A POEM

Exalted rise, with other honors crown'd;

And, where my Spirit wakes the finer powers, BRITAIN:

Athenian laurels still afresh shall bloom.

“Oblivious ages pass d ; while Earth, forsook BEING THE FOURTH PART OF

By her best genii, lay to demons foul,

And unchain'd furies, an abandon'd prey.
LIBERTY,

Contention led the van; first small of size,
But soon dilating to the skies she towers :
Then, wide as air, the livid fury spread,

And high her head above the stormy clouds,
The Contents of Part IV.

She blaz'd in omens, swell'd the groaning winds Difference betwixt the ancients and moderns slight. From land to land the maddening trumpet blew,

With wild surmises, battlings, sounds of war : ly touched upon. Description of the dark ages. And pour'd her venom through the heart of man. The goddess of Liberty, who during these is

Shook to the Pole, the north obey'd her call. supposed to have left Earth, returns, attended with Arts and Science. She first descends on War against human-kind : Rapine, that led

Forth rush'd the bloody power of Gothic war, Italy. Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture fix Millions of raging robbers in his train : at Rome, to revive their several arts by the great Unlistening, barbarous Force, to whom the sword models of antiquity there, which many

barbarous

Is reason, honor, law: the foe of arts invasions had not been able to destroy. The

By monsters follow'd, hideous to behold, revival of these arts marked out. That some

That claim'd their place. Outrageous mir'd with times arts may flourish for a while under despotic

these governments, though never the natural and genu. Another species of tyrannic rule, * ine production of them. Learning begins to dawn. The Muse and Science attend Liberty, who in Unknown before, whose cancerous shackles seiz'd

Th' envenom'd soul: a wilder sury, she her progress towards Great Britain raises several

Ev'n o'er her elder sistert tyranniz'd; free states and cities. These enumerated.

Author's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the British Dire was her train, and loud; the sable band,

Or, if perchance agreed, inflam'd her rage. seas and coasts rise in the vision, which painted Thundering, — Submit, ye laity! ye profane! whatever the goddess of Liberty said. She re- Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours; let kings sumes her narration. The Genius of the deep Allow the common claim, and half be theirs ; appears, and, addressing Liberty, associates Great If not, behold! the sacred lightning flies :' Britain into his dominion. Liberty received and Scholastic Discord, with an hundred tongues, congratulated by Britannia, and the native Genii For science uttering jangling words obscure, or Virtues of the island. These described. Ani- Where frighted Reason never yet could dwell : mated by the presence of Liberty, they begin of peremptory feature, Cleric Pride, their operations. Their beneficent influence con- Whose reddening cheek no contradiction bears ; trasted with the works and delusions of opposing And Holy Slander, his associate firm, demons. Concludes with an abstract of the En. On whom the lying spirit still descends : glish history, marking the several advances of Mother of tortures ! Persecuting Zeal, Liberty, down to her complete establishment at High-Nashing in her hand the ready torch, the Revolution.

Or poniard bath'd in unbelieving blood ; STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I, amaz'd :

Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure, Ah, goddess, what a change! Is earth the same?

Assuming a celestial seraph's name, Of the same kind the ruthless race she feeds?

While she, beneath the blasphemous pretence And does the same fair Sun and ether spread

Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the source of love! Round this vile spot their all-enlivening soul ?

Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds Lo! beauty fails ; lost in unlovely forms

Than all the rest combin'd. Led on by her,

And wild of head to work her fell designs,
Of little pomp, magnificence no more
Exalts the mind, and bids the public smile :

Came idiot Superstition ; round with ears
While to rapacious interest glory leaves

Innumerous strow'd, ten thousand monkish forms Mankind, and every grace of life is gone."

With legends plied them, and with tenets, meant To this the power, whose vital radiance calls

To charm or scare the simple into slaves, From the brute mass of man an order'd world :

And poison reason; gross, she swallows all, "Wait till the morning shines, and from the Broad o'er the whole her universal night,

The most absurd believing ever mosi. depth Of Gothic darkness springs another day.

The gloom still doubling. Ignorance diffus d. True genius droops ; the tender ancient taste

“ Nought to be seen, but visionary monks Of beauty, then fresh-blooming in her primo,

To councils strolling, and embroiling creeds ; But faintly trembles through the callous soul,

Banditti saints,f disturbing distant lands ; And grandeur, or of morals, or of life,

And unknown nations, wandering for a home. Sinks into safe pursuits, and creeping cares.

All lay revers'd: the sacred arts of rule Evin cautious Virtue seems to stoop her flight,

Turn'd to flagitious leagues against mankind, And aged life to deem the generous deeds

And arts of plunder more and more avow'd; of youth romantic. Yet in cooler thought

Pure plain devotion to a solemn farce ;S Well-reason'd, in researches piercing deep

+ Church power, or ecclesiastical tyranny, Through Nature's works, in profitable arts,

t Civil tyranny. And all that calm experience can disclose,

1 Crusades. (Slow guide, but sure,) behold the world anew § The corruption of the church of Rome.

66

Till, in a legislator's awful grace

Had social freedom bound their peace and arts, Dress'd, Buonaroti bid a Moses rise,

Instead of ruling power, ne'er meant for them, And, looking love immense, a Savior-God.* Employ'd their little cares, and sav'd their fate. Of these observant, Painting felt the fire

“ Beyond the rugged Apennines, that roll Burn inward. Then ecstatic she diffus'd

Far through Italian bounds their wavy tops, The canvas, seiz'd the pallet, with quick hand My path, too, I with public blessings strow'd ; The colors brew'd; and on the void expanse Free states and cities, where the Lombard plain, Her gay creation pour'd, her mimic world. In spite of culture negligent and gross, Poor was the manner of her eldest race,

From her deep bosom pours unbidden joys, Barren, and dry; just struggling from the taste, And green o'er all the land a garden spreads. That had for ages scar'd in cloisters dim

“ The barren rocks themselves beneath my foot The superstitious herd: yet glorious then

Relenting bloom'd on the Ligurian shore. Were deem'd their works; where undevelop'd lay Thick-swarming people* there, like emmets, seiz'd, The future wonders that enrich'd mankind, Amid surrounding cliffs, the scatter'd spots, And a new light and grace o'er Europe cast. Which Nature left in her destroying raget Arts gradual gather streams. Enlarging this, Made their own fields, nor sigh'd for other lands. To each his portion of her various gifts

There, in white prospect, from the rocky hill, The goddess dealt, to none indulging all ; Gradual descending to the shelter'd shore, No, not to Raphael. At kind distance still By me proud Genoa's marble turrets rose. Perfection stands, like happiness, to tempt

And while my genuine spirit warm'd her sons, Th'eternal chase. In elegant design

Beneath her Dorias, not unworthy, she Improving Nature ; in ideas fair,

Vied for the trident of the narrow seas, Or great, extracted from the fine antique ;

Ere Britain yet had open'd all the main. In attitude, expression, airs divine,

« Nor be the then triumphant states forgot, Her sons of Rome and Florence bore the prize. Where, push'd from plunder'd earth, a remnants To those of Venice she the magic art

still, Of colors melting into colors gave.

Inspir'd by me, through the dark ages kept Theirs too it was by one embracing mass

Of my old Roman flame some sparks alive: Of light and shade that settles round the whole, The seeming god-built city! which my hand Or varies tremulous from part to part,

Deep in the bosom fix'd of wondering seas. O'er all a binding harmony to throw,

Astonish'd mortals sail'd, with pleasing awe, To raise the picture, and repose the sight.

Around the sea-girt walls, by Neptune fenc'd, The Lombard schoolt succeeding, mingled both. And down the briny street; where on each hand,

Meantime dread fanes, and palaces, around, Amazing seen amid unstable waves, Reard the magnific front. Music again

The splendid palace shines ; and rising rides, Her universal language of the heart

The green steps marking, murmur at the door. Renew'd; and, rising from the plaintive vale, To this fair queen of Adria's stormy gulf, To the full concert spread, and solemn quire. The mart of nations! long, obedient seas

"Ev'n bigots smil'd; to their protection took Roll'd all the treasure of the radiant East; Arts not their own, and from them borrow'd pomp: But now no more. Than one great tyrant worse For in a tyrant's garden these awhile

(Whose shar'd oppression lightens, as diffusd) May bloom, though freedom be their parent soil. Each subject tearing, many tyrants rose.

" And now confest, with gently-glowing gleam, The least the proudest. Join'd in dark cabal,
The morning shone, and westward stream'd its light. They jealous, watchful, silent, and severe,
The Muse awoke. Not sooner on the wing Cast o'er the whole indissoluble chains :
Is the gay bird of dawn. Ariless her voice, The softer shackles of luxurious ease
Untaught and wild, yet warbling through the woods They likewise added, to secure their sway.
Romantic lays. But as her northern course Thus Venice fainter shines; and commerce thus,
She, with her tutor Science, in my train,

Of toil impatient, flags the drooping sail.
Ardent pursu'd, her strains more noble grew : Bursting, besides, his ancient bounds, he took
While reason drew the plan, the heart inform'd A larger circle ; || found another seat, I
The moral page, and fancy lent it grace.

Opening a thousand ports, and, charm'd with toil,
Rome and her circling deserts cast behind, Whom nothing can dismay, far other sons.
I pass'd not idle to my great sojourn.

“ On Arno'st fertile plain, where the rich vine Luxuriant o'er Etrurian mountains roves,

* The Genoese territory is reckoned very populous, but Safe in the lap repos'd of private bliss,

the towns and villages for the most part lie hid among I small republics ý rais'd. Thrice-happy they! the Apennine rocks and mountains.

† According to Dr. Burnet's system of the deluge. * Esteemed the two finest pieces of modern sculpture. 1 Venice was the most flourishing city in Europe, with † The school of the Caracci.

regard to trade, before the passage to the East Indies by I The river Arno runs through Florence.

the Cape of Good Hope and America was discovered. $ The republics of Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and Sienna. $ Those who fled to some marshes in the Adriatic guld They formerly had very cruel wars together, but at the from the desolation spread over Italy by an irruption of time when this poem was written, were all peaceably the Huns, first founded there this famous city, about the subject to the Great Duke of Tuscany, except it be Lucca, beginning of the fifth century. which still maintained the form of a republic.

| The main ocean.

1 Great Britain.

*

"The mountains then, clad with eternal snow,
Confess'd my power.
Deep as the rampant rocks,
By Nature thrown insuperable round,
I planted there a league of friendly states,*
And bade plain freedom their ambition be.
There in the vale, where rural Plenty fills,
From lakes and meads, and furrow'd fields, her horn,
Chief, where the Lemant pure emits the Rhone,
Rare to be seen! unguilty cities rise,
Cities of brothers form'd: while equal life,
Accorded gracious with revolving power,
Maintains them free; and, in their happy streets,
Nor cruel deed nor misery is known.
For valor, faith, and innocence of life,
Renown'd, a rough laborious people, there,
Not only give the dreadful Alps to smile,
And press their culture on retiring snows;
But, to firm order train'd and patient war,
They likewise know, beyond the nerve remiss
Of mercenary force, how to defend
The tasteful little their hard toil has earn'd,
And the proud arm of Bourbon to defy.

Here, with the shifted vision, burst my joy.
'O the dear prospect! O majestic view!
See Britain's empire! lo! the watery vast
Wide-waves, diffusing the cerulean plain.
And now, methinks, like clouds at distance seen,
Emerging white from deeps of ether, dawn
My kindred cliffs; whence, wafted in the gale,
Ineffable, a secret sweetness breathes.
Goddess, forgive!-My heart, surpris'd, o'erflows
With filial fondness for the land you bless."
As parents to a child complacent deign
Approvance, the celestial brightness smil'd;
Then thus:" As o'er the wave-resounding deep,
To my near reign, the happy isle, I steer'd
With easy wing; behold! from surge to surge,
Stalk'd the tremendous genius of the deep.
Around him clouds, in mingled tempest, hung;
Thick-flashing meteors crown'd his starry head;
And ready thunder redden'd in his hand,
Or from it stream'd comprest the gloomy cloud.
Where'er he look'd, the trembling waves recoil'd.
He needs but strike the conscious flood, and shook
From shore to shore, in agitation dire,

[charm,

"

· Ev'n, cheer'd by me, their shaggy mountains
More than or Gallic or Italian plains;
And sickening fancy oft, when absent long,
Pines to behold their Alpine views again:‡
The hollow-winding stream: the vale, fair spread,
Amid an amphitheatre of hills;
Whence, vapor-wing'd, the sudden tempest springs:
From steep to steep ascending, the gay train
Of fogs, thick-roll'd into romantic shapes:
The flitting cloud, against the summit dash'd;
And, by the Sun illumin'd, pouring bright
A gemmy shower: hung o'er amazing rocks,
The mountain-ash, and solemn-sounding pine:
The snow-fed torrent, in white mazes tost,
Down to the clear ethereal lake below:
And, high o'ertopping all the broken scene,
The mountain fading into sky; where shines
On winter winter shivering, and whose top
Licks from their cloudy magazine the snows.

It works his dreadful will. To me his voice
(Like that hoarse blast that round the cavern howls
Mixt with the murmurs of the falling main)
Address'd, began:- By Fate commission'd, go,
My sister-goddess now, to yon blest isle,
Henceforth the partner of my rough domain,
All my dread walks to Britons open lie.
Those that refulgent, or with rosy morn,
Or yellow evening, flame: those that, profuse
Drunk by equator-suns, severely shine;
Or those that, to the Poles approaching, rise
In billows rolling into alps of ice.

Ev'n yet untouch'd by daring keel, be theirs
The vast Pacific; that on other worlds,
Their future conquest, rolls resounding tides.
Long I maintain'd inviolate my reign;
Nor Alexanders me, nor Cæsars brav'd.
Still, in the crook of shore, the coward sail
Till now low-crept; and peddling commerce plied
Between near-joining lands. For Britons, chief,
It was reserv'd, with star-directed prow,
To dare the middle deep, and drive assur'd

46

From these descending, as I wav'd my course
O'er vast Germania, the ferocious nurse
Of hardy men and hearts affronting Death,
I gave some favor'd cities there to lift

While the loud thunder rattling from his hand, The fount of truth. The thoughtful Power, a part,
Auspicious, shook opponent Gallia's shore.

Now, pensive, cast on Earth his fix'd regard, “Of this encounter glad, my way to land Now, touchd celestial, lanch'd it on the sky. I quick pursued, that from the smiling sea

'The Genius he whence Britain shines supreme,
Receiv'd me joyous. Loud acclaims were heard ; The land of light, and rectitude of mind.
And music, more than mortal, warbling, fill'd He too the fire of fancy feeds intense,
With pleas'd astonishment the laboring hind, With all the train of passions thence derivd :
Who for a while the unfinish'd furrow left, Not kindling quick, a noisy transient blaze,
And let the listening steer forget his toil.

But gradual, silent, lasting, and profound.
Unseen by grosser eye, Britannia breath'd, Near him Retirement, pointing to the shade,
And her aërial train, these sounds of joy,

And Independence, stood : the generous pair, Full of old time, since first the rushing flood, That simple life, the quiet-whispering grove, Urg'd by Almighty Power, this favor’d isle And the still raptures of the free-born soul Turn'd flashing from the continent aside,

To cates prefer, by virtue bought, not carnd, Indented shore to shore responsive still,

Proudly prefer them to the servile pomps,
Its guardian shemihe goddess, whose staid eye And to the heart-embitter'd joys of slaves.
Beams the dark azure of the doubtful dawn. Or should the latter, to the public scene
Her tresses, like a flood of soften'd light,

Demanded, quit his sylvan friend awhile ;
Through clouds embrown'd, in waving circles play. Nought can his firmness shake, nothing seduce
Warm on her cheek sits beauty's brightest rose : His zeal, still active for the common-weal;
Of high demeanor, stately, shedling grace

Nor stormy tyrants, nor corruption's tools,
With every motion. Full her rising chest ; Foul ministers, dark-working by the force
And new ideas, from her finish'd shape,

Of secret-sapping gold. All their vile arts,
Charm'd Sculpture taking might improve her art. Their shameful honors, their perfidious gifts,
Such the fair guardian of an isle that boasts, He greatly scorns; and, if he must betray
Profuse as vernal blooms, the fairest dames. His plunderd country, or his power resign,
High shining on the promontory's brow,

A moment's parley were eternal shame :
Awaiting me, she stood ; with hope inflam'd, Illustrious into private life again,
By my mixt spirit burning in her sons,

From dirty levees he unstain'd ascends,
To firm, to polish, and exalt the state.

And firm in senates stands the patriot's ground,
“ The native Genji, round her, radiant smil'd. Or draws new vigor in the peaceful shade.
Courage, of soft deportment, aspect calm, Aloof the bashful Virtues hover'd coy,
Unboasting, suffering long, and, till provok’d, Proving by sweet distrust distrusted worth.
As mild and harmless as the sporting child; Rough Labor clos'd the train ; and in his hand,
But, on just reason, once his fury rous'd,

Rude, callous, sinew-swellid, and black with toil,
No lion springs more eager to his prey :

Came manly Indignation. Sour he seems, Blood is a pastime; and his heart, elate,

And more than seems, by lawful pride assail'd ; Knows no depressing fear. That Virtue known Yet kind at heart, and just, and generous, there By the relenting look, whose equal heart

No vengeance lurks, no pale insidious gall : For others feels, as for another self:

Evin in the very luxury of rage,
of various name, as various objects wake, He softening can forgive a gallant foe;
Warm into action, the kind sense within ;

The nerve, support, and glory of the land !
Whether the blameless poor, the nobly maim'd, Nor be Religion, rational and free,
The lost to reason, the declin'd in life,

Here pass’d in silence ; whose enraptur'd eye
The helpless young that kiss no mother's hand, Sees Heaven with Earth connected, human things
And the grey second infancy of age,

Link'd to divine: who not from servile fear,
She gives in public families to live,

By rites for some weak tyrant incense fit,
A sight to gladden Heaven! whether she stands The god of Love adores, but from a heart
Fair beckoning at the hospitable gate,

Efusing gladness, into pleasing awe
And bids the stranger take repose and joy ; That now astonish'd swells, now in a calm
Whether, lo solace honest labor, she

Of fearless confidence that smiles serene;
Rejoices those that make the land rejoice;

That lives devotion, one continual hymn, Or whether to philosophy, and arts,

And then most grateful, when Heaven's bounty mcet (At once the basis and the finish’d pride

Is right enjoy’d. This ever-cheerful power
Of government and life.) she spreads her hand ; O'er the rais'd circle ray’d superior day.
Nor knows her gift profuse, nor seems to know, “I joy'd to join the Virtues whence my reign
Doubling her bounty, that she gives at all. O'er Albion was to rise. Each cheering each,
Justice to these her awful presence join'd, And, like the circling planets from the Sun,
The mother of the state ! No low revenge, All borrowing beams from me, a heightend zeal
No turbid passions in her breast ferment: Impatient fir'd us to commence our toils,
Tender, serene, compassionate of vice,

Or pleasures rather. Long the pungent time
As the last woe that can afflict mankind,

Pass'd not in mutual hails; but, through the land She punishment awards ; yet of the good

Darting our light, we shone the fogs away.
More piteous still, and of the suffering whole, " The Virtues conquer with a single look.
Awards it firm. So fair her just decree,

Such grace, such beauty, such victorious light,
That, in his judging peers, each on himself Live in their presence, stream in every glance,
Pronounces his own doom. O, happy land ! That the soul won, enamour'd, and refin'd,
Where reigns alone this justice of the free! Grows their own image, pure ethereal flame.
'Mid the bright group Sincerity his front,

Hence the foul demons, that oppose our reign,
Diffusive, rear'd; his pure untroubled eye

Would still from us deluded mortals wrap;