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(From The Shipwreck)
ETERNAL powers! what ruins from afar | |
| Mark the fell track of desolating war: | |
| Here arts and commerce with auspicious reign | |
| Once breathed sweet influence on the happy plain: | |
| While o’er the lawn, with dance and festive song, | 5 |
| Young Pleasure led the jocund hours along: | |
| In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seen | |
| To crown the valleys with eternal green: | |
| For wealth, for valor, courted and revered, | |
| What Albion is, fair Candia then appeared. | 10 |
| Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke? | |
| The free-born spirit of her sons is broke, | |
| They bow to Ottoman’s imperious yoke. | |
| No longer fame their drooping heart inspires, | |
| For stern oppression quenched its genial fires: | 15 |
| Though still her fields, with golden harvests crowned, | |
| Supply the barren shores of Greece around, | |
| Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles, | |
| There hope ne’er dawns, and pleasure never smiles; | |
| The vassal wretch contented drags his chain, | 20 |
| And hears his famished babes lament in vain. | |
| These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soil | |
| A seventh year mock the weary laborer’s toil. | |
| No blooming Venus, on the desert shore, | |
| Now views with triumph captive gods adore; | 25 |
| No lovely Helens now with fatal charms | |
| Excite the avenging chiefs of Greece to arms; | |
| No fair Penelopes enchant the eye, | |
| For whom contending kings were proud to die; | |
| Here sullen beauty sheds a twilight ray, | 30 |
| While sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay; | |
| Those charms, so long renowned in classic strains, | |
| Had dimly shone on Albion’s happier plains! * * * * * | |
| The sun’s bright orb, declining all serene, | |
| Now glanced obliquely o’er the woodland scene; | 35 |
| Creation smiles around; on every spray | |
| The warbling birds exalt their evening lay; | |
| Blithe skipping o’er yon hill, the fleecy train | |
| Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain; | |
| The golden lime and orange there were seen | 40 |
| On fragrant branches of perpetual green; | |
| The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave, | |
| To the green ocean roll with chiding wave. | |
| The glassy ocean, hushed, forgets to roar, | |
| But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore; | 45 |
| And, lo! his surface lovely to behold, | |
| Glows in the west, a sea of living gold! | |
| While all above a thousand liveries gay | |
| The skies with pomp ineffable array. | |
| Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains; | 50 |
| Above, beneath, around, enchantment reigns! | |
| While glowing Vesper leads the starry train, | |
| And night slow draws her veil o’er land and main, | |
| Emerging clouds the azure east invade, | |
| And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade; | 55 |
| While yet the songsters of the vocal grove | |
| With dying numbers tune the soul to love. | |
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