Now warm'd with noble Sidney's page,
I pant with all the patriot's rage;
Now wrapt in Plato's dream,
With More and Harrington around
I tread fair Freedom's magic ground,
And trace the flattering scheme.
But soon the beauteous vision flies,
And hideous spectres now arise,
Corruption's direful train:
The partial judge perverting laws,
The priest forsaking virtue's cause,
And senates slaves to gain.
Vainly the pious artist's toil
Would rear to Heaven a mortal pile,
On some immortal plan;
Within a sure though varying date,
Confined, alas! is every state
Of empire and of man.
What though the good, the brave, the wise,
With adverse force undaunted rise,
To break th' eternal doom!
Though Cato lived, though Tully spoke,
Though Brutus dealt the godlike stroke,
Yet perish'd fated Rome.
To swell some future tyrant's pride,
Good Fleury pours the golden tide
On Gallia's smiling shores;
Once more her fields shall thirst in vain,
For wholesome streams of honest gain,
While rapine wastes her stores.
Yet glorious is the great design,
And such, O Pulteney, such is thine,
To prop a nation's frame.
If crush'd beneath the sacred weight,
The ruins of a falling state
Shall tell the patriot's name.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE.
WHAT Constitutes a state ?
Not high rais'd battlement or labour'd mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd;
Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride,
Not starr'd and spangled courts,
Where low-brow'd Baseness wafts perfume to Pride.
NO:-Men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These constitute a state,
And sovereign Law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill;
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend, Discretion, like a vapour sinks,
And e'en th' all-dazzling Crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
Such was this heaven-lov'd isle,
Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore!
No more shall Freedom smile?
Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, 'Tis folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
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