Health or distemper, hasten or retard
The period of her pride, her day of doom:
And though, for reasons obvious to the wise,
Just Providence deals otherwise with men,
Yet believe, Britons! nor too late believe,
'Tis fix'd! by fate irrevocably fix'd!
Virtue and vice are empire's life and death."
Thus it is written—Heard you not a groan?
Is Britain on her death-bed?—No, that groan
Was utter'd by her foes—but soon the scale,