Abandon'd of Heaven![167:1] mad Avarice thy guide, 135 At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride-- Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood, And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood! The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! 140 Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies By livid fount, or red volcanic stream, If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 145 O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise, The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charméd sleep. IX Away, my soul, away! In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing-- 150 And hark! I hear the famish'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 155 Soliciting for food my scanty soil, Have wail'd my country with a loud Lament. Now I recentre my immortal mind In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content; Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim 160 God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.[168:1] 1796. FOOTNOTES: [160:1] First published in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, December 31, 1796, and at the same time issued in a quarto pamphlet (the Preface is dated December 26): included in 1797, 1803, _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1829, and 1834. The Argument was first published in 1797. In 1803 the several sentences were printed as notes to the Strophes, Antistrophes, &c. For the Dedication vide Appendices. This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year. _Footnote, 1797, 1808_: This Ode was composed and was first published on the last day of that year. _Footnote, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834._ [160:2] The Ode commences with an address to the great BEING, or Divine Providence, who regulates into one vast Harmony all the Events of Time, however Calamitous some of them appear to mortals. _1803_. [161:1] The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private Joys and Sorrows, and to devote their passions for a while to the cause of human Nature in general. _1803_. [161:2] The Name of Liberty, which at the commencement of the French Revolution was both the occasion and the pretext of unnumbered crimes and horrors. _1803_. [162:1] The first Epode refers to the late 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. _1803_. The Empress died just as she had engaged to furnish more effectual aid to the powers combined against France. _C. I._