OXFORD.

PART I.

WHAT makes the glory of a mighty Land,

Her people famous, and her hist'ry grand?

Is it, that Earth has felt her vast control

Far as the wind can sweep, or ocean roll;

That ships and merchandise her ports bedeck,

And Navies thunder at her awful beck!

That grandeur walks each street, arrays each dome,

And in her temples hails a second Rome ?—

Though Power and Greatness, those almighty two,

That move the world, and teach what Man can do, In ev'ry age have thus some Empires blest,

And, Alp-like rear'd their thrones above the rest;

Yet, what remains of all that once hath been?

The billows welter where the ports were seen!
The wild-grass quivers o'er their mangled piles,
And Winter moans along the archless aisles;

Where once they flourish'd Ruins grimly tell,
And shade the air with melancholy spell,
While from their wreck a tide of feeling rolls

In awful wisdom through reflective souls!

What then alone omnipotently reigns,

When Empires grovel on deserted plains,

In sun-like grandeur to outdare the night

That Time engenders o'er their vanish'd might?

'Tis Mind! an immortality below,

That gilds the past, and bids the future glow;

"Tis Mind! heroic, pure, devoted Mind,

To God appealing for corrupt mankind,
Reflecting back the image that He gave
Ere sin began, or earth became a slave!

Exalting thought! when ages are no more,

Like sunken billows on a far-off shore,

A second life, in lofty prose or song,

Their glories have, to light the world along!

AFL