 | The poems (1969) |  |
12 Ode to Mercy
439
STROPHE
O thou, who sitt'st a smiling brideBy Valour's armed and awful side,
Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adored:
Who oft with songs, divine to hear,
Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear,
And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!
Thou who, amidst the deathful field,
By godlike chiefs alone beheld,
Oft with thy bosom bare art found,
Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground:
See, Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands,
Before thy shrine my country's Genius stands,
And decks thy altar still, though pierced with many a wound!
440
ANTISTROPHE
When he whom even our joys provoke,441
And rushed in wrath to make our isle his prey,
Thy form, from out thy sweet abode,
O'ertook him on his blasted road,
And stopped his wheels, and looked his rage away.
I see recoil his sable steeds,
That bore him swift to salvage deeds;
Thy tender melting eyes they own.
O maid, for all thy love to Britain shown,
Where Justice bars her iron tower,
To thee we build a roseate bower,
Thou, thou shalt rule our Queen and share our Monarch's throne!
| The poems (1969) | |