-Et tantas audetis tollere moles?
Quos ego-sed motos præstat componere fluctus.
Post mihi non simili pœna commissa luetis.
Maturate fugam, regique hæc dicite vestro :
Non illi imperium pelagi, sævumque tridentem,
Sed mihi sorte datum..
on the sea-beat shore Britannia sat,
Of her degenerate sons the faded fame,
Deep in her anxious heart, revolving sad:
Bare was her throbbing bosom to the gale,
That hoarse, and hollow, from the bleak surge 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 sobs 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 muse Recorded, faithful, in unbidden verse.
Even not yon sail, that, from the sky-mixt wave, Dawns on the sight, and wafts the ROYAL YOUTH*, A freight of future glory to my shore; Even not the flattering view of golden days, And rising periods yet of bright renown, Beneath the PARENTS, and their endless line Thro' late revolving time, can sooth my rage; While, unchastis'd, the 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 liberal blood of glorious ages, mine : Nor bursts my sleeping thunder on their head. Whence this unwonted patience? this weak doubt ? This tame beseeching of rejected peace ? This meek forbearance? this unnative fear, Το generous Britons never known before? And sail'd my fleets for this; on Indian tides To float, unactive, with the veering winds? The mockery of war! while hot disease, And sloth distemper'd, swept off burning crowds, For action ardent; and amid the deep, Inglorious, sunk them in a watery 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, Dispirited, and thin; her sons asham'd Thus idly to review their native shore;
FREDERIC Prince of WALES, then lately arrived.
With not one glory sparkling in their
One triumph in their tongue. A passenger,
The violated merchant comes along;
That far-sought wealth, for which the noxious gale
He drew, and sweat beneath equator suns,
By lawless force detain'd; a force that soon
Would melt away, and every spoil resign,
Were once the British lion heard to roar.
Whence is it that the proud Iberian thus,
In their own well-asserted element,
Dares rouse 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 unaton'd, sunk in the swallowing deep,
Or led the glittering prize into the Thames?
There was a time (O let my languid sons
Resume their spirit at the rousing thought!)
When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet,
Swell'd our the lab'ring surge; like a whole heaven
Of clouds, wide-roll'd before the boundless breeze.
Gaily the splendid armament along
Exultant plough'd, reflecting a red gleam,
As sunk the sun, 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 soon, regardless of the cumbrous pomp,
My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few,
With tempest black, the goodly scene deform'd,
And laid their glory waste. The bolts of Fate
Resistless thunder'd thro' their yielding sides;
Fierce o'er their beauty blaz'd the lurid flame;
And seiz'd in horrid grasp, or shatter'd wide,
Amid the mighty waters deep they sunk.
Then too from every promontory chill,
Rank fen, and cavern where the wild wave works,
I swept confederate winds, and swell'd a storm.
Round the glad isle, snatch'd by the vengeful blast,
The scatter'd remnants drove; on the blind shelve,
And pointed rock, that marks th' indented shore,
Relentless dash'd, where loud the northern main
Howls thro' the fractur'd Caledonian isles.
Such were the dawnings of my watery reign;
But since how vast it grew, how absolute,
Even in those troubled times, when dreadful Blake
Aw'd angry
nations with the British name,
Let every humbled state, let Europe say,
Sustain'd and balanc'd, by my
Ah what must those immortal spirits think
Of your poor shifts? Those, for their country's good,
Who fac'd the blackest danger, knew no fear,
No mean submission, but commanded peace.
Ah how with indignation must they burn;
(If aught, but joy, can touch etherial breasts)
With shame! with grief! to see their feeble sons
Shrink from that empire o'er the conquer'd seas,
For which their wisdom plann'd, their councils glow'd,
And their veins bled thro' many a toiling age.
Oh first of human blessings! and supreme!
Fair Peace! how lovely, how delightful thou!
By whose wide tie, the kindred sons of men,
Like brothers live, in amity combin'd,
And unsuspicious faith; while honest toil
Gives every joy, and to those joys a right,
Which idle, barbarous rapine but usurps.
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