And pointed rock, that marks the' indented shore, Relentless dash'd, where loud the northern main Howls through the fractured Caledonian isles.
Such were the dawnings of my watery reign; But since how vast it grew, how absolute, E'en in those troubled times, when dreadful Blake Awed angry nations with the British name, Let every humbled state, let Europe say, Sustain'd, and balanced, by my naval arm. Ah, what must those immortal spirits think Of your poor shifts? Those, for their country's good, Who faced the blackest danger, knew no fear, No mean submission, but commanded peace. Ah, how with indignation must they burn? (If aught, but joy can touch etherial breasts) With shame? with grief? to see their feeble sons Shrink from that empire o'er the conquer'd seas, For which their wisdom plann'd, their councils glow'd,
And their veins bled through many a toiling age.
Oh, first of human blessings! and supreme!
Fair Peace! how lovely, how delightful thou!
By whose wide tie the kindred sons of men,
Like brothers live, in amity combined,
And unsuspicious faith; while honest toil
Gives every joy, and to those joys a right,
Which idle, barbarous rapine, but usurps.
Pure is thy reign; when, unaccursed by blood,
Nought, save the sweetness of indulgent showers,
Trickling distils into the vernant glebe;
Instead of mangled carcasses, sad seen,
When the blithe sheaves lie scatter'd o'er the field ;
When only shining shares, the crooked knife,
And hooks imprint the vegetable wound;
When the land blushes with the rose alone,
The falling fruitage and the bleeding vine.
Oh, Peace! thou source and soul of social life;
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence,
Science his views enlarges, Art refines,
And swelling Commerce opens all her ports;
Bless'd be the man divine, who gives us thee!
Who bids the trumpet hush his horrid clang,
Nor blow the giddy nations into rage;
Who sheaths the murderous blade; the deadly gun
Into the well-piled armoury returns;
And every vigour, from the work of death,
To grateful industry converting, makes
The country flourish, and the city smile.
Unviolated, him the virgin sings;
And him the smiling mother to her train.
Of him the shepherd, in the peaceful dale,
Chants; and, the treasures of his labour sure,
The husbandman of him, as at the plough,
Or team, he toils. With him the sailor sooths,
Beneath the trembling Moon, the midnight wave;
And the full city, warm, from street to street,
And shop to shop, responsive, rings of him.
Nor joys one land alone: his praise extends
Far as the Sun rolls the diffusive day ;
Far as the breeze can bear the gifts of peace,
Till all the happy nations catch the song. [thee?
'What would not, Peace! the patriot bear for
What painful patience? What incessant care?
What mix'd anxiety? What sleepless toil?
E'en, from the rash protected, what reproach?
For he thy value knows; thy friendship he
To human nature: but the better thou,
The richer of delight, sometimes the more
Inevitable war; when ruffian force
Awakes the fury of an injured state.
E'en the good patient man, whom reason rules,
Roused by bold Insult, and injurious Rage,
With sharp and sudden check, the' astonish'd sons
Of Violence confounds; firm as his cause,
His bolder heart; in awful justice clad;
His eyes effulging a peculiar fire:
And, as he charges through the prostrate war,
His keen arm teaches faithless men, no more
To dare the sacred vengeance of the just.
And what, my thoughtless sons, should fire
Than when your well-earn'd empire of the deep
The least beginning injury receives?
What better cause can call your lightning forth?
Your thunder wake? your dearest life demand?
What better cause, than when your country sees
The sly destruction at her vitals aim'd?
For oh! it much imports you, 'tis your all,
To keep your trade entire, entire the force
And honour of your fleets; o'er that to watch,
E'en with a hand severe, and jealous eye.
In intercouse be gentle, generous, just,
By wisdom polish'd, and of manners fair;
But on the sea be terrible, untamed,
Unconquerable still: let none escape,
Who shall but aim to touch your glory there.
Is there the man, into the lion's den
Who dares intrude, to snatch his young away?
And is a Briton seized? and seized beneath
The slumbering terrors of a British fleet?
Then ardent rise! Oh, great in vengeance rise!
O'erturn the proud, teach rapine to restore :
And as you ride sublimely round the world,
Make every vessel stoop, make every state
At once their welfare and their duty know.
This is your glory: this your wisdom; this
The native power for which you were design'd
By Fate, when Fate design'd the firmest state,
That e'er was seated on the subject sea;
A state, alone, where Liberty should live,
In these late times, this evening of mankind,
When Athens, Rome, and Carthage are no more,
The world almost in slavish sloth dissolved.
For this, these rocks around your coast were thrown;
For this, your oaks, peculiar harden'd, shoot
Strong into sturdy growth; for this, your hearts
Swell with a sullen courage, growing still
As danger grows; and strength, and toil for this
Are liberal pour'd o'er all the fervent land.
Then cherish this, this unexpensive power,
Undangerous to the public, ever prompt,
By lavish Nature thrust into your hand:
And, unencumber'd with the bulk immense
Of conquest, whence huge empires rose, and fell
Self-crush'd, extend your reign from shore to shore,
Where'er the wind your high behests can blow;
And fix it deep on this eternal base.
For should the sliding fabric once give way,
Soon slacken'd quite, and past recovery broke,
It gathers ruin as it rolls along,
Steep-rushing down to that devouring gulf,
Where many a mighty empire buried lies.
And should the big redundant flood of trade,
In which ten thousand thousand labours join
Their several currents, till the boundless tide
Rolls in a radiant deluge o'er the land;
Should this bright stream, the least inflected, point
Its course another way, o'er other lands
The various treasure would resistless pour,
Ne'er to be won again; its ancient tract
Left a vile channel, desolate, and dead,
With all around a miserable waste.
Not Egypt, were her better heaven, the Nile,
Turn'd in the pride of flow; when o'er his rocks,
And roaring cataracts, beyond the reach
Of dizzy vision piled, in one wide flash
An Ethiopian deluge foams amain;
(Whence wondering fable traced him from the sky)
E'en not that prime of earth, where harvests crowd
On untill'd harvests, all the teeming year,
If of the fat o'erflowing culture robb'd,
Were then a more uncomfortable wild,
Steril, and void; than of her trade deprived,
Britons, your boasted isle: her princes sunk;
Her high-built honour moulder'd to the dust;
Unnerved her force; her spirit vanish'd quite;
With rapid wing her riches fled away;
Her unfrequented ports alone the sign
Of what she was; her merchants scatter'd wide;
Her hollow shops shut up; and in her streets,
Her fields, woods, markets, villages, and roads,
The cheerful voice of labour heard no more.
Oh, let not then waste Luxury impair
That manly soul of toil, which strings your nerves, And your own proper happiness creates !
Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague
Creep on the free-born mind! and working there,
With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want,
Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart
Of Liberty; the high conception blast;
The noble sentiment, the' impatient scorn
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