Part V: The Prospect

Here interposing, as the Goddess paused; —
'O blest Britannia! in thy presence blest,
Thou guardian of mankind! whence spring alone
All human grandeur, happiness, and fame;
For toil, by thee protected, feels no pain,
The poor man's lot with milk and honey flows,
And, gilded with thy rays, even death looks gay.
Let other lands the potent blessings boast
Of more exalting suns. Let Asia's woods,
Untended, yield the vegetable fleece:
And let the little insect-artist form,
On higher life intent, its silken tomb.
Let wondering rocks, in radiant birth, disclose
The various tinctured children of the sun.
From the prone beam let more delicious fruits
A flavour drink that in one piercing taste
Bids each combine. Let Gallic vineyards burst
With floods of joy; with mild balsamic juice
The Tuscan olive. Let Arabia breathe
Her spicy gales, her vital gums distil.
Turbid with gold, let southern rivers flow,
And orient floods draw soft, o'er pearls, their maze.
Let Afric vaunt her treasures; let Peru
Deep in her bowels her own ruin breed,
The yellow traitor that her bliss betrayed —
Unequalled bliss! — and to unequalled rage!
Yet nor the gorgeous east, nor golden south,
Nor, in full prime, that new discovered world
Where flames the falling day, in wealth and praise
Shall with Britannia vie while, Goddess, she
Derives her praise from thee, her matchless charms.
Her hearty fruits the hand of freedom own;
And warm with culture, her thick clustering fields
Prolific teem. Eternal verdure crowns
Her meads; her gardens smile eternal spring.
She gives the hunter-horse, unquelled by toil,
Ardent to rush into the rapid chase;
She, whitening o'er her downs, diffusive pours
Unnumbered flocks; she weaves the fleecy robe,
That wraps the nations; she to lusty droves
The richest pasture spreads; and, hers, deep-wave
Autumnal seas of pleasing plenty round.
These her delights — and by no baneful herb,
No darting tiger, no grim lion's glare.
No fierce-descending wolf, no serpent rolled
In spires immense progressive o'er the land
Disturbed. Enlivening these, add cities full
Of wealth, of trade, of cheerful toiling crowds;
Add thriving towns; add villages and farms,
Innumerous sowed along the lively vale,
Where bold unrivalled peasants happy dwell;
Add ancient seats, with venerable oaks
Embosomed high, while kindred floods below
Wind through the mead; and those of modern hand
More pompous add, that splendid shine afar.
Need I her limpid lakes, her rivers name.
Where swarm the finny race? Thee, chief, O Thames!
On whose each tide, glad with returning sails,
Flows in the mingled harvest of mankind?
And thee, thou Severn, whose prodigious swell
And waves resounding imitate the main?
Why need I name her deep capacious ports,
That point around the world? and why her seas?
All ocean is her own, and every land
To whom her ruling thunder ocean bears.
She too the mineral feeds — the obedient lead;
The warlike iron, nor the peaceful less,
Forming of life art-civilized the bond;
And that the Tyrian merchant sought of old,
Not dreaming then of Britain's brighter fame.
She rears to freedom an undaunted race:
Compatriot zealous, hospitable, kind,
Hers the warm Cambrian; hers the lofty Scot,
To hardship tamed, active in arts and arms,
Fired with a restless, an impatient flame.
That leads him raptured where ambition calls;
And English merit hers — where meet combined
Whate'er high fancy, sound judicious thought,
An ample generous heart, undrooping soul.
And firm tenacious valour can bestow.
Great nurse of fruits, of flocks, of commerce, she!
Great nurse of men! by thee, O Goddess, taught.
Her old renown I trace, disclose her source
Of wealth, of grandeur, and to Britons sing
A strain the muses never touched before.
'But how shall this thy mighty kingdom stand?
On what unyielding base? how finished shine? '
At this her eye, collecting all its fire,
Beamed more than human; and her awful voice
Majestic thus she raised:' To Britons bear
This closing strain, and with intenser note
Loud let it sound in their awakened ear: —
'On virtue can alone my kingdom stand,
On public virtue, every virtue joined.
For, lost this social cement of mankind,
The greatest empires by scarce-felt degrees
Will moulder soft away, till, tottering loose,
They prone at last to total ruin rush.
Unblessed by virtue, government a league
Becomes, a circling junto of the great,
To rob by law; religion mild, a yoke
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of state
To mask their rapine, and to share the prey.
What are without it senates, save a face
Of consultation deep and reason free,
While the determined voice and heart are sold?
What boasted freedom, save a sounding name?
And what election, but a market vile
Of slaves self -bartered? Virtue! without thee,
There is no ruling eye, no nerve, in states;
War has no vigour, and no safety peace:
Even justice warps to party, laws oppress.
Wide through the land their weak protection fails,
First broke the balance, and then scorned the sword.
Thus nations sink, society dissolves;
Rapine and guile and violence break loose.
Everting life, and turning love to gall;
Man hates the face of man, and Indian woods
And Libya's hissing sands to him are tame.
'By those three virtues be the frame sustained
Of British freedom — independent life;
Integrity in office; and, o'er all
Supreme, a passion for the commonweal.
'Hail! independence, hail! heaven's next best gift
To that of life and an immortal soul!
The life of life! that to the banquet high
And sober meal gives taste; to the bowed roof
Fair-dreamed repose, and to the cottage charms.
Of public freedom, hail, thou secret source!
Whose streams, from every quarter confluent, form
My better Nile, that nurses human life.
By rills from thee deduced, irriguous, fed,
The private field looks gay, with nature's wealth
Abundant flows, and blooms with each delight
That nature craves. Its happy master there,
The only freeman, walks his pleasing round —
Sweet-featured peace attending; fearless truth;
Firm resolution; goodness, blessing all
That can rejoice; contentment, surest friend;
And, still fresh stores from nature's book derived.
Philosophy, companion ever new.
These cheer his rural, and sustain or fire,
When into action called, his busy hours.
Meantime true-judging moderate desires,
Economy and taste, combined, direct
His clear affairs, and from debauching fiends
Secure his little kingdom. Nor can those
Whom fortune heaps, without these virtues, reach
That truce with pain, that animated ease.
That self-enjoyment springing from within,
That independence, active or retired,
Which make the soundest bliss of man below:
But, lost beneath the rubbish of their means,
And drained by wants to nature all unknown,
A wandering, tasteless, gaily wretched train.
Though rich, are beggars, and though noble, slaves.
'Lo! damned to wealth, at what a gross expense
They purchase disappointment, pain, and shame.
Instead of hearty hospitable cheer,
See how the hall with brutal riot flows;
While, in the foaming flood fermenting steeped,
The country maddens into party rage.
Mark those disgraceful piles of wood and stone;
Those parks and gardens, where, his haunts betrimmed,
And nature by presumptuous art oppressed,
The woodland genius mourns. See the full board
That steams disgust, and bowls that give no joy!
No truth invited there to feed the mind.
Nor wit the wine-rejoicing reason quaffs.
Hark how the dome with insolence resounds!
With those retained by vanity to scare
Repose and friends. To tyrant fashion, mark
The costly worship paid, to the broad gaze
Of fools! From still delusive day to day.
Led an eternal round of lying hope.
See, self-abandoned, how they roam adrift
Dashed o'er the town, a miserable wreck!
Then to adore some warbling eunuch turned,
With Midas' ears they crowd; or to the buzz
Of masquerade unblushing; or, to show
Their scorn of nature, at the tragic scene
They mirthful sit, or prove the comic true.
But, chief, behold around the rattling board,
The civil robbers ranged! and even the fair.
The tender fair, each sweetness laid aside.
As fierce for plunder as all-licensed troops
In some sacked city. Thus dissolved their wealth,
Without one generous luxury dissolved,
Or quartered on it many a needless want.
At the thronged levee bends the venal tribe;
With fair but faithless smiles each varnished o'er.
Each smooth as those that mutually deceive.
And for their falsehood each despising each;
Till, shook their patron by the wintry winds,
Wide flies the withered shower, and leaves him bare.
O far superior Afric's sable sons
By merchant pilfered to these willing slaves!
And rich as unsqueezed favourite to them
Is he who can his virtue boast alone!
'Britons! be firm; nor let corruption sly
Twine round your heart indissoluble chains.
The steel of Brutus burst the grosser bonds
By Caesar cast o'er Rome; but still remained
The soft enchanting fetters of the mind,
And other Caesars rose. Determined, hold
Your independence; for, that once destroyed.
Unfounded, freedom is a morning dream
That flits aerial from the spreading eye.
'Forbid it. Heaven! that ever I need urge
Integrity in office on my sons;
Inculcate common honour — not to rob;
And whom? the gracious, the confiding hand.
That lavishly rewards; the toiling poor,
Whose cup with many a bitter drop is mixed.
The guardian public, every face they see,
And every friend, — nay, in effect themselves.
As in familiar life the villain's fate
Admits no cure; so, when a desperate age
At this arrives, I the devoted race
Indignant spurn, and hopeless soar away.
'But, ah, too little known to modern times!
Be not the noblest passion passed unsung,
That ray peculiar, from unbounded love
Effused, which kindles the heroic soul —
Devotion to the public. Glorious flame!
Celestial ardour! in what unknown worlds,
Profusely scattered through the blue immense.
Hast thou been blessing myriads, since in Rome,
Old virtuous Rome, so many deathless names
From thee their lustre drew? since, taught by thee.
Their poverty put splendour to the blush,
Pain grew luxurious, and even death delight?
O wilt thou ne'er, in thy long period, look,
With blaze direct, on this my last retreat?
''Tis not enough, from self right-understood
Reflected, that thy rays inflame the heart:
Though virtue not disdains appeals to self,
Dreads not the trial; all her joys are true.
Nor is there any real joy save hers.
Far less the tepid, the declaiming race,
Foes to corruption, to its wages friends.
Or those whom private passions, for a while.
Beneath my standard list, can they suffice
To raise and fix the glory of my reign!
'An active flood of universal love
Must swell the breast. First, in effusion wide,
The restless spirit roves creation round,
And seizes every being; stronger then
It tends to life, whate'er the kindred search
Of bliss allies; then, more collected still,
It urges human kind; a passion grown.
At last the central parent public calls
Its utmost effort forth, awakes each sense,
The comely, grand, and tender. Without this,
This awful pant, shook from sublimer powers
Than those of self, this heaven-infused delight,
This moral gravitation, rushing prone
To press the public good, my system soon,
Traverse, to several selfish centres drawn,
Will reel to ruin — while for ever shut
Stand the bright portals of desponding fame.
'From sordid self shoot up no shining deeds,
None of those ancient lights that gladden earth,
Give grace to being, and arouse the brave
To just ambition, virtue's quickening fire!
Life tedious grows, an idly bustling round,
Filled up with actions animal and mean,
A dull gazette! The impatient reader scorns
The poor historic page; till kindly comes
Oblivion, and redeems a people's shame.
Not so the times when, emulation-stung,
Greece shone in genius, science, and in arts,
And Rome in virtues dreadful to be told!
To live was glory then! and charmed mankind,
Through the deep periods of devolving time,
Those, raptured, copy; these, astonished, read.
'True, a corrupted state, with every vice
And every meanness foul, this passion damps.
Who can unshocked behold the cruel eye?
The pale inveigling smile? the ruffian front?
The wretch abandoned to relentless self,
Equally vile if miser or profuse?
Powers not of God, assiduous to corrupt?
The fell deputed tyrant, who devours
The poor and weak, at distance from redress?
Delirious faction bellowing loud my name?
The false fair-seeming patriot's hollow boast?
A race resolved on bondage, fierce for chains,
My sacred rights a merchandise alone
Esteeming, and to work their feeder's will
By deeds, a horror to mankind, prepared,
As were the dregs of Romulus of old?
Who these indeed can undetesting see? —
But who unpitying? to the generous eye
Distress is virtue; and, though self -betrayed,
A people struggling with their fate must rouse
The hero's throb. Nor can a land at once
Be lost to virtue quite. How glorious then!
Fit luxury for gods! to save the good,
Protect the feeble, dash bold vice aside,
Depress the wicked, and restore the frail.
Posterity, besides — the young are pure,
And sons may tinge their father's cheek with shame.
'Should then the times arrive(which Heaven avert!)
That Britons bend unnerved, not by the force
Of arms, more generous and more manly, quelled.
But by corruption's soul-dejecting arts.
Arts impudent and gross! by their own gold.
In part bestowed to bribe them to give all;
With party raging, or immersed in sloth,
Should they Britannia's well fought laurels yield
To slily conquering Gaul, even from her brow
Let her own naval oak be basely torn
By such as tremble at the stiffening gale.
And nerveless sink while others sing rejoiced;
Or (darker prospect! scarce one gleam behind
Disclosing) should the broad corruptive plague
Breathe from the city to the farthest hut
That sits serene within the forest shade,
The fevered people fire, inflame their wants
And their luxurious thirst, so gathering rage
That, were a buyer found, they stand prepared
To sell their birthright for a cooling draught;
Should shameless pens for plain corruption plead,
The hired assassins of the commonweal!
Deemed the declaiming rant of Greece and Rome;
Should public virtue grow the public scoff,
Till private, failing, staggers through the land —
Till round the city loose mechanic want.
Dire-prowling nightly, makes the cheerful haunts
Of men more hideous than Numidian wilds,
Nor from its fury sleeps the vale in peace,
And murders, horrors, perjuries abound —
Nay, till to lowest deeds the highest stoop,
The rich, like starving wretches, thirst for gold.
And those on whom the vernal showers of heaven
All-bounteous fall and that prime lot bestow,
A power to live to nature and themselves.
In sick attendance wear their anxious days
With fortune joyless, and with honours mean:
Meantime, perhaps, profusion flows around,
The waste of war without the works of peace,
No mark of millions in the gulf absorbed
Of uncreating vice, none but the rage
Of roused corruption still demanding more:
That very portion which (by faithful skill
Employed) might make the smiling public rear
Her ornamented head, drilled through the hands
Of mercenary tools, serves but to nurse
A locust band within, and in the bud
Leaves starved each work of dignity and use:
'I paint the worst; but should these times arrive,
If any nobler passion yet remain,
Let all my sons all parties fling aside,
Despise their nonsense, and together join;
Let worth and virtue scorning low despair,
Exerted full, from every quarter shine
Commixed in heightened blaze. Light flashed to light.
Moral or intellectual, more intense
By giving glows — as, on pure winter's eve,
Gradual the stars effulge; fainter, at first,
They straggling rise, but, when the radiant host.
In thick profusion poured, shine out immense.
Each casting vivid influence on each.
From pole to pole a glittering deluge plays
And worlds above rejoice and men below.
'But why to Britons this superfluous strain? —
Good nature, honest truth even somewhat blunt,
Of crooked baseness an indignant scorn,
A zeal unyielding in their country's cause,
And ready bounty, wont to dwell with them:
Nor only wont — wide o'er the land diffused,
In many a blest retirement still they dwell.
'To softer prospect turn we now the view,
To laurelled science, arts, and public works.
That lend my finished fabric comely pride.
Grandeur and grace. Of sullen genius he!
Cursed by the muses! by the graces loathed!
Who deems beneath the public's high regard
These last enlivening touches of my reign.
However puffed with power and gorged with wealth
A nation be; let trade enormous rise,
Let East and South their mingled treasure pour
Till, swelled impetuous, the corrupting flood
Burst o'er the city and devour the land —
Yet, these neglected, these recording arts.
Wealth rots, a nuisance; and, oblivious sunk,
That nation must another Carthage lie.
If not by them, on monumental brass.
On sculptured marble, on the deathless page
Impressed, renown had left no trace behind:
In vain, to future times, the sage had thought,
The legislator planned, the hero found
A beauteous death, the patriot toiled in vain.
The awarders they of fame's immortal wreath!
They rouse ambition, they the mind exalt.
Give great ideas, lovely forms infuse,
Delight the general eye, and, dressed by them,
The moral Venus glows with double charms.
'Science, my close associate, still attends
Where'er I go. Sometimes, in simple guise.
She walks the furrow with the consul-swain.
Whispering unlettered wisdom to the heart
Direct; or sometimes, in the pompous robe
Of fancy dressed, she charms Athenian wits,
And a whole sapient city round her burns.
Then o'er her brow Minerva's terrors nod:
With Xenophon, sometimes, in dire extremes
She breathes deliberate soul, and makes retreat
Unequalled glory: with the Theban sage,
Epaminondas, first and best of men!
Sometimes she bids the deep-embattled host.
Above the vulgar reach resistless formed,
March to sure conquest — never gained before!
Nor on the treacherous seas of giddy state
Unskilful she: when the triumphant tide
Of high-swoln empire wears one boundless smile.
And the gale tempts to new pursuits of fame.
Sometimes, with Scipio, she collects her sail,
And seeks the blissful shore of rural ease
Where, but the Aonian maids, no sirens sing;
Or, should the deep-brewed tempest muttering rise.
While rocks and shoals perfidious lurk around,
With Tully she her wide-reviving light
To senates holds, a Catiline confounds,
And saves awhile from Caesar sinking Rome.
Such the kind power whose piercing eye dissolves
Each mental fetter and sets reason free;
For me inspiring an enlightened zeal.
The more tenacious as the more convinced
How happy freemen, and how wretched slaves.
To Britons not unknown, to Britons full
The Goddess spreads her stores, the secret soul
That quickens trade, the breath unseen that wafts
To them the treasures of a balanced world.
But finer arts (save what the muse has sung
In daring flight, above all modern wing)
Neglected droop the head; and public works,
Broke by corruption into private gain,
Not ornament, disgrace — not serve, destroy.
'Shall Britons, by their own joint wisdom ruled
Beneath one royal head, whose vital power
Connects, enlivens, and exerts the whole;
In finer arts, and public works, shall they
To Gallia yield? yield to a land that bends,
Depressed and broke, beneath the will of one?
Of one who, should the unkingly thirst of gold,
Or tyrant passions, or ambition prompt.
Calls locust-armies o'er the blasted land,
Drains from its thirsty bounds the springs of wealth
His own insatiate reservoir to fill,
To the lone desert patriot-merit frowns.
Or into dungeons arts, when they, their chains
Indignant bursting, for their nobler works
All other licence scorn but truth's and mine.
Oh shame to think! shall Britons, in the field
Unconquered still, the better laurel lose?
Even in that monarch's reign who vainly dreamt,
By giddy power betrayed and flattered pride,
To grasp unbounded sway; while, swarming round,
His armies dared all Europe to the field;
To hostile hands while treasure flowed profuse.
And, that great source of treasure, subjects' blood,
Inhuman squandered, sickened every land;
From Britain, chief, while my superior sons.
In vengeance rushing, dashed his idle hopes.
And bade his agonizing heart be low:
Even then, as in the golden calm of peace.
What public works, at home, what arts arose!
What various science shone! what genius glowed!
''Tis not for me to paint, diffusive shot
O'er fair extents of land, the shining road;
The flood-compelling arch; the long canal,
Through mountains piercing and uniting seas;
The dome resounding sweet with infant joy,
From famine saved, or cruel-handed shame;
And that where valour counts his noble scars;
The land where social pleasure loves to dwell,
Of the fierce demon, Gothic duel, freed;
The robber from his farthest forest chased;
The turbid city cleared and by degrees
Into sure peace, the best police, refined.
Magnificence, and grace, and decent joy.
Let Gallic bards record how honoured arts
And science, by despotic bounty blessed.
At distance flourished from my parent-eye;
Restoring ancient taste how Boileau rose;
How the big Roman soul shook in Corneille
The trembling stage; in elegant Racine
How the more powerful though more humble voice
Of nature-painting Greece resistless breathed
The whole awakened heart; how Moliere's scene,
Chastised and regular, with well judged wit,
Not scattered wild, and native humour graced.
Was life itself; to public honours raised,
How learning in warm seminaries spread.
And, more for glory than the small reward.
How emulation strove; how their pure tongue
Almost obtained what was denied their arms;
From Rome, awhile, how painting, courted long,
With Poussin came — ancient design, that lifts
A fairer front and looks another soul;
How the kind art, that, of unvalued price,
The famed and only picture easy gives,
Refined her touch, and through the shadowed piece
All the live spirit of the painter poured;
Coyest of arts, how sculpture northward deigned
A look, and bade her Girardon arise;
How lavish grandeur blazed, the barren waste
Astonished saw the sudden palace swell,
And fountains spout amid its arid shades;
For leagues, bright vistas opening to the view,
How forests in majestic gardens smiled;
How menial arts, by their gay sisters taught.
Wove the deep flower, the blooming foliage trained
In joyous figures o'er the silky lawn.
The palace cheered, illumed the storied wall,
And with the pencil vied the glowing loom.
'These laurels, Louis, by the droppings raised
Of thy profusion, its dishonour shade,
And green through future times shall bind thy brow;
While the vain honours of perfidious war
Wither, abhorred or in oblivion lost.
With what prevailing vigour had they shot,
And stole a deeper root, by the full tide
Of war-sunk millions fed? Superior still,
How had they branched luxuriant to the skies
In Britain planted, by the potent juice
Of freedom swelled? Forced is the bloom of arts,
A false uncertain spring, when bounty gives,
Weak without me, a transitory gleam.
Fair shine the slippery days, enticing skies
Of favour smile, and courtly breezes blow;
Till arts, betrayed, trust to the flattering air
Their tender blossom: then malignant rise
The blights of envy, of those insect clouds.
That, blasting merit, often cover courts.
Nay, should, perchance, some kind Maecenas aid
The doubtful beamings of his prince's soul,
His wavering ardour fix, and unconfined
Diffuse his warm beneficence around;
Yet death, at last, and wintry tyrants come,
Each sprig of genius killing at the root.
But, when with me imperial bounty joins,
Wide o'er the public blows eternal spring;
While mingled autumn every harvest pours
Of every land, whate'er invention, art,
Creating toil, and nature can produce.'
Here ceased the Goddess; and her ardent wings,
Dipped in the colours of the heavenly bow,
Stood waving radiance round, for sudden flight
Prepared, when thus impatient burst my prayer:
'O forming light of life! O better sun!
Sun of mankind! by whom the cloudy north.
Sublimed, not envies Languedocian skies
That, unstained ether all, diffusive smile —
When shall we call these ancient laurels ours?
And when thy work complete?' Straight with her hand,
Celestial red, she touched my darkened eyes.
As at the touch of day the shades dissolve,
So quick, methought, the misty circle cleared
That dims the dawn of being here below;
The future shone disclosed, and, in long view.
Bright rising eras instant rushed to hght.
'They come! great Goddess! I the times behold!
The times our fathers in the bloody field
Have earned so dear, and, not with less renown,
In the warm struggles of the senate-fight.
The times I see whose glory to supply,
For toiling ages, commerce round the world
Has winged unnumbered sails and from each land
Materials heaped that, well employed, with Rome
Might vie our grandeur, and with Greece our art!
'Lo! princes I behold! contriving still,
And still conducting firm some brave design;
Kings! that the narrow joyless circle scorn,
Burst the blockade of false designing men,
Of treacherous smiles, of adulation fell,
And of the blinding clouds around them thrown:
Their court rejoicing millions; worth, alone,
And virtue dear to them; their best delight.
In just proportion, to give general joy;
Their jealous care thy kingdom to maintain;
The public glory theirs; unsparing love
Their endless treasure, and their deeds their praise.
With thee they work. Nought can resist your force:
Life feels it quickening in her dark retreats:
Strong spread the blooms of genius, science, art;
His bashful bounds disclosing merit breaks;
And, big with fruits of glory, virtue blows
Expansive o'er the land. Another race
Of generous youth, of patriot sires, I see!
Not those vain insects fluttering in the blaze
Of court, and ball, and play — those venal souls.
Corruption's veteran unrelenting bands.
That, to their vices slaves, can ne'er be free.
'I see the fountains purged! whence life derives
A clear or turbid flow; see the young mind
Not fed impure by chance, by flattery fooled,
Or by scholastic jargon bloated proud,
But filled and nourished by the light of truth.
Then, beamed through fancy the refining ray,
And, pouring on the heart, the passions feel
At once informing light and moving flame;
Till moral, public, graceful action crowns
The whole. Behold! the fair contention glows
In all that mind or body can adorn
And form to life. Instead of barren heads,
Barbarian pedants, wrangling sons of pride.
And truth-perplexing metaphysic wits,
Men, patriots, chiefs, and citizens are formed.
'Lo! justice, like the liberal light of heaven,
Unpurchased shines on all; and from her beam,
Appalling guilt, retire the savage crew
That prowl amid the darkness they themselves
Have thrown around the laws. Oppression grieves:
See how her legal furies bite the lip
While Yorks and Talbots their deep snares detect.
And seize swift justice through the clouds they raise.
'See! social labour lifts his guarded head,
And men not yield to government in vain.
From the sure land is rooted ruffian force,
And the lewd nurse of villains, idle waste;
Lo! razed their haunts, down dashed their maddening bowl,
A nation's poison, beauteous order reigns!
Manly submission, unimposing toil.
Trade without guile, civility that marks
From the foul herd of brutal slaves thy sons.
And fearless peace. Or, should affronting war
To slow but dreadful vengeance rouse the just,
Unfailing fields of freemen I behold
That know with their own proper arm to guard
Their own blest isle against a leaguing world.
Despairing Gaul her boiling youth restrains.
Dissolved her dream of universal sway:
The winds and seas are Britain's wide domain.
And not a sail but by permission spreads.
'Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing suns
Gay colonies extend — the calm retreat
Of undeserved distress, the better home
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands;
Not built on rapine, servitude, and woe.
And in their turn some petty tyrant's prey,
But, bound by social freedom, firm they rise;
Such as, of late, an Oglethorpe has formed,
And, crowding round, the charmed Savannah sees.
'Horrid with want and misery, no more
Our streets the tender passenger afflict.
Nor shivering age, nor sickness without friend
Or home or bed to bear his burning load,
Nor agonizing infant, that ne'er earned
Its guiltless pangs, I see! The stores profuse
Which British bounty has to these assigned
No more the sacrilegious riot swell
Of cannibal devourers! right applied.
No starving wretch the land of freedom stains —
If poor, employment finds; if old, demands.
If sick, if maimed, his miserable due;
And will, if young, repay the fondest care.
Sweet sets the sun of stormy life; and sweet
The morning shines, in mercy's dews arrayed.
Lo! how they rise! these families of heaven!
That, chief, (but why, ye bigots I why so late?)
Where blooms and warbles glad a rising age;
What smiles of praise! And, while their song ascends,
The listening seraph lays his lute aside.
'Hark! the gay muses raise a nobler strain.
With active nature, warm impassioned truth.
Engaging fable, lucid order, notes
Of various string, and heart-felt image filled.
Behold! I see the dread delightful school
Of tempered passions and of polished life
Restored: behold! the well dissembled scene
Calls from embellished eyes the lovely tear,
Or lights up mirth in modest cheeks again.
Lo! vanished monster-land. Lo! driven away
Those that Apollo's sacred walks profane —
Their wild creation scattered, where a world
Unknown to nature, Chaos more confused,
O'er the brute scene its ouran-outangs pours;
Detested forms! that, on the mind impressed,
Corrupt, confound, and barbarize an age.
'Behold! all thine again the sister-arts,
Thy graces they,
Nursed by the treasure from a nation drained
Their works to purchase, they to nobler rouse
Their untamed genius, their unfettered thought;
Of pompous tyrants and of dreaming monks
The gaudy tools and prisoners no more.
'Lo! numerous domes a Burlington confess —
For kings and senates fit; the palace see!
The temple breathing a religious awe;
Even framed with elegance the plain retreat.
The private dwelling. Certain in his aim.
Taste, never idly working, saves expense.
'See! sylvan scenes, where art alone pretends
To dress her mistress and disclose her charms —
Such as a Pope in miniature has shown,
A Bathurst o'er the widening forest spreads,
And such as form a Richmond, Chiswick, Stowe.
'August around what public works I see!
Lo! stately streets, lo! squares that court the breeze;
In spite of those to whom pertains the care
Ingulfing more than founded Roman ways,
Lo! rayed from cities o'er the brightened land.
Connecting sea to sea, the solid road.
Lo! the proud arch (no vile exactor's stand)
With easy sweep bestrides the chasing flood.
See! long canals, and deepened rivers join
Each part with each, and with the circling main
The whole enlivened isle. Lo! ports expand,
Free as the winds and waves, their sheltering arms.
Lo! streaming comfort o'er the troubled deep,
On every pointed coast the lighthouse towers;
And, by the broad imperious mole repelled,
Hark! how the baffled storm indignant roars.'
As thick to view these varied wonders rose,
Shook all my soul with transport, unassured
The Vision broke; and on my waking eye
Rushed the still ruins of dejected Rome.