Ode on the Departing Year

PIRIT who sweepest the wild Harp of Time, It is most hard, with an untroubled Ear Thy dark inwoven Harmonies to hear! Yet, mine eye fixt on Heaven's unchanging clime, Long had I listened, free from mortal fear, With inward stillness, and submitted mind: When lo! its folds far waving on the wind I saw the train of the Departing Year! Starting from my silent sadness Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud forbade my sight, I rais'd th' impetuous song, and solemnized his flight.

Hither from the recent Tomb; From the Prison's direr gloom; From Poverty's heart-wasting languish; From Distemper's midnight anguish: Or where his two bright torches blending Love illumines Manhood's maze; Or where o'er cradled Infants bending Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze: Hither, in perplexed dance, Ye Woes, and young-eyed Joys, advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the Hand Whose indefatigable Sweep Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, I bid you haste, a mixt tumultuous band! From every private bower, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice O'er the sore travail of the common earth Weep and rejoice! Seiz'd in sore travail and portentous birth (Her eye-balls flashing a pernicious glare) Sick Nature struggles! Hark—her pangs increase! Her groans are horrible! But ô! most fair The promis'd Twins, she bears—Equality and Peace!

EPODE.I mark'd Ambition in his war-array: I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry— "Ah! whither 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 No more on Murder's lurid face Th' insatiate Hag shall glote with drunken eye! Manes of th' unnumbered Slain! 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; Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre! Spirits of th' uncoffin'd Slain, 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 scepter'd Murderer's fate! When shall scepter'd Slaughter cease? Awhile He crouch'd, O Victor France! Beneath the light'ning of thy Lance, With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace. But soon up-springing from his dastard trance The boastful, bloody Son of Pride betray'd His Hatred of the blest and blessing Maid. One cloud, O Freedom! cross'd thy orb of Light And sure, be deem'd, that Orb was quench'd in night: For still does Madness roam on Guilt's bleak dizzy height!

ANTISTROPHE I. Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore My Soul beheld thy Vision. Where, alone, Voiceless and stern, before the Cloudy Throne Aye Memory sits; there, garmented with gore, With many an unimaginable groan Thou storiedst thy sad Hours! Silence ensued: Deep Silence o'er th' etherial Multitude, Whose purple Locks with snow-white Glories shone. Then, his eye wild ardors glancing, From the choired Gods advancing, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet And stood up beautiful before the Cloudy Seat!

ANTISTROPHE II.On every Harp, on every Tongue While the mute Enchantment hung; Like Midnight from a thundercloud, Spake the sudden Spirit loud— "Thou in stormy Blackness throning "Love and uncreated Light, "By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning "Seize thy terrors. Arm of Might! "By Belgium's corse-impeded flood! "By Vendee steaming Brother's, blood! "By Peace with proffer'd insult scar'd, "Masked hate, and envying scorn! "By Years of Havoc yet unborn; "And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bar'd! "But chief by Afric's wrongs "Strange, horrible, and foul! "By what deep Guilt belongs "To the deaf Synod, "full of gifts and lies!" "By Wealth's insensate Laugh! By Torture's Howl! "Avenger, rise! "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! Why sleep thy Bolts unhurl'd?

EPODE II.The Voice had ceas'd, the Phantoms fled, Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread. And ever when the dream of night Renews the vision to my sight, Cold sweat-damps gather on my limbs, My Ears throb hot, my eye-balls start, My Brain with horrid tumult swims, Wild is the Tempest of my Heart; And my thick and struggling breath Imitates the toil of Death! No uglier agony confounds The Soldier on the war-field spread, When all foredone with toil and wounds Death-like he dozes among heaps of Dead! (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled, And the Night-wind clamours hoarse; See! the startful Wretch's head Lies pillow'd on a Brother's Corse!) O doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile, O Albion! O ray mother Isle! Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, Glitter green with sunny showers; Thy grassy Upland's gentle Swells Echo to the Bleat of Flocks; (Those grassy Hills, those glitt'ring Dells Proudly ramparted with rocks) And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild Speaks safety to his Island-child. Hence for many a fearless age Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore; Nor ever sworded Foeman's rage Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore. Disclaim'd of Heaven! mad Av'rice at thy side, At coward distance, yet with kindling pride— Safe 'mid thy herds and corn-fields thou hast stood, And join'd the yell of Famine and of Blood. All nations curse thee: and with eager wond'ring Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! Strange-eyed Destruction, who with many a dream Of central flames thro' nether seas upthund'ring Soothes her fierce solitude, yet (as she lies Stretch'd on the marge of some fire-flashing fount In the black chamber of a sulphur'd mount,) If ever to her lidless dragon eyes, O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise, The Fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Mutt'ring distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep.

Away, my soul, away! In vain, in vain, the birds of warning sing— And hark! I hear the famin'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my Soul, away! I unpartaking of the evil thing, With daily prayer, and daily toil Soliciting my scant and blameless soil, Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. Now I recenter my immortal mind In the long sabbath of high self-content; Cleans'd from the fleshly Passions that bedim God's Image, Sister of the Seraphim.