But, ah! how sunk her veiled head, Untimely dimm’d by Gaul’s o’ershadowing pow’r— And shalt thou rise, fair isle, no more? Thy patriot heroes sleep among the dead: Thy gallant virtues all are fled; Save Fortitude, sole refuge from despair. O Gaul, Oppression’s blood-stain’d heir, Let me not tell how, taught by thee, England’s rude sons smote Liberty On Vincent’s sable rock, her Indian throne:— Not unavenged; for in her cause the sky Storms and fiery vapours pour’d, While Pestilence waved wide his tainted sword To smite[15]... EPODE. Then, O Thalia! let thy sacred shell Wake the lofty sounds that swell With rapture unreproved the patriot breast! Robed in her many-colour’d vest On Isis’ banks shall Science stand, Waving in her bounteous hand A wond’rous chaplet; high reward Of toils, by public virtue dared: And while to claim the envied meed Fair Fame her vot’ries leads, thy voice, O Muse, shall join th’ applauded choice That fix’d the glorious wreath on FREDERICK’s honour’d head! [15] The remainder of this, and the whole of the second antistrophe, were not repeated in the theatre, having been suppressed by the academical authorities, on account of their political sentiments, and subsequently lost. VERSES INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE TO THE DUKE OF PORTLAND, AT HIS INSTALLATION AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, IN THE YEAR 1793.