Thou gem
of the ocean, that smil'st in thy power,
May thy sons prove too strong to be slaves;
Yet, let them not scorn in the dark-fated hour,
But exult in their rampart of waves.
The nations have trembled, have cowr'd in the dust,
E'en the Alps heard the conqueror's song,
When the genius of Gaul with unquenchable thirst
Push'd her eagles resistless along.
And still they advance; and the nations must bleed ;
Then sing, O my country, for joy;
Thy girdle of ocean by Heav'n was decreed
To protect what the sword would destroy.
Roll, roll thy white waves, and envelop'd in foam
Pour thy tides round the echoing shore;
Thou guard of Old England, my country, my home,
And my soul shall rejoice in the roar.
COMPELL'D by death his millions to disgorge,
Sir Thomas hardly left a mite to George:
And hence the astonishing report was spread,
That George half-wish'd his father was not dead.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.
IF, blazon'd by the Muse, Calypso's smile,
The Sirens' melody, Acrasia's isle
Peopled with Graces ever blith and young,
Nymphs such as Titian drew, or Ovid sung,
In earlier days my fancy could engage
Ere Time display'd Reflexion's sober page:
At length the gay delusion charms no more:
Haste we those distant ages to explore,
When Poesy, to real merit just,
Around the Patriot's tomb, or Sage's bust,
Twin'd amaranthine chaplets, and withstood
The thunderbolts of fell Oppression's brood.
As once, in Egypt's miserable realm,
Some proud unfeeling Statesman seiz'd the helm,
With specious words assailing Pharaoh's throne,
Deaf to a trampled nation's loudest groan,
Their bricks exacting when depriv'd of straw,
His nod like Jove's, his wild caprice was law,
Till, to perdition doom'd, beneath the tide,
With all his host o'erwhelm'd, the Monarch died:
When under Tyranny the World lay mute,
The Form Divine degraded to the Brute;
A new device the Bards of Phrygia found,
They, e'en to things inanimate, gave sound:
Æsop, a slave, drew from the knotted oak
Harmonious accents, solid marble spoke ;
To plead for Man, beneath the vocal grove,
With mingled birds were dragons seen to rove;
The beasts found language to express their wrongs,
And utter'd truths too bold for human tongues.
Here the vile Churl, turn'd Financier, we're told,
Ripp'd up his Goose to snatch her eggs of gold.
The patient Ass, gall'd by a ponderous load,
There slowly jogg'd along the miry road,
Blows mov'd him not: at length, "The Foe draws near,"
His master cried; "O quicken your career!"
The half-starv'd Beast replied: "Why speed my flight? "Come when they will, I shrink not with affright. "Can any Foreign Lord, betide what may, "With greater cruelty my toils repay?"
Through Greece, where Liberty's auspicious shrine
Long blaz'd unsullied with a light divine,
Heights more sublime behold the Muse ascend,
Fair Virtue's harbinger, her Country's friend;
The wreaths from Persia's vanquish'd despots torn.
She bore, Minerva's altars to adorn;
Her choral pomp then swell'd the tragic stage,
Where Pella's Bard *, t' instruct the rising age,
Sings his own Theseus, eloquent, and brave,
Who to th' Athenian state its pandects gave,
The Sovereign People's Majesty maintain'd,
Nor less by words than arms the victory gain'd:
Or how the Chiefs, sprung from that dauntless Sire,
Repuls'd the Herald of Eurystheus' ire,
To great Alcides' banish'd children just,
And laid Mycené's Tyrant low in dust.
Euripides. His Tragedies here alluded to are "The Suppliants" and "The Children of Hercules." B b
O'er Latian meads, in Freedom's evil hour,
Beneath the zenith of Imperial Power,
Undaunted Lucan roam'd; he nobly paid
The harmonious dirge to vanquish'd Pompey's shade,
And echo'd godlike Cato's loud applause,
Who dar'd to perish in a virtuous cause.
Th' outrageous pride of Stuart Kings to que},
And crush oppression, from the shades of hell,
When Vengeance, issuing with remorseless frown,
Tore from a Charles's brows the sullied crown,
Britannia's champion, Milton, wak'd the lyre;
Scorning the Pedant's guile, the Bigot's ire,
He sung those Chiefs Fame's sacred annals boast,
Chiefs who to conquest led their patriot host,
And, with a soul unwarp'd by vulgar awe,
Asserted the supremacy of Law:
Nor, when another Charles in pomp restor❜d,
By mitred slaves and prostitutes ador'd,
With his gay troop on Freedom's banners trod, Crouch'd to the Tyrant's throne, or hail'd this earthborn God.
The torch of Liberty, in later days,
Blazes awhile, and smouldering soon decays.
That energy, which erst was found t' adorn
The youthful Akenside's illustrious morn,
* Most of Dr. Akenside's Poems were written in his youth: he died at the age of forty-nine, having been several years before ap pointed one of the Queen's Physicians. The passages noticed may be found in his Odes to the Right Honourable Charles Townshend, to Dr. Hardinge, and on leaving Holland, in which the excellent author of the Characteristics, originally the object of his panegyric, is now passed over in silence; "Ashley's Wisdom" being effaced, to make room for "Somers' Counsels." In the posthumous edition, published 1772, we find the "Pleasures of Immagination" much garbled, and dedicated to Jeremiah Dy son, Esq.
When he, th' apostate Statesman to appall,
Chose for his theme the haughty Strafford's fall,
Or dar'd with manly spirit to unfold
"What day the people's stern decree is told
"To unbelieving Kings;" devoid of power,
Soon shrunk unnerv'd in his meridian hour;
All "Ashley's wisdom," join'd with "Hampden's arms,"
Then from his page effac'd, had lost its charms,
The Heaven-born Muse descended from her sphere,
His parting lays were tun'd for Dyson's ear.
Hull's * Senator, pourtray'd by Mason's hand, "Walk'd forth vindictive through a venal land:" How Abdalominus, the Bard pursu'd,
With scornful smile the robes of Empire view'd.
Why then, recanting every generous strain,
Such as old Humber heard, but heard in vain,
When Gallia's Genius, vilely compass'd round
With swarms of Despots, sore through many a wound,
By all forsaken, in convulsive pain
Burst from his nervous arms the galling chain,
Caught this exhausted Veteran the mean hate
Of those who toil'd to crush a rising state?
But from Vertumnus' and Pomona's bowers,
Twin'd with salubrious plants and brightest flowers,
Lo! Darwin comes; around his hoary head
Hath Liberty her verdant trophies spread:
"Twas his to turn from every gaudier theme,
"The painted mistress or the purling stream,"
And sing Columbia rescued from her chains,
The light faint gleaming on Hibernia's plains,
Andrew Marvell. The reader is entreated to compare Mr. Mason's" Ode to Independence" and the "Episode of Abdalominus in his English Garden" with the "Palinodia" in the third volume of his Poems, published just before his death.
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