening eye beheld the plain below, 

 ' "With prescient ardour drank the scented gale, 



And bade the opening glades of Canaan hail ; 

 Her eagle eye shall scan the prospect M'ide, 

 From Carmel's cliffs to Alniotaiia's tide; 

 The flinty waste, the cedar-tufted hill, 

 The liquid Iiealth of smooth Ardeni's rill ; 

 The grot, where, by the Avatch-firc's evening blaze, 

 Tlie robber riots, or the hermit prays ; 

 Or, where the tempest rives the hoary stone. 

 The wintry top of giant Lebanon. 



Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold, 

 Those stormy seas the warrior Druses hold ; 



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