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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=407925" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Ode on the Piece</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>As wand'ring late on Albion's shore<br>That chains the rude tempestuous deep,<br>I heard the hollow surges roar<br>And vainly beat her guardian steep;<br>I heard the rising sounds of woe<br>Loud on the storm's wild pinion flow;<br>And still they vibrate on the mournful lyre,<br>That tunes to grief its sympathetic wire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>From shores the wide Atlantic laves,<br>The spirit of the ocean bears<br>In moans, along his western waves,<br>Afflicted nature's hopeless cares:<br>Enchanting scenes of young delight,<br>How chang'd since first ye rose to sight;<br>Since first ye rose in infant glories drest<br>Fresh from the wave, and rear'd your ample breast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>Her crested serpents, discord throws<br>O'er scenes which love with roses grac'd;<br>The flow'ry chain his hands compose,<br>She wildly scatters o'er the waste:<br>Her glance his playful smile deforms,<br>Her frantic voice awakes the storms,<br>From land to land, her torches spread their fires,<br>While love's pure flame in streams of blood expires.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>Now burns the savage soul of war,<br>While terror flashes from his eyes,<br>Lo! waving o'er his fiery car<br>Aloft his bloody banner flies:<br>The battle wakes—with awful sound<br>He thunders o'er the echoing ground,<br>He grasps his reeking blade, while streams of blood<br>Tinge the vast plain, and swell the purple flood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>But softer sounds of sorrow flow;<br>On drooping wing the murm'ring gales<br>Have borne the deep complaints of woe<br>That rose along the lonely vales—<br>Those breezes waft the orphan's cries,<br>They tremble to parental sighs,<br>And drink a tear for keener anguish shed,<br>The tear of faithful love when hope is fled.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.<br>The object of her anxious fear<br>Lies pale on earth, expiring, cold,<br>Ere, wing'd by happy love, one year<br>Too rapid in its course, has roll'd;<br>In vain the dying hand she grasps,<br>Hangs on the quiv'ring lip, and clasps<br>The fainting form, that slowly sinks in death,<br>To catch the parting glance, the fleeting breath.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>Pale as the livid corse her cheek,<br>Her tresses torn, her glances wild,—<br>How fearful was her frantic shriek!<br>She wept—and then in horrors smil'd:<br>She gazes now with wild affright,<br>Lo! bleeding phantoms rush in sight—<br>Hark! on yon mangled form the mourner calls,<br>Then on the earth a senseless weight she falls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.<br>And see! o'er gentle Andre's tomb,<br>The victim of his own despair,<br>Who fell in life's exulting bloom,<br>Nor deem'd that life deserv'd a care;<br>O'er the cold earth his relicks prest,<br>Lo! Britain's drooping legions rest;<br>For him the swords they sternly grasp, appear<br>Dim with a sigh, and sullied with a tear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>While Seward sweeps her plaintive strings,<br>While pensive round his sable shrine,<br>A radiant zone she graceful flings,<br>Where full emblaz'd his virtues shine;<br>The mournful loves that tremble nigh<br>Shall catch her warm melodious sigh;<br>The mournful loves shall drink the tears that flow<br>From Pity's hov'ring soul, dissolv'd in woe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>And hark, in Albion's flow'ry vale<br>A parent's deep complaint I hear!<br>A sister calls the western gale<br>To waft her soul-expressive tear;<br>'Tis Asgill claims that piercing sigh,<br>That dropp which dims the beauteous eye,<br>While on the rack of Doubt Affection proves<br>How strong the force which binds the ties she loves.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI.<br>How oft in every dawning grace<br>That blossom'd in his early hours,<br>Her soul some comfort lov'd to trace,<br>And deck'd futurity in flowers!<br>But lo! in Fancy's troubled sight<br>The dear illusions sink in night;<br>She views the murder'd form—the quiv'ring breath,<br>The rising virtues chill'd in shades of death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.<br>Cease, cease ye throbs of hopeless woe;<br>He lives the future hours to bless,<br>He lives, the purest joy to know,<br>Parental transports fond excess;<br>His sight a father's eye shall chear,<br>A sister's drooping charms endear:—<br>The private pang was Albion's gen'rous care,<br>For him she breath'd a warm accepted prayer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII.<br>And lo! a radiant stream of light<br>Defending, gilds the murky cloud,<br>Where Desolation's gloomy night<br>Retiring, folds her sable shroud;<br>It flashes o'er the bright'ning deep,<br>It softens Britain's frowning steep—<br>'Tis mild benignant Peace, enchanting form!<br>That gilds the black abyss, that lulls the storm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV.<br>So thro' the dark, impending sky,<br>Where clouds, and fallen vapours roll'd,<br>Their curling wreaths dissolving fly<br>As the faint hues of light unfold—<br>The air with spreading azure streams,<br>The sun now darts his orient beams—<br>And now the mountains glow—the woods are bright—<br>While nature hails the season of delight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV.<br>Mild Peace! from Albion's fairest bowers<br>Pure spirit! cull with snowy hands,<br>The buds that drink the morning showers,<br>And bind the realms in flow'ry bands:<br>Thy smiles the angry passions chase,<br>Thy glance is pleasure's native grace;<br>Around thy form th' exulting virtues move,<br>And thy soft call awakes the strain of love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI.<br>Bless, all ye powers! the patriot name<br>That courts fair Peace, thy gentle stay;<br>Ah! gild with glory's light, his fame,<br>And glad his life with pleasure's ray!<br>While, like th' affrighted dove, thy form<br>Still shrinks, and fears some latent storm,<br>His cares shall sooth thy panting soul to rest,<br>And spread thy vernal couch on Albion's breast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII.<br>Ye, who have mourn'd the parting hour,<br>Which love in darker horrors drew,<br>Ye, who have vainly tried to pour<br>With falt'ring voice the last adieu!<br>When the pale cheek, the bursting sigh,<br>The soul that hov'ring in the eye,<br>Express'd the pains it felt, the pains it fear'd—<br>Ah! paint the youth's return, by grief endear'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII.<br>Yon hoary form, with aspect mild,<br>Deserted kneels by anguish prest,<br>And seeks from Heav'n his long-lost child,<br>To smooth the path that leads to rest!—<br>He comes!—to close the sinking eye,<br>To catch the faint, expiring sigh;<br>A moment's transport stays the fleeting breath,<br>And sooths the soul on the pale verge of death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX.<br>No more the sanguine wreath shall twine<br>On the lost hero's early tomb,<br>But hung around thy simple shrine<br>Fair Peace! shall milder glories bloom.<br>Lo! commerce lifts her drooping head<br>Triumphal, Thames! from thy deep bed;<br>And bears to Albion, on her sail sublime,<br>The riches Nature gives each happier clime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX.<br>She fearless prints the polar snows,<br>Mid' horrors that reject the day;<br>Along the burning line she glows,<br>Nor shrinks beneath the torrid ray:<br>She opens India's glitt'ring mine,<br>Where streams of light reflected shine;<br>Wafts the bright gems to Britain's temp'rate vale,<br>And breathes her odours on the northern gale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI.<br>While from the far-divided shore<br>Where liberty unconquer'd roves,<br>Her ardent glance shall oft' explore<br>The parent isle her spirit loves;<br>Shall spread upon the western main<br>—Harmonious concord's golden chain,<br>While stern on Gallia's ever hostile strand<br>From Albion's cliff she pours her daring band.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII.<br>Yet hide the sabre's hideous glare<br>Whose edge is bath'd in streams of blood,<br>The lance that quivers high in air,<br>And falling drinks a purple flood;<br>For Britain! fear shall seize thy foes,<br>While freedom in thy senate glows,<br>While peace shall smile upon thy cultur'd plain,<br>With grace and beauty her attendant train.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII.<br>Enchanting visions sooth my sight—<br>The finer arts no more oppress'd,<br>Benignant source of pure delight!<br>On her soft bosom love to rest.<br>While each discordant sound expires,<br>Strike harmony! strike all thy wires;<br>The fine vibrations of the spirit move<br>And touch the springs of rapture and of love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV.<br>Bright painting's living forms shall rise;<br>And wrapt in Ugolino's woe,<br>Shall Reynolds wake unbidden sighs;<br>And Romney's graceful pencil flow,<br>That Nature's look benign pourtrays,<br>When to her infant Shakspeare's gaze<br>The partial nymph 'unveil'd her awful face,'<br>And bade his 'colours clear' her features trace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV.<br>And poesy! thy deep-ton'd shell<br>The heart shall sooth, the spirit fire,<br>And all the passion sink, or swell,<br>In true accordance to the lyre.<br>Oh! ever wake its heav'nly sound,<br>Oh! call thy lovely visions round;<br>Strew the soft path of peace with fancy's flowers,<br>With raptures bless the soul that feels thy powers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI.<br>While Hayley wakes thy magic string,<br>His shades shall no rude sound profane,<br>But stillness on her folded wing,<br>Enamour'd catch his soothing strain:<br>Tho' genius breathe its purest flame<br>—Around his lyre's enchanting frame;<br>Tho' music there in every period roll,<br>More warm his friendship, and more pure his soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII.<br>While taste refines a polish'd age,<br>While her own Hurd shall bid us trace<br>The lustre of the finish'd page<br>Where symmetry sheds perfect grace;<br>With sober and collected ray<br>To fancy, judgment shall display<br>The faultless model, where accomplish'd art<br>From nature draws a charm that leads the heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII.<br>Th' historic Muse illumes the maze<br>For ages veil'd in gloomy night,<br>Where empire with meridian blaze<br>Once trod ambition's giddy height:<br>Tho' headlong from the dang'rous steep<br>Its pageants roll'd with wasteful sweep,<br>Her tablet still records the deeds of fame<br>And wakes the patriot's, and the hero's flame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIX.<br>While meek philosophy explores<br>Creation's vast stupendous round;<br>Sublime her piercing vision soars,<br>And bursts the system's distant bound.<br>Lo! mid' the dark deep void of space<br>A rushing world her eye can trace!—<br>It moves majestic in its ample sphere,<br>Sheds its long light, and rolls its ling'ring year.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXX.<br>Ah! still diffuse thy genial ray,<br>Fair Science, on my Albion's plain!<br>And still thy grateful homage pay<br>Where Montagu has rear'd her fane;<br>Where eloquence and wit entwine<br>Their attic wreath around her shrine;<br>And still, while Learning shall unfold her store,<br>With their bright signet stamp the classic ore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXI.<br>Enlight'ning Peace! for thine the hours<br>That wisdom decks in moral grace,<br>And thine invention's fairy powers,<br>The charm improv'd of nature's face;<br>Propitious come! in silence laid<br>Beneath thy olive's grateful shade,<br>Pour the mild bliss that sooths the tuneful mind,<br>And in thy zone the hostile spirit bind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXII.<br>While Albion on her parent deep<br>Shall rest, may glory light her shore,<br>May honour there his vigils keep<br>Till time shall wing its course no more;<br>Till angels wrap the spheres in fire,<br>Till earth and yon fair orbs expire,<br>While chaos mounted on the wasting flame,<br>Shall spread eternal shade o'er nature's frame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Helen+Maria+Williams">Helen Maria Williams</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=407925" data-title="An Ode on the Piece de Helen Maria Williams" data-description="I.
As wand'ring late on Albion's shore
That chains the rude tempestuous deep,
I heard the hollow surges roar
And vainly beat her guardian steep;
I heard the rising sounds of woe
Loud on the storm's wild pinion flow;
And still they vibrate on the m..."></div>
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