Ode to the Departing Year

Ἰοὺ ἰού, ὢ ὢ κακά. Ὑπ' αὖ με δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας πόνος Στροβεῖ, ταράσσων φροιμίοις δυσφροιμίοις. Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Καὶ σύ μ' τάχει παρὼν Ἄγαν ἀληθόμαντιν οἰκτείρας ἐρεῖς.

Aeschyl. Agam. 1173-75; 1199-1200.

ARGUMENT The Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the 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. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the Departing Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

  1. 1Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time!
  2. 2It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
  3. 3Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
  4. 4Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime
  5. 5Long had I listen'd, free from mortal fear,
  6. 6With inward stillness, and a bowéd mind;
  7. 7When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
  8. 8I saw the train of the DepartingYear!
  9. 9Starting from my silent sadness
  10. 10Then with no unholy madness,
  11. 11Ere yet the enter'd cloud foreclos'd my sight,
  12. 12I rais'd the impetuous song, and solemnis'd his flight.
  1. 13Hither, from the recent tomb,
  2. 14From the prison's direr gloom,
  3. 15From Distemper's midnight anguish;
  4. 16And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish;
  5. 17Or where, his two bright torches blending,
  6. 18Love illumines Manhood's maze;
  7. 19Or where o'er cradled infants bending,
  8. 20Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze;
  9. 21Hither, in perplexéd dance,
  10. 22Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
  11. 23By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
  12. 24Whose indefatigable sweep
  13. 25Raises its fateful strings from sleep,
  14. 26I bid you haste, a mix'd tumultuous band!
  15. 27From every private bower,
  16. 28And each domestic hearth,
  17. 29Haste for one solemn hour;
  18. 30And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
  19. 31O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth,
  20. 32Weep and rejoice!
  21. 33Still echoes the dread Name that o'er the earth[161:2]
  22. 34Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell:
  23. 35And now advance in saintly Jubilee
  24. 36Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,
  25. 37They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!
  1. 38I mark'd Ambition in his war-array!
  2. 39I heard the mailéd Monarch's troublous cry--
  3. 40'Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay!
  4. 41Groans not her chariot on its onward way?'
  5. 42Fly, mailéd Monarch, fly!
  6. 43Stunn'd by Death's twice mortal mace,
  7. 44No more on Murder's lurid face
  8. 45The insatiate Hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
  9. 46Manes of the unnumber'd slain!
  10. 47Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain!
  11. 48Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,
  12. 49When human ruin choked the streams,
  13. 50Fell in Conquest's glutted hour,
  14. 51Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!
  15. 52Spirits of the uncoffin'd slain,
  16. 53Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,
  17. 54Oft, at night, in misty train,
  18. 55Rush around her narrow dwelling!
  19. 56The exterminating Fiend is fled--
  20. 57(Foul her life, and dark her doom)
  21. 58Mighty armies of the dead
  22. 59Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb!
  23. 60Then with prophetic song relate,
  24. 61Each some Tyrant-Murderer's fate!
  1. 62Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore
  2. 63My soul beheld thy Vision! Where alone,
  3. 64Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
  4. 65Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscrib'd with gore,
  5. 66With many an unimaginable groan
  6. 67Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
  7. 68Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude,
  8. 69Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.
  9. 70Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
  10. 71From the choiréd gods advancing,
  11. 72The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,
  12. 73And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.
  1. 74Throughout the blissful throng,
  2. 75Hush'd were harp and song:
  3. 76Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven,
  4. 77(The mystic Words of Heaven)
  5. 78Permissive signal make:
  6. 79The fervent Spirit bow'd, then spread his wings and spake!
  7. 80'Thou in stormy blackness throning
  8. 81Love and uncreated Light,
  9. 82By the Earth's unsolaced groaning,
  10. 83Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!
  11. 84By Peace with proffer'd insult scared,
  12. 85Masked Hate and envying Scorn!
  13. 86By years of Havoc yet unborn!
  14. 87And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared!
  15. 88But chief by Afric's wrongs,
  16. 89Strange, horrible, and foul!
  17. 90By what deep guilt belongs
  18. 91To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies!'
  19. 92By Wealth's insensate laugh! by Torture's howl!
  20. 93Avenger, rise!
  21. 94For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,
  22. 95Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow?
  23. 96Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud!
  24. 97And on the darkling foe
  25. 98Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!
  26. 99O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!
  27. 100The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries!
  28. 101Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!
  29. 102Rise, God of Nature! rise.'
  1. 103The voice had ceas'd, the Vision fled;
  2. 104Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
  3. 105And ever, when the dream of night
  4. 106Renews the phantom to my sight,
  5. 107Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;
  6. 108My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start;
  7. 109My brain with horrid tumult swims;
  8. 110Wild is the tempest of my heart;
  9. 111And my thick and struggling breath
  10. 112Imitates the toil of death!
  11. 113No stranger agony confounds
  12. 114The Soldier on the war-field spread,
  13. 115When all foredone with toil and wounds,
  14. 116Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!
  15. 117(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,
  16. 118And the night-wind clamours hoarse!
  17. 119See! the starting wretch's head
  18. 120Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse!)
  1. 121Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,
  2. 122O Albion! O my mother Isle!
  3. 123Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers,
  4. 124Glitter green with sunny showers;
  5. 125Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells
  6. 126Echo to the bleat of flocks;
  7. 127(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells
  8. 128Proudly ramparted with rocks)
  9. 129And Ocean mid his uproar wild
  10. 130Speaks safety to his Island-child!
  11. 131Hence for many a fearless age
  12. 132Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore;
  13. 133Nor ever proud Invader's rage
  14. 134Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.
  1. 135Abandon'd of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide,
  2. 136At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride--
  3. 137Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood,
  4. 138And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!
  5. 139The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering
  6. 140Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream!
  7. 141Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream
  8. 142Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering
  9. 143Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies
  10. 144By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,
  11. 145If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,
  12. 146O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise,
  13. 147The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,
  14. 148Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charméd sleep.
  1. 149Away, my soul, away!
  2. 150In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing--
  3. 151And hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey
  4. 152Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind!
  5. 153Away, my soul, away!
  6. 154I unpartaking of the evil thing,
  7. 155With daily prayer and daily toil
  8. 156Soliciting for food my scanty soil,
  9. 157Have wail'd my country with a loud Lament.
  10. 158Now I recentre my immortal mind
  11. 159In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content;
  12. 160Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim
  13. 161God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.