Devoted realm! what now avails thy claim,
To milder virtue, or sublimer flame?
Or what avails, unhappy land! to trace
The generous labours of thy patriot race?
Who, urged by fate, and fortitude their guide,
On the wild surge their desperate fortune tried;
Undaunted every toil and danger bore,
And fixed their standards on a savage shore;
What time they fled, with an averted eye,
The baneful influence of their native sky,
Where slowly rising through the dusky air,
The northern meteors shot their lurid glare.
In vain their country's genius sought to move,
With tender images of former love,
Sad rising to their view, in all her charms,
And weeping wooed them to her well-known arms.
The favoured clime, the soft domestic air,
And wealth and ease were all below their care,
Since there an hated tyrant met their eyes
And blasted every blessing of the skies.
* * * * *
And now, no more by nature's bounds confined
He[A] spreads his dragon pinions to the wind.
The genius of the West beholds him near,
And freedom trembles at her last barrier.
In vain she deemed in this sequestered seat
To fix a refuge for her wandering feet;
To mark one altar sacred to her fame,
And save the ruins of the human name.
* * * * *
Lo! Britain bended to the servile yoke,
Her fire extinguished, and her spirit broke,
Beneath the pressure of Herself at once the spoiler and the prey,
Detest the virtues she can boast no more
And envies every right to every shore!
At once to nature and to pity blind,
Wages abhorred war with humankind;
And wheresoe'er her ocean rolls his wave,
Provokes an enemy, or meets a slave.
But free-born minds inspired with noble flame,
Attest their origin, and scorn the claim.
Beyond the sweets of pleasure and of rest,
The joys which captivate the vulgar breast;
Beyond the dearer ties of kindred blood;
Or Brittle life's too transitory good;
The sacred charge of liberty they prize,
That last, and noblest, present of the skies.
* * * * *
Yet, gracious Heaven! though clouds may intervene,
And transitory horrors shade the scene;
Though for an instant virtue sink depressed,
While vice exulting rears her bloody crest;
Thy sacred truth shall still inspire my mind,
To cast the terrors of my fate behind!
Thy power which nature's utmost hound pervades,
Beams through the void, and cheers destruction's shades,
Can blast the laurel on the victor's head,
And smooth the good man's agonizing bed,
To songs of triumph change the captive's groans,
And hurl the powers of darkness from their thrones!
[Footnote A: The monster, tyranny.]