The Commencement of the Nineteenth Century. NOBLE friend! say where may Freedom banished, All old forms swift hastening to decline; For the sole dominion of the world, O'er all laws, all birthrights else, impending, Have the trident and the lightning hurl❜d. Every land to them must mete its treasure; And, like Brennus in those ruder days, Here the Frank his ponderous falchion's measure In the wavering scale of justice lays; There his fleets the Briton, rich and mighty, Polypus-like, stretches o'er the deep, And the kingdom of free Amphitrite, Closes as his own peculiar keep. To the South-pole's hidden constellations In his restless, boundless, course he flies, |