Ere yet the assembled chiefs our fate decide,
Let chosen spies among the council glide,
To every speech a listening ear incline,
And sound each heart, and fathom each design.
Let the skill'd augur Heaven's high will explore,
And all with suppliant fear Heaven's Lord adore:
So may success our fearless efforts guide,
And Heaven auspicious fight on Sweden's side.--
But see! the red-haired sun to ocean bends,
And purple twilight on the heath descends.
Haste to your homes--shake anxious care away,
And, fresh with slumber, wait the long laborious day."

Adalfi spoke; and bade ere noon of night
With sacred spells and many a mystic rite
Invoke the Power Divine, and seek from high
The dark events of dread futurity.

Thus they; while, stretch'd beneath the sheltering wood,
The son of Eric thus his thoughts pursued.

"Yes--'tis decreed! in heaven's recording hall
Her guardian Spirit wrote my country's fall.
When first red faction burn'd thro' all her shore,
And icy Meler blush'd with civil gore,
Our ills began. As whirling Maelstrom sweeps
The shrieking sailor to the boundless deeps,
Wide and more wide the increasing ruin grew,
And all our hopes into its vortex drew.
In vain the statesman thro' laborious days