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Where the rude people, having Nature's help,

Scatter'd his wilder'd slaves, and smote him back,
Feels that the secret weakness has escap'd him
Of art compared with nature, wrong with right;
And now, though resolute to dare all chances,
Sits wrapp'd in double gloom, listening at times,
With half a fear, to catch the expected sound
Of numbers coming in their fresh revenge

To dash him from his height. This is the hour
I looked for. Four of the most potent spirits,
That rule the nations, have I just advised,
Each in a morning vision, to combine

Their clouds, and following up his wasted strength,
Burst with a final thunderclap upon him,

At which the world shall startle. Then will I
Descend in lustre through the freshened air,
Met by the flowering Spring; and giving each
The laurel he has earned,-Liberty's crown,-
Summon the triumphs and the joys about me,
And lead a lovelier period for mankind.

Ye tricksome cherubs, ever at your play,

6 PROLOGUE TO THE DESCENT OF LIBERTY.

With smile-expanded cheeks and hovering limbs,—
Minions of air, born of it's basking leisure,—
Break off, my little spirits, some of ye,

And with a silver cloud wait on me down.

A set of cherubs rise from the back-ground, and Liberty seating herself on one of the clouds, they playfully bear her up with it, the whole going off at the side-scene with a descending motion.

SCENE THE FIRST.

A SECLUDED spot in a wood, with a cottage on one side, and a little river running under the trees in the back-ground. A kind of twilight is in the air. Enter three Shepherds, looking cautiously about, and listening.

1st Shep. It's wandered somewhere else:-every thing's quiet.

2d Shep. Hush! Was not that, it ?

1st Shep.

No; there's not a breath ·

I think it turn'd along the willows there.

3d Shep. Most likely : sound delights itself in water,

As I have noticed often :-let's pursue it.

1st Shep. No, better not; remember what a road

It led us yester eve;-'twill play no more.

These spirits, bad or good (by what I've heard
From my old grandam, and have read in books)
Seem to delight in playing tricks with us,,

As if they made them merry with the awkwardness

And grave mistakes of our inferior nature.

Besides, the stream, you know, runs through the

grounds

Of fine old Eunomus, who used to set

So rare a lesson to the former court,

But now shuts up his sorrows in this corner;

And 'twere amiss to startle his grey head

E'en with a footstep.

2d Shep.

'Twere so yet methinks

He might be pleased to hear of this new sound,

The first, of any comfortable breath,

Our wood has heard for years.

I know not why,

But there is such a sweetness in the touch

Of this mysterious pipe that's come among us,
Something so full of trilling gladsomeness,
As if the heart were at the lip that fill'd it,
Or went a rippling to the fingers' ends,

That it forebodes, to me, some blessed change.
There!

All. There!

3d Shep.

(a flourish of a small pipe heard.) "Tis overhead-I heard it plainly.

1st Shep. It comes no more.

2d Shep.

But it was louder then

Than it has ever been;-'twas curious too,

It should return just as I spoke of change.

1st Shep. I think, with you, there must be some

thing in it.

Feel you no alteration?

2d Shep.

What? In the air?

'Tis lighter, fresher ;-I perceiv'd it yesterday.
Oh, my dear friends, what if this gloomy weight,

That sick and dim, like a disease of nature,
Has visited so long our weary land,

Should at the last be going? Nay,-to speak it,
What if this curs'd Enchanter-

3d Shep.

Hush! Be cautious;

You know what ears he has in every corner.

2d Shep. I care not-who is there, among us, cares?

Has not he robb'd us all of something dear,

Some father, brother, son, to go and do

His devilish work in countries of all climate,

In fainting heats, and powerless, cramping colds,

Wasting away in one, stiff'ning in t'other

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