With musick, such as suits their sov'reign ears—
The sighs and groans of miserable men!
There's not an English heart that would not leap
To hear that ye were fall'n at last; to know
That e'en our enemies, so oft employ'd

800

In forging chains for us, themselves were free.
For he who values Liberty, confines

His zeal for her predominance within

No narrow bounds; her cause engages him
Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man.
There dwell the most forlorn of human kind,
Immur'd though unaccus'd, condemn'd untried,
Cruelly spar'd, and hopeless of escape.
There, like the visionary emblem seen
By him of Babylon, life stands a stump,

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400

And, filleted about with hoops of brass,

Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone.

To count the hour-bell and expect no change;

And ever as the sullen sound is heard,

405

Still to reflect, that, though a joyless note

To him whose moments all have one dull pace,

Ten thousand rovers in the world at large

Account it musick, that it summons some

To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball;

410

The wearied hireling finds it a release

From labour; and the lover, who has chid

Its long delay, feels ev'ry welcome stroke

Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight—

To fly for refuge from distracting thought
To such amusements as ingenious wo

415

Contrives, hard shifting, and without her tools-
To read engraven on the mouldy walls,

In stagg'ring types, his predecessor's tale,

420

A sad memorial, and subjoin his own-
To turn purveyor to an overgorg'd
And bloated spider, till the pamper'd pest
Is made familiar, watches his approach,
Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend-

To wear out time in numb'ring to and fro

425

The studs that thick emboss his iron door;

Then downward and then upward, then aslant,
And then alternate; with a sickly hope

By dint of change to give his tasteless task

Some relish; till the sum, exactly found

430:

In all directions, he begins again

O comfortless existence! hemm'd around

With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?

That man should thus encroach on fellow man,

435

Abridge him of his just and native rights,
Eradicate him, tear him from his hold
Upon th' endearments of domestick life
And social, nip his fruitfulness and use,
And doom him for perhaps a heedless word
To barrenness, and solitude, and tears,
Moves indignation, makes the name of king,
(Of king whom such prerogative can please)
As dreadful as the Manichean god,

440

Ador'd through fear, strong only to destroy. "Tis liberty alone, that gives the flow'r

445

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;

And we are weeds without it. All constraint,

Except what wisdom lays on evil men,

Is evil: hurts the faculties, impedes

450

Their progress in the road of science; blinds

The eyesight of Discovery; and begets,

In those that suffer it, a sordid mind,

Bestial, a meager intellect, unfit

To be the tenant of man's noble form.

455

Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,

With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd

By publick exigence, till annual food

Fails for the craving hunger of the state,

Thee I account still happy, and the chief

460

Among the nations, seeing thou art free;
My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,

Replete with vapours, and dispos much

All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine;
Thine unadulterate manners are less soft
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art,
To give thee what politer France receives
From Nature's bounty-that humane address
And sweetness, without which no pleasure is
In converse, either starv'd by cold reserve,
Or flush'd by fierce dispute, a senseless brawl.
Yet, being free, I love thee: for the sake
Of that one feature can be well content,
Disgrac❜d as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside,

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But once enslav'd, farewell! I could endure
Chains no where patiently; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birthright, not at all,

Then what were left of roughness in the grain

480

Of British natures, wanting its excuse

That it belongs to freemen, would disgust

And shock me. I should then with double pain

Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime;

And, if I must bewail the blessing lost,

485

For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled,

I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people less austere;

In scenes, which having never known me free,

Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.
Do I forebode impossible events,

490

And tremble at vain dreams? Heav'n grant I may!

But th' age of virtuous politicks is past,

And we are deep in that of cold pretence.

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,

495

And we too wise to trust them. He that takes

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp

Design'd by loud declaimers on the part

Of liberty, (themselves the slaves of lust,)
Incurs derision for his easy faith

500

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough;
For when was publick virtue to be found,
Where private was not? Can he love the whole,
Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend,
Who is in truth the friend of no man there?
Can he be strenuous in his country's cause,
Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be belov'd?

505

"Tis therefore sober and good men are sad

For England's glory, seeing it wax pale

510

And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts

So loose to private duty, that no brain

Healthful and undisturb'd by factious fumes,
Can dream them trusty to the gen'ral weal.

Such were they not of old, whose temper'd blades 515

Dispers'd the shackles of usurp'd control,

And hew'd them link from link; then Albion's sons

Were sons indeed; they felt a filial heart

Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs;

And, shining each in his domestick sphere,

520

Shone brighter still, once call'd to publick view.

'Tis therefore many, whose sequester'd lot Forbids their interference, looking on

Was register'd in Heav'n ere time began.
We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works
Die too: the deep foundations that we lay,
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.
We build with what we deem eternal rock;
A distant age asks where the fabrick stood;

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536

And in the dust, sifted and search'd in vain,

The undiscoverable secret sleeps.

But there is yet a liberty, unsung

By poets, and by senators unprais'd,

Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the pow'rs 540
Of Earth and Hell confed'rate take away:
A liberty, which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no pow'r to bind
Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more.
'Tis liberty of heart deriv'd from Heav'n,
Bought with his blood, who gave it to mankind,
And seal'd with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure
By th' unimpeachable and awful oath

545

And promise of a God. His other gifts

550

All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,

And are august! but this transcends them all.

His other works, the visible display

Of all-creating energy and might,

Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the word
That, finding an interminable space
Unoccupied, has fill'd the void so well,
And made so sparkling what was dark before.
But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true,
Smit with the beauty of so fait a scene,
Might well suppose th' artificer divine
Meant it eternal, had he not himself
Pronounc'd it transient, glorious as it is,
And, still designing a more glorious far,
Doom'd it as insufficient for his praise.
These therefore are occasional, and pass;

555

560

565

Form'd for the confutation of the fool,

Whose lying heart disputes against a God;

That office serv'd, they must be swept away.
Not so the labours of his love: they shine
In other Heav'ns than these that we behold,

570

And fade not. There is Paradise that fears

No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends

Large prelibation oft to saints below.

Of these the first in order, and the pledge,
And confident assurance of the rest,

575