7 Unsanctified by thy command,
Unowned by thee, the sceptred hand
The trembling slave may bind;
But loose from nature's moral ties,
The oath by force imposed belies
The unassenting mind.
8 Thy will's thy rule, thy good its end;
You punish only to defend
What parent nature gave:
And he who dares her gifts invade,
By nature's oldest law is made
Thy victim or thy slave.
9 Thus reason founds the just degree
On universal liberty,
Not private rights resigned:
Through various nature's wide extent,
No private beings e'er were meant
To hurt the general kind.
10 Thee justice guides, thee right maintains,
The oppressor's wrongs, the pilferer's gains,
Thy injured weal impair.
Thy warmest passions soon subside,
Nor partial envy, hate, nor pride,
Thy tempered counsels share.
11 Each instance of thy vengeful rage,
Collected from each clime and age,
Though malice swell the sum,
Would seem a spotless scanty scroll,
Compared with Marius' bloody roll,
Or Sylla's hippodrome.
12 But thine has been imputed blame,
The unworthy few assume thy name,
The rabble weak and loud;
Or those who on thy ruins feast,
The lord, the lawyer, and the priest;
A more ignoble crowd.
13 Avails it thee, if one devours,
Or lesser spoilers share his powers,
While both thy claim oppose?
Monsters who wore thy sullied crown,
Tyrants who pulled those monsters down,
Alike to thee were foes.
14 Far other shone fair Freedom's band,
Far other was the immortal stand,
When Hampden fought for thee:
They snatched from rapine's gripe thy spoils,
The fruits and prize of glorious toils,
Of arts and industry.
15 On thee yet foams the preacher's rage,
On thee fierce frowns the historian's page,
A false apostate train:
Tears stream adown the martyr's tomb;
Unpitied in their harder doom,
Thy thousands strow the plain.
16 These had no charms to please the sense,
No graceful port, no eloquence,
To win the Muse's throng:
Unknown, unsung, unmarked they lie;
But Caesar's fate o'ercasts the sky,
And Nature mourns his wrong.