XIV.

  So thro’ the dark, impending sky,
    Where clouds, and fallen vapours roll’d,
  Their curling wreaths dissolving fly
    As the faint hues of light unfold—­
  The air with spreading azure streams,
  The sun now darts his orient beams—­
And now the mountains glow—­the woods are bright—­
While nature hails the season of delight.

XV.

  Mild Peace! from Albion’s fairest bowers
    Pure spirit! cull with snowy hands,
  The buds that drink the morning showers,
    And bind the realms in flow’ry bands: 
  Thy smiles the angry passions chase,
  Thy glance is pleasure’s native grace;
Around thy form th’ exulting virtues move,
And thy soft call awakes the strain of love.

XVI.

  Bless, all ye powers! the patriot name
    That courts fair Peace, thy gentle stay;
  Ah! gild with glory’s light, his fame,
    And glad his life with pleasure’s ray! 
While, like th’ affrighted dove, thy form
  Still shrinks, and fears some latent storm,
His cares shall sooth thy panting soul to rest,
And spread thy vernal couch on Albion’s breast.

XVII.

  Ye, who have mourn’d the parting hour,
    Which love in darker horrors drew,
  Ye, who have vainly tried to pour
    With falt’ring voice the last adieu! 
  When the pale cheek, the bursting sigh,
  The soul that hov’ring in the eye,
Express’d the pains it felt, the pains it fear’d—­
Ah! paint the youth’s return, by grief endear’d.

XVIII.

  Yon hoary form, with aspect mild,
    Deserted kneels by anguish prest,
  And seeks from Heav’n his long-lost child,
    To smooth the path that leads to rest!—­
  He comes!—­to close the sinking eye,
  To catch the faint, expiring sigh;
A moment’s transport stays the fleeting breath,
And sooths the soul on the pale verge of death.

XIX.

  No more the sanguine wreath shall twine
    On the lost hero’s early tomb,
  But hung around thy simple shrine
    Fair Peace! shall milder glories bloom. 
Lo! commerce lifts her drooping head
  Triumphal, Thames! from thy deep bed;
And bears to Albion, on her sail sublime,
The riches Nature gives each happier clime.

XX.

  She fearless prints the polar snows,
    Mid’ horrors that reject the day;
  Along the burning line she glows,
    Nor shrinks beneath the torrid ray: 
  She opens India’s glitt’ring mine,
  Where streams of light reflected shine;
Wafts the bright gems to Britain’s temp’rate vale,
And breathes her odours on the northern gale.