Accomplish'd thus he wing'd his way,
And zealous roved from pole to pole, 50
The rolls of right eternal to display,
And warm with patriot thoughts the aspiring soul;
On desert isles 'twas he that raised
Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave,[2]
Where Tyranny beheld, amazed,
Fair Freedom's temple where he mark'd her grave:
He steel'd the blunt Batavian's arms
To burst the Iberian's double chain;
And cities rear'd, and planted farms,
Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain.[3] 60
He with the generous rustics sate
On Uri's rocks[4] in close divan;
And wing'd that arrow sure as fate,
Which ascertain'd the sacred rights of man.
STROPHE.
Arabia's scorching sands he cross'd,
Where blasted Nature pants supine,
Conductor of her tribes adust
To Freedom's adamantine shrine;
And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast,
He snatch'd from under fell Oppression's wing, 70
And taught amidst the dreary waste
The all-cheering hymns of liberty to sing.
He virtue finds, like precious ore,
Diffused through every baser mould;
E'en now he stands on Calvi's rocky shore,[5]
And turns the dross of Corsica to gold.
He, guardian Genius! taught my youth
Pomp's tinsel livery to despise;
My lips, by him chastised to truth,
Ne'er paid that homage which my heart denies. 80
ANTISTROPHE.
Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnish'd Vice and Vanity, combined
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,
And forge vile shackles for the freeborn mind;
While Insolence his wrinkled front uprears,
And all the flowers of spurious Fancy blow;
And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,
Full often wreath'd around the miscreant's brow;
Where ever-dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain,
Presents her cup of stale Profession's froth; 90
And pale Disease, with all his bloated train,
Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.
STROPHE.
In Fortune's car behold that minion ride,
With either India's glittering spoils oppress'd;
So moves the sumpter-mule in harness'd pride,
That bears the treasure which he cannot taste.
For him let venal bards disgrace the bay,
And hireling minstrels wake the tinkling string;
Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay;
And jingling bells fantastic Folly ring; 100
Disquiet, doubt, and dread shall intervene,
And Nature, still to all her feelings just,
In vengeance hang a damp on every scene,
Shook from the baneful pinions of Disgust.
ANTISTROPHE.
Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
And Health, and Peace, and Contemplation dwell.
There Study shall with Solitude recline,
And Friendship pledge me to his fellow swains, 110
And Toil and Temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sustains;
And fearless Poverty shall guard the door,
And Taste unspoil'd the frugal table spread,
And Industry supply the humble store,
And Sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed;
White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite!
Shall chase far off the goblins of the night,
And Independence o'er the day preside,
Propitious power! my patron and my pride! 120
[Footnote 1: 'Baptised with blood:' Charlemagne obliged four thousand Saxon prisoners to embrace the Christian religion, and immediately after they were baptized, ordered their throats to be cut. Their prince, Vitikind, fled for shelter to Gotrick, king of Denmark.]