E'en adverse navies' blessed the binding gale,
Kept down the glad acclaim, and silent joyed.
Arrived, the pomp, and not the waste, of arms
His progress marked. The faint opposing host
For once, in yielding their best victory found,
And by desertion proved exalted faith;
While his the bloodless conquest of the heart,
Shouts without groan, and triumph without war.
"Then dawned the period destined to confine
The surge of wild prerogative, to raise
A mound restraining its imperious rage,
And bid the raving deep no farther flow.
Nor were, without that fence, the swallowed state
Better than Belgian plains without their dykes,
Sustaining weighty seas. This, often saved
By more than human hand, the public saw,
And seized the white-winged moment.
Destructive power, a wise heroic prince
E'en lent his aid-Thrice happy! did they know
Their happiness, Britannia's bounded kings.
What though not theirs the boast, in dungeon glooms,
To plunge bold freedom; or, to cheerless wilds,
To drive him from the cordial face of friend;
Or fierce to strike him at the midnight hour,
By mandate blind, not justice, that delights
and underneath the motto of the house of Nassau, "Je maintiendrai."
By the Bill of Rights and the Act of Succession.
To dare the keenest eye of open day.
What though no glory to control the laws,
And make injurious will their only rule,
They deem it. What though, tools of wanton power,
Pestiferous armies swarm not at their call.
What though they give not a relentless crew
Of civil furies, proud oppression's fangs!
To tear at pleasure the dejected land,
With starving labour pampering idle waste.
To clothe the naked, feed the hungry, wipe
The guiltless tear from lone affliction's eye;
To raise hid merit, set the alluring light
Of virtue high to view; to nourish arts,
Direct the thunder of an injured state,
Make a glorious people sing for joy,
Bless human-kind, and through the downward depth
Of future times to spread that better sun
Which lights up British soul: for deeds like these,
The dazzling fair career unbounded lies;
While (still superior bliss!) the dark abrupt
Is kindly barred, the precipice of ill.
O luxury divine! O poor to this
Ye giddy glories of despotic thrones !
By this, by this indeed, is imaged Heaven,
By boundless good, without the power of ill.
"And now behold! exalted as the cope
That swells immense o'er many-peopled earth,
And like it free, my fabric stands complete,
The palace of the laws. To the four heavens
Four gates impartial thrown, unceasing crowds,
With kings themselves the hearty peasant mixed,
Pour urgent in. And though to different ranks
Responsive place belongs, yet equal spreads
The sheltering roof o'er all; while plenty flows,
And glad contentment echoes round the whole.
Ye floods, descend! Ye winds, confirming, blow!
Nor outward tempest, nor corrosive time,
Nought but the felon undermining hand
Of dark Corruption, can its frame dissolve,
And lay the toil of ages in the dust."
CONTENTS-The author addresses the Goddess of Liberty, marking the happiness and grandeur of Great Britain, as arising from her influence-She resumes her discourse, and points out the chief Virtues which are necessary to maintain her establishment there-Recommends, as its last ornament and finishing, Sciences, Fine Arts, and Public Works-The encouragement of these urged from the example of France, though under a despotic government-The whole concludes with a prospect of future times, given by the Goddess of Liberty: this described by the author, as it passes in vision before him.
HERE interposing, as the Goddess paused :
"O blessed Britannia! in thy presence blessed,
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,
|