ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR.* 'Ioù, ¡où, ŵ ŵ naná. Ὑπ ̓ αὖ μὲ δεινὸς όρθομαντείας πόνος * Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ ̓ ἐν τάχει παρὼν Aschy. Agamem. 1225. ARGUMENT. THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them, for a while, to the cause of human nature in general. The first epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796, having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the image of the departing year, &c., as in a vision. The second epode prophesies in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. STROPHE I. SPIRIT! who sweepest the wild harp of Time, It is most hard with an untroubled ear Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear! Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime, With inward stillness, and a bowed mind: This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1798; and published separately on the last day of the year. B When lo! far onwards waving on the wind I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR! Starting from my silent sadness Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the enter'd cloud forbade my sight, I rais'd th' impetuous song, and solemniz'd his flight. STROPHE II. Hither from the recent tomb, Or where o'er cradled infants bending Ye Woes, and young-eyed Joys advance! Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, I bid you haste, a mix'd tumultuous band; And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Justice and Truth! They, too, have heard the spell, They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty! EPODE I. I mark'd Ambition in his war-array! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot o'er its onward way?" Fly; mailed monarch fly! Stunn'd by Death's" twice mortal" mace, The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin chok'd the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, Mid women's shrieks and infant's screams! Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, Rush around her narrow dwelling! Th' exterminating fiend is fled (Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty army of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! Then with prophetic song relate, Each some sceptred murderer's fate! ANTISTROPHE I. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore Thou stored'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Deep silence o'er th' ethereal multitude, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, ANTISTROPHE II. On every harp, on every tongue, Thou in stormy blackness throning By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning, By Belgium's corse impeded flood! * And hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bar'd! Strange, horrible, and foul! By what deep guilt belongs To the deaf Senate, 'full of gifts and lies!' By wealth's insensate laugh! by torture's howl! For ever shall the bloody Island scowl? For aye, unbroken, shall her cruel bow Shoot famine's arrows o'er thy ravag'd world? Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature, rise! Ah why those bolts unhurl'd?" The Rhine. EPODE II. The voice had ceas'd, the phantoms fled; And my thick and struggling breath No stranger agony confounds The soldier on the war-field spread, Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead! (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled, And the night wind clamours hoarse! Lies pillowed on a brother's corse!) O doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile, And Ocean mid his uproar wild Hence for many a fearless age Has social quiet lov'd thy shore; Nor ever sworded foeman's rage Orsack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore. |