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| TARN, how delightful wind thy willowed waves, | |
| But ah! they fructify a land of slaves. | |
| In vain thy barefoot, sunburnt peasants hide | |
| With luscious grapes yon hill’s romantic side; | |
| No cups nectareous shall their toils repay, | 5 |
| The priests’, the soldiers’, and the farmers’ prey. | |
| Vain glows this sun in cloudless glory dressed, | |
| That strikes fresh vigor through the pining breast; | |
| Give me, beneath a colder changeful sky, | |
| My soul’s best, only pleasure, Liberty! | 10 |
| What millions perished near thy moanful flood | |
| When the red papal tyrant cried out, “Blood!” | |
| Less fierce the Saracen, and quivered Moor, | |
| That dashed thy infants ’gainst the stones of yore. | |
| Be warned, ye nations round; and trembling see | 15 |
| Dire superstition quench humanity! | |
| By all the chiefs in Freedom’s battles lost; | |
| By wise and virtuous Alfred’s awful ghost; | |
| By old Galgacus’ scythéd, iron car, | |
| That, swiftly whirling through the walks of war, | 20 |
| Dashed Roman blood, and crushed the foreign throngs; | |
| By holy Druids’ courage-breathing songs; | |
| By fierce Bonduca’s shield, and foaming steeds; | |
| By the bold peers that met on Thames’s meads; | |
| By the fifth Henry’s helm, and lightning spear, | 25 |
| O Liberty, my warm petition hear; | |
| Be Albion still thy joy! with her remain, | |
| Long as the surge shall lash her oak-crowned plain! | |
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