WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. But dearly must we prize thee; we who find WORDSWORTH. ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.1 Ιού, ἰοὺ, ὦ ὢ κακά. Ὑπ ̓ αὖ μὲ δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας πόνος Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' ἐν τάχει παρὼν ARGUMENT. Eschyl. Agam. 1225. 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 prophecies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. I. SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time! This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796: and was first published on the last day of that year. Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime, Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish! Or where, his two bright torches blending, Love illumines manhood's maze; Or where o'er cradled infants bending Hope has fixed her wishful gaze; Hither, in perplexed dance, Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the hand Raises its fateful strings from sleep, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth, Weep and rejoice! Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell: And now advance in saintly jubilee Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell, They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty! III. I marked Ambition in his war-array! I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! When human ruin choked the streams, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, Rush around her narrow dwelling! The exterminating fiend is fled (Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty armies of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! Then with prophetic song relate, Each some tyrant-murderer's fate! IV. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone, Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne, Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore, With many an unimaginable groan Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, V. Throughout the blissful throng, Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make: [spake! The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and "Thou in stormy blackness throning Love and uncreated Light, |