INTRODUCTION ΤΟ THE POEM. WHILE jarring interests wake the world to arms, And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms, While ALBION bids th' avenging thunder roll Along her vassal Deep from pole to pole; Sick of the scene, where War with ruthless hand Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet's breath And lawless Surges swell against the skies, A Till Hope expires, and Peril and Dismay The varied pang of exquisite distress; If e'er with trembling hope I fondly strayed In life's fair morn beneath your hallowed shade, And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain, Or listen to the enchanting voice of Love, That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound; The sad Memorial of a Tale of Woe! The fate, in lively sorrow, to deplore Of Wanderers shipwrecked on a leeward shore. Alas! neglected by the sacred Nine, Their Suppliant feels no genial ray divine: To plough the Tide where wintery Tempests roar? Stranger to Phœbus, and the tuneful train? Twas his the vast and trackless Deep to rove; Smote by the freezing, or the scorching blast, But while he measured o'er the painful race In Fortune's wild illimitable chace, Adversity, companion of his way, Still o'er the Victim hung with iron sway, Bade new distresses every instant grow, Marking each change of place with change of Woe: Or where pale Famine blasts the hopeful year, Or where, all-dreadful in th' embattled line, And quenched the ardour kindling in his breast: Though jarring sounds the measured verse prolong, |