On human-kind, a frail erroneous race! Exalt the spirit of a downward world! O'er thy dejected country chief prefide, And be her Genius call'd! her studies raise,
Correct her manners, and inspire her youth... For, tho' deprav'd and funk, she brought thee forth, And glories in thy name; she points thee out To all her fons, and bids them eye thy star: While, in expectance of the second life, When time shall be no more, thy facred dust Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.
-Et tantas audetis tollere moles ? Quos ego-fed motos præftat componere fluctus. Poft mihi non fimili pæna commissa luetis. Maturate fugam, regique hæc dicite veftro : Non illi imperium pelagi, savumque tridentem, Sed mihi forte datum.
S on the fea-beat shore Britannia fat, Of her degen'rate fons the faded fame,
Deep in her anxious heart, revolving fad: Bare was her throbbing bosom to the gale,
That hoarfe, and hollow, from the bleak furge blew;
Loose flow'd her tresses; rent her azure robe.
Hung o'er the deep from her majestic brow She tore the laurel, and she tore the bay.
Nor ceas'd the copious grief to bathe her cheek;
Nor ceas'd her fobs to murmur to the main. Peace discontented nigh, departing, stretch'd Her dove-like wings. And war, tho' greatly rous'd, Yet mourns his fetter'd hands. While thus the queen Of nations spoke; and what she said the mufe Recorded, faithful, in unbidden verse.
Ev'n not yon fail, that, from the sky-mixt wave, Dawns on the fight, and wafts the ROYAL YOUTH *, A freight of future glory to my shore, Ev'n not the flatt'ring view of golden days, And rifing periods yet of bright renown, Beneath the Parents, and their endless line Thro' late revolving time, can foothe my rage; While, unchastis'd, th' insulting Spaniard dares Infest the trading flood, full of vain war Despise my navies, and my merchants seize; As, trusting to false peace, they fearless roam The world of waters wild; made, by the toil, And lib'ral blood of glorious ages, mine: Nor bursts my fleeping thunder on their head. Whence this unwonted patience? this weak doubt?
This tame beseeching of rejected peace? This meek forbearance? this unnative fear,
To gen'rous Britons never known before? And fail'd my fleets for this; on Indian tides
To float, unactive, with the veering winds? The mockery of war! while hot disease, And floth distemper'd, swept off burning crouds,
I FREDERICK Prince of WALES, then lately arrived..
For action ardent; and amid the deep, Inglorious, funk them in a watry grave. There now they lie beneath the rolling flood, Far from their friends, and country unaveng'd; And back the drooping war-ship comes again, Difpirited, and thin: her fons asham'd
Thus idly to review their native shore; With not one glory sparkling in their eye,
One triumph on their tongue. A passenger,
The violated merchant comes along;
That far-fought wealth, for which the noxious gale
He drew, and sweet beneath equator funs,
By lawlefs force detain'd; a force that foon
Would melt away, and ev'ry spoil refign,
Were once the British lion heard to roar. Whence is it that the proud Iberian thus,
In their own well-asserted element,
Dares rouze to wrath the masters of the main?
Who told him, that the big incumbent war Would not, ere this, have roll'd his trembling ports
In smoky ruin? and his guilty stores,
Won by the ravage of a butcher'd world, Yet unatton'd, funk in the fwallowing deep, Or led the glitt'ring prize into the Thames ?
There was a time (Oh let my languid fons Resume their spirit at the rouzing thought!) When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet, Swell'd o'er the lab'ring furge; like a whole heav'n 65 Of clouds, wide-roll'd before the boundless breeze. Gaily the splendid armament along
Exultant plough'd, reflecting a red gleam, As funk the fun, o'er all the flaming Vast; Tall, gorgeous, and elate; drunk with the dream Of easy conquest; while their bloated war, Stretch'd out from sky to sky, the gather'd force Of ages held in its capacious womb. But foon, regardless of the cumbrous pomp, My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few, With tempeft black, the goodly scene deform'd, And laid their glory waste. The bolts of fate Resistless thunder'd thro' their yielding fides; Fierce o'er their beauty blaz'd the lurid flame; And feiz'd in horrid grafp, or shatter'd wide, Amid the mighty waters, deep they funk. Then too from ev'ry promontory chill, Rank fen, and cavern where the wild wave works, I fwept confed'rate winds, and swell'd a storm. Round the glad ifle, snatch'd by the vengeful blast, 85 The scatter'd remnants drove; on the blind shelve, And pointed rock, that marks th' indented shore, Relentless dafh'd, where loud the northern main Howls thro' the fractur'd Caledonian isles.
SUCH were the dawnings of my wat'ry reign; But fince how vast it grew, how absolute, Ev'n in those troubled times, when dreadful Blake
Aw'd angry nations with the British name, Let ev'ry humbled state, let Europe say, Sustain'd, and balanc'd, by my naval arm. Ah what must those immortal spirits think Of your poor shifts? Those, for their country's good,
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