STRAIN III.

I.

HENCE learn, as hearts are foul or pure,
Our fortunes wither or endure:

Nations may thrive or perish by the wave.
What storms from Jove's unwilling frown,
A people's crimes solicit down!

Ocean's the womb of riches and the grave.

This truth, O Britain! ponder well;
Virtues should rise as fortunes swell.

What is large property ?---the sign of good,
Of worth superior: if 'tis less,

Another's treasure we possess,

And charge the gods with favours misbestow'd.

This counsel suits Britannia's isle,

High-flush'd with wealth and Freedom's smile:
To vassals prison'd in the Continent,
Who starve at home, on meagre toil,

And suck to death their mother soil,

'Twere useless caution, and a truth mispent.

IV.

Fell tyrants strike beyond the bone,

And wound the soul; bow genius down,

Lay virtue waste! For worth or arts who strain,
To throw them at a monster's foot?

'Tis property supports pursuit.

Freedom gives eloquence, and freedom gain.

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V.

She pours the thought, and forms the style;
She makes the blood and spirits boil:

I feel her now! and rouse, and rise, and rave
In Theban song. O Muse! not thine,
Verse is gay Freedom's gift divine.

The man that can think greatly is no slave.

VI.

Others may traffic if they please;

Britain, fair daughter of the Seas,

Is born for trade, to plough her field, the wave,
And reap the growth of ev'ry coast:

A speck of land! but let her boast

Gods gave the world, when they the waters gave.

vir.

Britain! behold the world's wide face;
Not cover'd half with solid space,
Three parts are fluid. Empire of the sea!
And why? for commerce. Ocean streams
For that, thro' all his various names;
And if for commerce, Ocean flows for thee.

VIII.

Britain, like some great potentate

Of Eastern clime, retires in state,

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Shuts out the nations! Would a prince draw nigh? He passes her strong guards, the waves,

Of servant winds admission craves.

Her empire has no neighbour but the sky.

Volume IV.

F

1X.

There are her friends; soft Zephyr there

Keen Eurus, Notus never fair,

Rough Boreas bursting from the pole; all urge,

And urge for her, their various toil;

The Caspian, the broad Baltic, boil,
And into life the dead Pacific scourge.

X.

There are her friends, a mashall'd train!
A golden host! and azure plain!
By turns do duty, and by turns retreat :
They may retreat, but not from her;
The stars that quit this hemisphere,

Must quit the skies to want a British fleet.

XI.

Hyad, for her, leans o'er her urn;

For her Orion's glories burn,

The Pleiads gleam. For Britons set and rise
The fair fac'd sons of Mazaroth,

Near the deep chambers of the South,

The raging dog that fires the midnight skies.,

XII.

These nations Newton made his own;

All intimate with him alone,

His mighty soul did, like a giant, run
To the last volume's closing star;
Decipher'd ev'ry character:

His reason pour'd new light upon the sun.

XIII.

Let the proud brothers of the land

Smile at our rock and barren strand;

Not such the sea: let Fohe's ancient line
Vast tracks and ample beings vaunt;
The camel low, small elephant;

O Britain! the leviathan is thine.

XIV.

Leviathan! whom Nature's strife

Brought forth her largest piece of life!

He sleeps an isle! his sports the billows warm!

Dreadful Leviathan! thy spout

Invades the skies; the stars are out:

He drinks a river, and ejects a storm.

XV..

Th' Atlantic surge around our shore,

German and Caledonian roar;

Their mighty Genii hold us in their lap.-

Hear Egbert, Edgar, Ethelred;

"The seas are ours,"--the Monarchs said--

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The Floods their hands, their hands the Nations clap.

XVI.

Whence is a rival then to rise?

Can he be found beneath the skies?

No, there they dwell that can give Britain fear:
The pow'rs of earth, by rival aim,

Her grandeur but the more proclaim,

And prove their distance most as they draw near.

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XVIT.

Proud Venice sits amid the waves,

Her foot ambitious Ocean laves:

Art's noblest boast! but, O! what wondrous odds
'Twixt Venice and Britannia's isle?
'Twixt mortal and immortal toil?

Britannia is a Venice built by gods.

XVIIL

Let Holland triumph o'er her foes,

But not o'er friends by whom she rose;
The child of Britain' and shall she contend?
It were no less than parricide !------

What wonders rise from out the tide!
Her High and Mighty to the rudder bend.

XIX.

And are there, then, of lofty brow,

Who think trade mean, and scorn to bow
So far beneath the state of noble birth?
Alas! these chiefs but little know
Commerce how high, themselves how low,
The sons of nobles are the sons of earth.

.XX.

And what have earth's mean sons to do

But reap her fruits, and warm' pursue..

The world's chief good, not glut on others' toil P
High Commerce from the gods came down,
With compass, chart, and starry crown,
Their delegate to make the nations smile.

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