When all the world with midnight gloom was dark.
These harbingers of good, whom bitter hate
In vain endeavoured to exterminate,
Fell obloquy pursues with hideous bark;
But they desist not; and the sacred fire,
Rekindled thus, from dens and savage woods
Moves, handed on with never-ceasing care,
Through courts, through camps, o’er limitary floods;
Nor lacks this sea-girt isle a timely share
Of the new flame, not suffered to expire.”