BRITANNIA.

A POEM.

-Et tantas audetis tollere moles ?

Quos ego-sed motos præstat componere fluctus.
Post mihi nou simili pœnâ commissa luetis,
Maturate fugam, regique hæc dicite vestro:
Non illi imperium pelagi, sævumque tridentem,
Sed mihi sorte datum.

Virg.

BRITANNIA.

As 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 wing; 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-mix'd 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, th' insulting Spaniard dares

* Frederick, Prince of Wales, then lately arrived.

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,
To 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 wat❜ry 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,
With not one glory sparkling in their eye,
One triumph on their tongue. A passenger,
The violated merchant comes along.

That far-sought wealth, for which the noxious gale
He drew, and swaet beneath Equator suns,
By lawless force detain'd; a force that soon
Would melt away, and every spoil resign,
Where 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 (Oh! let my languid sons
Resume their spirit at the rousing thought!)
When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet,
Swell'd o'er 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,