| |
| HER warlike sons the palm of victory bore, | |
| Where hoary Neptune’s utmost billows roar, | |
| More far than Rome who ruled unnumber’d kings, | |
| Where Cæsar’s eagles never stretch’d their wings, | |
| From Polar climes where daylight scarcely gleams, | 5 |
| To where full Phœbus pours his torrid beams, | |
| Where gorgeous Asia spreads the sumptuous loom, | |
| Or stately nabobs rear the princely dome, | |
| Where arid Afric gives to foreign toil | |
| Her pearly rivers and her golden soil, | 10 |
| Far as the sachem roams the loneliest wood, | |
| Or tempts with venturous barque Ontario’s flood, | |
| To where fair Europe’s vernal regions rise | |
| In medial climates, and in temperate skies. | |
| The British powers for seven successive years, | 15 |
| Had thus triumphant circled both the spheres, | |
| O’er the whole globe their course of glory run | |
| Whence day emerges to where sets the sun. | |
| No waste of life pollutes the soldier’s deed, | |
| Nor wanton spoliage bids reflection bleed. * * * * * | 20 |
| Barbarian ravage hung the pagan car, | |
| The spoils of empires, and the waste of war, | |
| In fields of death did Cæsar’s laurels bloom, | |
| And shamed the triumphs of imperial Rome, | |
| Whose wreath renown’d to mightier Timur yields, | 25 |
| Famed for the feats of more illustrious fields. | |
| He, half the world in one great day withstood, | |
| And bid the rising crescent set in blood. | |
| From tyrant power preserved the realms of Greece, | |
| And o’er Byzantium stretched the palm of peace. | 30 |
| Yet conquer’d kings in chains inglorious led, | |
| And captive queens with sordid offal fed. | |
| Not so the Briton gleans the field of war, | |
| Nor such the trophies of a Brunswick’s car; | |
| No frown of danger daunts his fearless eye, | 35 |
| Where the fight storms, and where the bravest die. | |
| But when the thunder of the battle’s o’er, | |
| And adverse legions tempt their fate no more, | |
| His heart humane regrets a hero’s deeds, | |
| And for the foe his generous bosom bleeds! | 40 |
| A sanguine spirit fires the soldier slave, | |
| But manly pity ever warms the brave. | |
| Say! round the circuit of this spacious earth, | |
| What barbarous act degrades the warrior’s worth? | |
| Through the vast regions stretch’d from either pole, | 45 |
| What aching bosom, or what anguish’d soul? | |
| Doth hoary age a single solace mourn, | |
| Or from whose breasts are tender nurslings torn? | |
| What spouse bewails the bridal bed profaned, | |
| Or what fond youth the plighted virgin stain’d? | 50 |
| What hostile fires the rural works consume, | |
| Or waste the labors of the ingenious loom? | |
| Still the blithe swain enjoys his fleecy care, | |
| And still the lover woos the spotless fair, | |
| Still nuptial life connubial virtues bless, | 55 |
| And parent bosoms the sweet babe compress. * * * * * | |
| Her hallow’d courts no vulgar trophy soils, | |
| No rapined gold, nor unillustrious spoils; | |
| Great Brunswick’s eye dejected Bourborn waits, | |
| And India’s monarchs throng Augusta’s gates, | 60 |
| Whole maps of conquest all the war reveal, | |
| And at her side the vanquish’d princes kneel, | |
| Till peace, fair goddess, spreads her balmy wings, | |
| And grace benignly lifts the prostrate kings: | |
| The kings arise, the gates of Janus close, | 65 |
| And Britain gives the weary world repose; | |
| Now casts her eye through every various zone, | |
| And counts a hundred different climes her own. | |
| Here, right of conquest pleads a boon to fame, | |
| And here, the sword prescribes the sovereign’s claim. | 70 |
| Not so, endear’d by nature’s kindly tie, | |
| Beloved Columbia meets her parent’s eye, | |
| Pleased she surveys her darling’s fair domains, | |
| Her fleecy mountains, and her bearded plains, | |
| Where peace and plenty rule with union sway, | 75 |
| Where Britain’s genius beams politic day. * * * * * | |
| Ah! seats of Eden, nature’s care in vain! | |
| Bright as thy sons, and as thy heavens serene! | |
| Unbless’d, amid the circling course of clime, | |
| In spring’s fair bloom, or autumn’s golden prime, | 80 |
| Though fruits luxuriant crown the reaper’s toil, | |
| Or flowers spontaneous deck the enamel’d soil, | |
| Though flocks and herds innumerable teem, | |
| And silver Naiads sport in every stream, | |
| Did Britain now a mother’s aid deny, | 85 |
| Or Brunswick pass thee with regardless eye? | |
| When peopling regions wear a various face, | |
| And laws ill-system’d ask a broader base, | |
| When thoughtful senates feel a patriot’s care, | |
| And lift to gracious George the wishful prayer, | 90 |
| When some ill genii, guised in friendly form, | |
| Might dark and subtile mix the civil storm, | |
| With specious art aerial codes prepare, | |
| And in the senate stretch the stygian snare; | |
| The infernal magic spell her palsied voice, | 95 |
| Perplex’d—confounded, ’midst a maze of choice; | |
| Whilst all without to heights anarchial wrought, | |
| The pomp of passion, or the pride of thought, | |
| Till vulgar councils sit in bold debate, | |
| And votes plebeian awe the wayward state, | 100 |
| Then factious fires the impassion’d heart might feel, | |
| And rage delirious with fantastic zeal. | |
| Till civil fury give the impious blow, | |
| And brother’s blood in mingling currents flow! | |
| Till kindred carnage heap the humid vale, | 105 |
| And loathed effluvia taint the passing gale: | |
| But days so dire no son of thine shall see, | |
| So George resolves, and such is heaven’s decree. | |
| O! precious offspring of the queen of Isles, | |
| Nursed in the sunbeam of thy mother’s smiles. * * * * * * * | 110 |
| Henceforth no vulgar tongue profanely dare | |
| The bench to dictate or control the bar! | |
| On adamantine base the Judge shall stand, | |
| And deal out justice with a fearless hand; | |
| Each villain’s heart the dread tribunals awe, | 115 |
| And nature’s sanctions form the sageful law, | |
| The sovereign’s fiat guide the policed poise, | |
| As life grows social, and new interests rise. | |
| Through the mixt mazes of contingent cause | |
| Dart the keen glance and spirit all the laws. | 120 |
| The state’s great genius, whose magnific soul | |
| Conducts, protects, and constitutes the whole. | |
| |
| Hail, times illustrious! blissful era, hail! | |
| When patriot princes hold the public scale, | |
| With eye judicious range the walks of state, | 125 |
| From the coarse peasant to the purpled great. | |
| |
| Shall base-born faction, nurtured up in crimes, | |
| Malign the laws, or fault the halcyon times? | |
| Against the throne uprear the factious brand, | |
| And bid the vulgar madden round the land? | 130 |
| With black illusion pest the public ear, | |
| And spread his spells infectious demon here? | |
| Still o’er thy realms, paternal prince, preside, | |
| The sovereign reason, and thy people’s guide. | |
| |
| Aloft in air the golden standards play, | 135 |
| Standards erst spread to many a glorious day, | |
| When Britain’s host the illustrious Marlborough led, | |
| When Tallard yielded, or when Berwick bled, | |
| Standards, no hostile hand shall dare profane, | |
| Nor e’er be trampled on the carnaged plain, | 140 |
| Their sacred shade the soldier’s soul inspires, | |
| Nerves his whole heart, and kindles all his fires. | |
| The embattled war to martial music moves | |
| Through long known vales, and oft frequented groves, | |
| To the clift skirt coast that girds fair Albion’s reign, | 145 |
| On whose broad margin swells the ambient main. * * * * * * | |
| Here the big heart is seen to breathe a sigh, | |
| And the salt tear to scald the soldier’s eye; | |
| Not that his sire betrays a parent’s pangs, | |
| Or round his neck the spoused virgin hangs; | 150 |
| To these, to all, he freely bids adieu, | |
| But every fear, Columbia, is for you. | |
| For you he braves the storm, with dauntless soul, | |
| Sees the surge burst, or mountain billow roll, | |
| Through the long voyage unnumber’d perils past, | 155 |
| Safely he makes Cape Breton’s coast at last: | |
| Ah! Lewis, start, dire dreams thy sleep invade, | |
| Here falls thy favorite, here thy lilies fade. | |
| A mint of cost in vain her ramparts rear’d, | |
| And her proud walls thy best battalions guard. | 160 |
| Thy name, presumptuous prince, in vain she wears, | |
| And heaves her haughty bulwarks to the stars. | |
| Her period ’s come, now shines the fated day, | |
| When all her glories in the dust shall lay. | |
| But ah! what havock strews her stormy shore, | 165 |
| And floats her flowery fields with floods of gore? | |
| Ere the last gasp, ere the decisive groan, | |
| When British valor wins the important town. | |
| |
| Ye youth, who glorious to the battle bled, | |
| And you by fate to future fame decreed, | 170 |
| Now from the roving corsair’s ravage free, | |
| The rich fraught vessels course the peaceful sea; | |
| On the broad bank the fisher feels no fear, | |
| New Albion thanks ye with a grateful tear. * * * * * * | |
| “You whom the duties of the day can spare, | 175 |
| In manly mirth the grateful banquet share, | |
| Nor bids your chief refrain the rustic’s toil, | |
| What generous victor stains his hands with spoil? | |
| A deed so base may suit the armed slave, | |
| But piteous pillage misbecomes the brave.” | 180 |
| The general thus, the troops in shouts reply, | |
| The echoing plaudit thunders to the sky. * * * * * * * | |
| The genial supper spreads the unsullied green, | |
| The bowl convivial crowns the festive scene. | |
| In pleasing talk the guiltless eve they pass, | 185 |
| In social circles on the fragrant grass, | |
| Till soft each eye salubrious slumbers close, | |
| They sink unconscious in serene repose. | |
| No dreary dream, nor morphean dozes steep | |
| The soldiers’ senses in abortive sleep. | 190 |
| Soon as the cheerly goddess of the morn | |
| From her light pinion sheds the silver dawn, | |
| Each placid brow the kind oblivion flies, | |
| And fresh as day the invigor’d warriors rise. | |
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