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Whence this unwonted transport in my breast?
Why glow my thoughts, and whither would the Muse
Aspire with rapid wing? Her country's cause
Demands her efforts: at that sacred call
She summons all her ardour, throws aside
The trembling lyre, and with the warrior's trump
She means to thunder in each British ear;
And if one spark of honour or of fame,
Disdain of insult, dread of infamy,
One thought of public virtue yet survive, 10
She means to wake it, rouse the generous flame,
With patriot zeal inspirit every breast,
And fire each British heart with British wrongs.
Alas, the vain attempt! what influence now
Can the Muse boast! or what attention now
Is paid to fame or virtue? Where is now
The British spirit, generous, warm, and brave,
So frequent wont from tyranny and woe
To free the suppliant nations? Where, indeed!
If that protection, once to strangers given, 20
Be now withheld from sons? Each nobler thought,
That warrn'd our sires, is lost and buried now
In luxury and avarice. Baneful vice!
How it unmans a nation! yet I'll try,
I'll aim to shake this vile degenerate sloth;
I'll dare to rouse Britannia's dreaming sons
To fame, to virtue, and impart around
A generous feeling of compatriot woes.
Come, then, the various powers of forceful speech,
All that can move, awaken, fire, transport! 30
Come the bold ardour of the Theban bard!
The arousing thunder of the patriot Greek!
The soft persuasion of the Roman sage!
Come all! and raise me to an equal height,
A rapture worthy of my glorious cause!
Lest my best efforts, failing, should debase
The sacred theme; for with no common wing
The Muse attempts to soar. Yet what need these?
My country's fame, my free-born British heart,
Shall be my best inspirers, raise my flight 40
High as the Theban's pinion, and with more
Than Greek or Roman flame exalt my soul.
Oh! could I give the vast ideas birth
Expressive of the thoughts that flame within,
No more should lazy Luxury detain
Our ardent youth; no more should Britain's sons
Sit tamely passive by, and careless hear
The prayers, sighs, groans, (immortal infamy!)
Of fellow Britons, with oppression sunk,
In bitterness of soul demanding aid, 50
Calling on Britain, their dear native land,
The land of Liberty; so greatly famed
For just redress; the land so often dyed
With her best blood, for that arousing cause,
The freedom of her sons; those sons that now
Far from the manly blessings of her sway,
Drag the vile fetters of a Spanish lord.
And dare they, dare the vanquish'd sons of Spain
Enslave a Briton? Have they then forgot,
So soon forgot, the great, the immortal day, 60
When rescued Sicily with joy beheld
The swift-wing'd thunder of the British arm
Disperse their navies? when their coward bands
Fled, like the raven from the bird of Jove,
From swift impending vengeance fled in vain?
Are these our lords? And can Britannia see
Her foes oft vanquish'd, thus defy her power,
Insult her standard, and enslave her sons,
And not arise to justice? Did our sires,
Unawed by chains, by exile, or by death, 70
Preserve inviolate her guardian rights,
To Britons ever sacred, that her sons
Might give them up to Spaniards?—Turn your eyes,
Turn, ye degenerate, who with haughty boast
Call yourselves Britons, to that dismal gloom,
That dungeon dark and deep, where never thought
Of joy or peace can enter; see the gates
Harsh-creaking open; what a hideous void,
Dark as the yawning grave, while still as death
A frightful silence reigns! There on the ground 80
Behold your brethren chain'd like beasts of prey:
There mark your numerous glories, there behold
The look that speaks unutterable woe;
The mangled limb, the faint, the deathful eye,
With famine sunk, the deep heart-bursting groan,
Suppress'd in silence; view the loathsome food,
Refused by dogs, and oh! the stinging thought!
View the dark Spaniard glorying in their wrongs,
The deadly priest triumphant in their woes,
And thundering worse damnation on their souls: 90
While that pale form, in all the pangs of death,
Too faint to speak, yet eloquent of all,
His native British spirit yet untamed,
Raises his head; and with indignant frown
Of great defiance, and superior scorn,
Looks up and dies.—Oh! I am all on fire!
But let me spare the theme, lest future times
Should blush to hear that either conquer'd Spain
Durst offer Britain such outrageous wrong,
Or Britain tamely bore it— 100
Descend, ye guardian heroes of the land!
Scourges of Spain, descend! Behold your sons;
See! how they run the same heroic race,
How prompt, how ardent in their country's cause,
How greatly proud to assert their British blood,
And in their deeds reflect their fathers' fame!
Ah! would to heaven ye did not rather see
How dead to virtue in the public cause,
How cold, how careless, how to glory deaf,
They shame your laurels, and belie their birth! 110
Come, ye great spirits, Candish, Raleigh, Blake!
And ye of latter name, your country's pride,
Oh! come, disperse these lazy fumes of sloth,
Teach British hearts with British fires to glow!
In wakening whispers rouse our ardent youth,
Blazon the triumphs of your better days,
Paint all the glorious scenes of rightful war
In all its splendours; to their swelling souls
Say how ye bow'd th' insulting Spaniards' pride,
Say how ye thunder'd o'er their prostrate heads, 120
Say how ye broke their lines and fired their ports,
Say how not death, in all its frightful shapes,
Could damp your souls, or shake the great resolve
For right and Britain: then display the joys
The patriot's soul exalting, while he views
Transported millions hail with loud acclaim
The guardian of their civil, sacred rights.
How greatly welcome to the virtuous man
Is death for others' good! the radiant thoughts
That beam celestial on his passing soul, 130
The unfading crowns awaiting him above,
The exalting plaudit of the Great Supreme,
Who in his actions with complacence views
His own reflected splendour; then descend,
Though to a lower, yet a nobler scene;
Paint the just honours to his relics paid,
Show grateful millions weeping o'er his grave;
While his fair fame in each progressive age
For ever brightens; and the wise and good
Of every land in universal choir 140
With richest incense of undying praise
His urn encircle, to the wondering world
His numerous triumphs blazon; while with awe,
With filial reverence, in his steps they tread,
And, copying every virtue, every fame,
Transplant his glories into second life,
And, with unsparing hand, make nations bless'd
By his example. Vast, immense rewards!
For all the turmoils which the virtuous mind
Encounters here. Yet, Britons, are ye cold? 150
Yet deaf to glory, virtue, and the call
Of your poor injured countrymen? Ah! no:
I see ye are not; every bosom glows
With native greatness, and in all its state
The British spirit rises: glorious change!
Fame, virtue, freedom, welcome! Oh, forgive
The Muse, that, ardent in her sacred cause,
Your glory question'd; she beholds with joy,
She owns, she triumphs in her wish'd mistake.
See! from her sea-beat throne in awful march 160
Britannia towers: upon her laurel crest
The plumes majestic nod; behold, she heaves
Her guardian shield, and terrible in arms
For battle shakes her adamantine spear:
Loud at her foot the British lion roars,
Frighting the nations; haughty Spain full soon
Shall hear and tremble. Go then, Britons, forth,
Your country's daring champions: tell your foes
Tell them in thunders o'er their prostrate land,
You were not born for slaves: let all your deeds 170
Show that the sons of those immortal men,
The stars of shining story, are not slow
In virtue's path to emulate their sires,
To assert their country's rights, avenge her sons,
And hurl the bolts of justice on her foes.
'O vitas Philosophia dux! O virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque
vitiorum. Tu urbes peperisti; tu inventrix legum, tu magistra morum
et disciplinae fuisti: ad te confugimus, a te opem petimus.'—
Cic. Tusc. Quaest.
1 Science! thou fair effusive ray
From the great source of mental day,
Free, generous, and refined!
Descend with all thy treasures fraught,
Illumine each bewilder'd thought,
And bless my labouring mind.
2 But first with thy resistless light,
Disperse those phantoms from my sight,
Those mimic shades of thee:
The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant,
The visionary bigot's rant,
The monk's philosophy.
3 Oh! let thy powerful charms impart
The patient head, the candid heart,
Devoted to thy sway;
Which no weak passions e'er mislead,
Which still with dauntless steps proceed
Where reason points the way.
4 Give me to learn each secret cause;
Let Number's, Figure's, Motion's laws
Reveal'd before me stand;
These to great Nature's scenes apply,
And round the globe, and through the sky,
Disclose her working hand.
5 Next, to thy nobler search resign'd,
The busy, restless, Human Mind
Through every maze pursue;
Detect Perception where it lies,
Catch the Ideas as they rise,
And all their changes view.
6 Say from what simple springs began
The vast ambitious thoughts of man,
Which range beyond control,
Which seek eternity to trace,
Dive through the infinity of space,
And strain to grasp the whole.
7 Her secret stores let Memory tell,
Bid Fancy quit her fairy cell,
In all her colours dress'd;
While prompt her sallies to control,
Reason, the judge, recalls the soul
To Truth's severest test.
8 Then launch through Being's wide extent;
Let the fair scale with just ascent
And cautious steps be trod;
And from the dead, corporeal mass,
Through each progressive order pass
To Instinct, Reason, God.
9 There, Science! veil thy daring eye;
Nor dive too deep, nor soar too high,
In that divine abyss;
To Faith content thy beams to lend,
Her hopes to assure, her steps befriend
And light her way to bliss.
10 Then downwards take thy flight again,
Mix with the policies of men,
And social Nature's ties;
The plan, the genius of each state,
Its interest and its powers relate,
Its fortunes and its rise.
11 Through private life pursue thy course,
Trace every action to its source,
And means and motives weigh:
Put tempers, passions, in the scale;
Mark what degrees in each prevail,
And fix the doubtful sway.
12 That last best effort of thy skill,
To form the life, and rule the will,
Propitious power! impart:
Teach me to cool my passion's fires,
Make me the judge of my desires,
The master of my heart.
13 Raise me above the Vulgar's breath,
Pursuit of fortune, fear of death,
And all in life that's mean:
Still true to reason be my plan,
Still let my actions speak the man,
Through every various scene.
14 Hail! queen of manners, light of truth;
Hail! charm of age, and guide of youth;
Sweet refuge of distress:
In business, thou! exact, polite;
Thou giv'st retirement its delight,
Prosperity its grace.
15 Of wealth, power, freedom, thou the cause;
Foundress of order, cities, laws,
Of arts inventress thou!
Without thee, what were human-kind?
How vast their wants, their thoughts how blind!
Their joys how mean, how few!
16 Sun of the soul! thy beams unveil:
Let others spread the daring sail
On Fortune's faithless sea:
While, undeluded, happier I
From the rain tumult timely fly,
And sit in peace with thee.
Too much my heart of Beauty's power hath known,
Too long to Love hath reason left her throne;
Too long my genius mourn'd his myrtle chain,
And three rich years of youth consumed in vain.
My wishes, lull'd with soft inglorious dreams,
Forgot the patriot's and the sage's themes:
Through each Elysian vale and fairy grove,
Through all the enchanted paradise of love,
Misled by sickly Hope's deceitful flame,
Averse to action, and renouncing fame. 10
At last the visionary scenes decay,
My eyes, exulting, bless the new-born day,
Whose faithful beams detect the dangerous road
In which my heedless feet securely trod,
And strip the phantoms of their lying charms
That lured my soul from Wisdom's peaceful arms.
For silver streams and banks bespread with flowers,
For mossy couches and harmonious bowers,
Lo! barren heaths appear, and pathless woods,
And rocks hung dreadful o'er unfathom'd floods: 20
For openness of heart, for tender smiles,
Looks fraught with love, and wrath-disarming wiles;
Lo! sullen Spite, and perjured Lust of Gain,
And cruel Pride, and crueller Disdain;
Lo! cordial Faith to idiot airs refined,
Now coolly civil, now transporting kind.
For graceful Ease, lo! Affectation walks;
And dull Half-sense, for Wit and Wisdom talks.
New to each hour what low delight succeeds,
What precious furniture of hearts and heads! 30
By nought their prudence, but by getting, known,
And all their courage in deceiving shown.
See next what plagues attend the lover's state,
What frightful forms of Terror, Scorn, and Hate!
See burning Fury heaven and earth defy!
See dumb Despair in icy fetters lie!
See black Suspicion bend his gloomy brow,
The hideous image of himself to view!
And fond Belief, with all a lover's flame,
Sink in those arms that point his head with shame! 40
There wan Dejection, faltering as he goes,
In shades and silence vainly seeks repose;
Musing through pathless wilds, consumes the day,
Then lost in darkness weeps the hours away.
Here the gay crowd of Luxury advance,
Some touch the lyre, and others urge the dance:
On every head the rosy garland glows,
In every hand the golden goblet flows.
The Syren views them with exulting eyes,
And laughs at bashful Virtue as she flies. 50
But see behind, where Scorn and Want appear,
The grave remonstrance and the witty sneer;
See fell Remorse in action, prompt to dart
Her snaky poison through the conscious heart;
And Sloth to cancel, with oblivious shame,
The fair memorial of recording Fame.
Are these delights that one would wish to gain?
Is this the Elysium of a sober brain?
To wait for happiness in female smiles,
Bear all her scorn, be caught with all her wiles, 60
With prayers, with bribes, with lies, her pity crave,
Bless her hard bonds, and boast to be her slave;
To feel, for trifles, a distracting train
Of hopes and terrors equally in vain;
This hour to tremble, and the next to glow;
Can Pride, can Sense, can Reason, stoop so low:
When Virtue, at an easier price, displays
The sacred wreaths of honourable praise;
When Wisdom utters her divine decree,
To laugh at pompous Folly, and be free? 70
I bid adieu, then, to these woeful scenes;
I bid adieu to all the sex of queens;
Adieu to every suffering, simple soul,
That lets a woman's will his ease control.
There laugh, ye witty; and rebuke, ye grave!
For me, I scorn to boast that I'm a slave.
I bid the whining brotherhood be gone;
Joy to my heart! my wishes are my own!
Farewell the female heaven, the female hell;
To the great God of Love a glad farewell. 80
Is this the triumph of thy awful name?
Are these the splendid hopes that urged thy aim,
When first my bosom own'd thy haughty sway?
When thus Minerva heard thee, boasting, say—
'Go, martial maid, elsewhere thy arts employ,
Nor hope to shelter that devoted boy.
Go teach the solemn sons of Care and Age,
The pensive statesman, and the midnight sage;
The young with me must other lessons prove,
Youth calls for Pleasure, Pleasure calls for Love. 90
Behold, his heart thy grave advice disdains;
Behold, I bind him in eternal chains.'—
Alas! great Love, how idle was the boast!
Thy chains are broken, and thy lessons lost;
Thy wilful rage has tired my suffering heart,
And passion, reason, forced thee to depart.
But wherefore dost thou linger on thy way?
Why vainly search for some pretence to stay,
When crowds of vassals court thy pleasing yoke,
And countless victims bow them to the stroke? 100
Lo! round thy shrine a thousand youths advance,
Warm with the gentle ardours of romance;
Each longs to assert thy cause with feats of arms,
And make the world confess Dulcinea's charms.
Ten thousand girls with flowery chaplets crown'd,
To groves and streams thy tender triumph sound:
Each bids the stream in murmurs speak her flame,
Each calls the grove to sigh her shepherd's name.
But, if thy pride such easy honour scorn,
If nobler trophies must thy toil adorn, 110
Behold yon flowery antiquated maid
Bright in the bloom of threescore years display'd;
Her shalt thou bind in thy delightful chains,
And thrill with gentle pangs her wither'd veins,
Her frosty cheek with crimson blushes dye,
With dreams of rapture melt her maudlin eye.
Turn then thy labours to the servile crowd,
Entice the wary, and control the proud;
Make the sad miser his best gains forego,
The solemn statesman sigh to be a beau, 120
The bold coquette with fondest passion burn,
The Bacchanalian o'er his bottle mourn;
And that chief glory of thy power maintain,
'To poise ambition in a female brain.'
Be these thy triumphs; but no more presume
That my rebellious heart will yield thee room:
I know thy puny force, thy simple wiles;
I break triumphant through thy flimsy toils;
I see thy dying lamp's last languid glow,
Thy arrows blunted and unbraced thy bow. 130
I feel diviner fires my breast inflame,
To active science, and ingenuous fame;
Resume the paths my earliest choice began,
And lose, with pride, the lover in the man.
1 From pompous life's dull masquerade,
From Pride's pursuits, and Passion's war,
Far, my Cordelia, very far,
To thee and me may Heaven assign
The silent pleasures of the shade,
The joys of peace, unenvied, though divine!
2 Safe in the calm embowering grove,
As thy own lovely brow serene;
Behold the world's fantastic scene!
What low pursuits employ the great,
What tinsel things their wishes move,
The forms of Fashion, and the toys of State.
3 In vain are all Contentment's charms,
Her placid mien, her cheerful eye,
For look, Cordelia, how they fly!
Allured by Power, Applause, or Gain,
They fly her kind protecting arms;
Ah, blind to pleasure, and in love with pain!
4 Turn, and indulge a fairer view,
Smile on the joys which here conspire;
O joys harmonious as my lyre!
O prospect of enchanting things,
As ever slumbering poet knew,
When Love and Fancy wrapt him in their wings!
5 Here, no rude storm of Passion blows,
But Sports and Smiles, and Virtues play,
Cheer'd by Affection's purest ray;
The air still breathes Contentment's balm,
And the clear stream of Pleasure flows
For ever active, yet for ever calm.
1 The shape alone let others prize,
The features of the fair;
I look for spirit in her eyes,
And meaning in her air;
2 A damask cheek, an ivory arm,
Shall ne'er my wishes win:
Give me an animated form,
That speaks a mind within;
3 A face where awful honour shines,
Where sense and sweetness move,
And angel innocence refines
The tenderness of love.
4 These are the soul of Beauty's frame;
Without whose vital aid,
Unfinish'd all her features seem,
And all her roses dead.
5 But, ah! where both their charms unite,
How perfect is the view,
With every image of delight,
With graces ever new:
6 Of power to charm the greatest woe,
The wildest rage control,
Diffusing mildness o'er the brow,
And rapture through the soul.
7 Their power but faintly to express,
All language must despair;
But go, behold Arpasia's face,
And read it perfect there.
*****
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