Gives every joy, and to those joys a right,
Which idle, barbarous rapine but usurps.
Pure is thy reign; when, unaccursed by blood,
Nought, save the sweetness of indulgent showers,
Trickling distils into the verdant glebe;
Instead of mangled carcasses, sad-seen,
When the blithe sheaves lie scattered o'er the field;
When only shining shares, the crooked knife,
And hooks imprint the vegetable wound;
When the land blushes with the rose alone,
The falling fruitage, and the bleeding vine,
Oh, Peace! thou source and soul of social life,
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence,
Science his views enlarges, Art refines,
And swelling Commerce opens all her ports;
Blessed be the man divine who gives us thee!
Who bids the trumpet hush its horrid clang,
Nor blow the giddy nations into rage;
Who sheaths the murderous blade; the deadly gun
Into the well-piled armoury returns ;
And every vigour, from the work of death
To grateful industry converting, makes
The country flourish, and the city smile.
Unviolated, him the virgin sings;
And him the smiling mother to her train;
Of him the shepherd, in the peaceful dale,
Chants; and, the treasures of his labour sure,
The husbandman of him, as at the plough,
Or team, he toils; with him the sailor soothes,
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave;
And the full city, warm, from street to street,
And shop to shop, responsive, rings of him.
Nor joys one land alone: his praise extends
Far as the sun rolls the diffusive day;
Far as the breeze can bear the gifts of peace,
Till all the happy nations catch the song.
"What would not, Peace! the patriot bear for thee? What painful patience? What incessant care? What mixed anxiety? What sleepless toil? E'en from the rash protected what reproach? For he thy value knows; thy friendship he To human nature! but the better thou, The richer of delight, sometimes the more Inevitable, war, when ruffian force
Awakes the fury of an injured state.
E'en the good patient man whom reason rules,
Roused by bold insult, and injurious rage,
With sharp and sudden check the astonished sons
Of violence confounds; firm as his cause,
His bolder heart, in awful justice clad ;
His eyes effulging a peculiar fire;
And, as he charges through the prostrate war,
His keen arm teaches faithless men no more
To dare the sacred vengeance of the just.
"And what, my thoughtless sons, should fire you
Than when your well-earned empire of the deep
The least beginning injury receives?
What better cause can call your lightning forth?
Your thunder wake? your dearest life demand?
What better cause, than when your country sees
The sly destruction at her vitals aimed?
For oh! it much imports you, 'tis your all,
To keep your trade entire, entire the force.
And honour of your fleets; o'er that to watch,
E'en with a hand severe, and jealous eye.
In intercourse be gentle, generous, just,
By wisdom polished, and of manners fair;
But on the sea be terrible, untamed,
Unconquerable still let none escape,
Who shall but aim to touch your glory there.
Is there the man into the lion's den
Who dares intrude, to snatch his young away?
And is a Briton seized? and seized beneath
The slumbering terrors of a British fleet?
Then ardent rise! Oh, great in vengeance rise!
O'erturn the proud, teach rapine to restore:
And as you ride sublimely round the world,
Make every vessel stoop, make every state
At once their welfare and their duty know.
This is your glory: this your wisdom; this
The native power for which you were designed
By fate, when fate designed the firmest state
That e'er was seated on the subject sea;
A state, alone, where Liberty should live,
In these late times, this evening of mankind,
When Athens, Rome, and Carthage are no more,
The world almost in slavish sloth dissolved.
For this, these rocks around your coast were thrown;
For this, your oaks, peculiar hardened, shoot
Let loose, and reigning in the rankled breast.
Induced at last, by scarce perceived degrees,
Sapping the very frame of government
And life, a total dissolution comes;
Sloth, ignorance, dejection, flattery, fear.
Oppression raging o'er the waste he makes ;
The human being almost quite extinct;
And the whole state in broad corruption sinks.
Oh, shun that gulf: that gaping ruin shun!
And countless ages roll it far away
From you, ye heaven-beloved! May liberty,
The light of life! the sun of humankind!
Whence heroes, bards, and patriots borrow flame,
E'en where the keen depressive north descends,
Still spread, exalt, and actuate your powers,
While slavish southern climates beam in vain ;
And may a public spirit from the throne,
Where every virtue sits, go copious forth,
Live o'er the land; the finer arts inspire;
Make thoughtful Science raise his pensive head;
Blow the fresh bay, bid Industry rejoice,
And the rough sons of lowest labour smile:
As when, profuse of Spring, the loosened West
Lifts up the pining year, and balmy breathes
Youth, life, and love, and beauty o'er the world.
"But haste we from these melancholy shores,
Nor to deaf winds, and waves, our fruitless plaint
Pour weak; the country claims our active aid;
Then let us roam: and where we find a spark
Of public virtue, blow it into flame.
Lo! now, my sons, the sons of freedom! meet
In awful senate; thither let us fly;
Burn in the patriot's thought, flow from his tongue
In fearless truth; myself transformed, preside,
And shed the spirit of Britannia round."
This said; her fleeting form and airy train
Sunk in the gale; and nought but ragged rocks
Rushed on the broken eye; and nought was heard
But the rough cadence of the dashing wave.
ON THE DEATH OF MR. AIKMAN.1
OH, could I draw, my friend, thy genuine mind,
Just as the living forms by thee designed;
Of Raphael's figures none should fairer shine,
Nor Titian's colours longer last than mine.
A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young,
From fervent truth where every virtue sprung;
Where all was real, modest, plain, sincere;
Worth above show, and goodness unsevere.
Viewed round and round, as lucid diamonds throw
Still as you turn them a revolving glow,
1 Mr. William Aikman was a native of Scotland, where he was born in 1682. He studied under Medina; afterwards visited London, travelled to Italy and Turkey, and returned to Scotland. He subsequently settled in London, but, falling into a languishing distemper, he died at his house in Leicester-fields in June 1731. Aikman painted the portraits of many of the nobility.
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