[167:1] '_Disclaim'd of Heaven!_'--The Poet from having considered the peculiar advantages, which this country has enjoyed, passes in rapid transition to the uses, which we have made of these advantages. We have been preserved by our insular situation, from suffering the actual horrors of War ourselves, and we have shewn our gratitude to Providence for this immunity by our eagerness to spread those horrors over nations less happily situated. In the midst of plenty and safety we have raised or joined the yell for famine and blood. Of the one hundred and seven last years, fifty have been years of War. Such wickedness cannot pass unpunished. We have been proud and confident in our alliances and our fleets--but God has prepared the canker-worm, and will smite the _gourds_ of our pride. 'Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the Sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength and it was infinite: Put and Lubim were her helpers. Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. Thou also shalt be drunken: all thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven. Thy crowned are as the locusts; and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cool-day; but when the Sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all, that hear the report of thee, shall clap hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?' _Nahum_, chap. iii. _4{o}_, _1797_, _1803_. [168:1] 'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows [_France: an Ode._ First published as _The Recantation: an Ode_], a kind of Palinodia.' _MS. Note by S. T. C._ LINENOTES: Title] Ode for the last day of the Year 1796, C. I.: Ode on the Departing Year 4{o}, 1797, 1803, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829. Motto] 3-5 All editions (4{o} to 1834) read ἐφημίοις for δυσφροιμίοις, and Ἄγαν γ' for Ἄγαν; and all before 1834 μην for μ' ἐν. I] Strophe I C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803. [1] Spirit] Being 1803. [4] unchanging] unchanged 4{o}. [5] free] freed 4{o}. [6] and a bowéd] and submitted 1803, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829. [7] When lo! far onwards waving on the wind I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR. C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803. [11] Ere yet he pierc'd the cloud and mock'd my sight C. I. foreclos'd] forebade 4{o}, 1797, 1803. II] Strophe II C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803. [15-16] From Poverty's heart-wasting languish From Distemper's midnight anguish