And joys to fee the wonders of his toil.
Heavens! what a goodly profpect spreads around,
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all
The stretching landskip into smoke decays !
Happy Britannia! where, the Queen of Arts,
Infpiring vigour, Liberty abroad
Walks, unconfin'd, ev'n to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unfparing hand.
Rich is thy foil, and merciful thy clime;
Thy ftreams unfailing in the Summer's drought;
Unmatch'd thy guardian-oaks; thy valliés float
With golden waves: and on thy mountains flocks
Bleat numberless; while, roving round their fides,
Bellow the blackening herds in lufty droves.
Beneath thy meadows glow, and rife unquell'd
Against the mower's fcythe. On every hand
Thy villas fhine. Thy country teems with wealth;
And property affures it to the swain,
Pleas'd, and unwearied, in his guarded toil. 1455
Full are thy cities with the fons of art;
And trade and joy, in every busy street,
Mingling are heard: ev'n Drudgery himself,
As at the car he fweats, or dufty hews
The palace-ftone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rifing mafts an endless prospect yield,
With labour burn, and echo to the fhouts
Of hurried failor, as he hearty waves
His laft adieu, and, loofening every sheet,
Réfigns the spreading veffel to the wind.
Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth, By hardship finew'd, and by danger fir'd,
Scattering the nations where they go; and first
Or on the lifted plain, or ftormy feas.
Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful fires prefide;
In genius, and substantial learning, high;
For every virtue, every worth, renown'd;
Sincere, plain-hearted, hofpitable, kind;
Yet, like the muftering thunder, when provok'd, 1475
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of thofe that under grim oppreffion groan.
Thy Sons of Glory many! Alfred thine,
In whom the fplendor of heroic war,
And more heroic peace, when govern'd well,
Combine; whofe hallow'd names the Virtues faint,
And his own Mufes love; the best of kings!
With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine,
Names dear to Fame; the first who deep imprefs'd
On haughty Gaúl the terror of thy arms,
That awes her genius ftill. In fiatesmen thou,
And patriots, fertile. Thine a fteady More,
Who, with a generous, though mistaken zeal,
Withstood a brutal tyrant's ufeful rage,
Like Cato firm, like Ariftides juft,
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor,
A dauntless foul erect, who fmil'd on death.
Frugal and wife, a Walfingham is thine;
A Drake, who made thee miftrefs of the deep,
And bore thy name in thunder round the world.
Then flam'd thy spirit high: but who can speak
The numerous worthies of the Maiden Reign?
In Raleigh mark their every glory mix'd;
Raleigh, the fcourge of Spain! whose breast with all
The fage, the patriot, and the hero, burn'd.
Nor funk his vigour, when a coward-reign
The warrior fetter'd, and at last refign'd,
To glut the vengeance of a vanquish'd foe.
Then, active still and unrestrain'd, his mind
Explor'd the vast extent of ages past,
And with his prison-hours enrich'd the world;
Yet found no times, in all the long research,
So glorious, or fo base, as those he prov'd,
In which he conquer'd, and in which he bled.
Nor can the Muse the gallant Sidney pass,'
The plume of war! with early laurels crown'd,
The Lover's myrtle, and the Poet's bay.
A Hamden too is thine, illustrious land,
Wife, ftrenuous, firm, of unfubmitting foul,
Who ftem'd the torrent of a downward age
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again,
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.
Bright, at his call, thy age of men effulg'd,
Of men on whom late time a kindling eye
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read.
Bring every fweetest flower, and let me strew
The grave where Ruffel lies; whose temper'd blood, With calmeft chearfulness for thee refign'd,
Stain'd the fad annals of a giddy reign;
Aiming at lawless power, though meanly funk
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend, the British Caffius, fearless bled;
Of high determin'd fpirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to th' enlighten'd love
Of ancient freedom warm'd. Fair thy renown
In awful Sages and in noble Bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and wak'd the Mufes' fong.
Thine is a Bacon; hapless in his choice,
Unfit to ftand the civil ftorm of state,
And through the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm, but pliant virtue, forward ftill
To urge his courfe: him for the ftudious fhade
Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehenfive, clear,
Exact, and elegant; in one rich foul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd.
The great deliverer he! who from the gloom
Of cloifter'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true Philofophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void: he led her forth,
Daughter of Heaven! that, flow-afcending still,
Investigating fure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to Heaven again.
The generous † Ashley thine, the friend of man; 1550
Who fcann'd his Nature with a brother's eye,
His weakness prompt to fhade, to raise his aim,
To touch the finer movements of the mind,
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.
And with the moral beauty charm the heart.
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious fearch 1555
Amid the dark receffes of his works,
The great Creator fought? And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own?
Let Newton, pure Intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works
Fram laws fublimely fimple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature's boast ?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of claffic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius univerfal as his theme;
Aftonishing as Chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven fublime.
Nor fhall my verfe that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenfer, Fancy's pleafing fon;
Who, like a copious river, pour'd his fong
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground:
Nor thee, his ancient mafter, laughing fage,
Chaucer, whofe native manners-painting verfe,
Well-moraliz'd, fhines through the Gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.
May my fong foften, as thy Daughters I,
Britannia, hail for beauty is their own,
The feeling heart, fimplicity of life,
And elegance, and tafte: the faultlefs form,
Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek,
VOL. I.
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