d me, blaze the pomps of war!
By sea, by land, at home, in foreign climes,
What full-blown laurels on our fathers' brows!
Ye radiant trophies! and imperial spoils!
Ye scenes!--astonishing to modern sight!
Let me, at least, enjoy you in a dream.
Why vanish? Stay, ye godlike strangers! stay:
Strangers!--I wrong my countrymen: they wake;
High beats the pulse: the noble pulse of war
Beats to that ancient measure, that grand march
Which then prevail'd, when Britain highest soar'd,
And every battle paid for heroes slain.
No more our great forefathers stain our cheeks
With blushes; their renown our shame no more.
In military garb, and sudden arms,
Up starts old Britain; crosiers are laid by;
Trade wields the sword, and agriculture leaves
Her half-turn'd furrow: other harvests fire
A nobler avarice, avarice of renown!
And laurels are the growth of every field.
In distant courts is our commotion felt;
And less like gods sit monarches on their thrones.
What arm can want or sinews or success,
Which, lifted from an honest heart, descends,
With all the weight of British wrath, to cleave
The papal mitre, or the Gallic chain,
At every stroke, and save a sinking land?
Or death or victory must be resolv'd;
To dream of mercy, O how tame! how mad!
Where, o'er black deeds the crucifix display'd,
Fools think Heaven purchas'd by the blood they shed;
By giving, not supporting, pains and death!
Nor simple death! where they the greatest saints
Who most subdue all tenderness of heart;
Students in torture! where, in zeal to him,
Whose darling title is the Prince of Peace,
The best turn ruthless butchers, for our sakes;
To save us in a world they recommend,
And yet forbear, themselves with earth content;
What modesty!--such virtues Rome adorn!
And chiefly those who Rome's first honours wear,
Whose name from Jesus, and whose hearts from hell!
And shall a pope-bred princeling crawl ashore,
Replete with venom, guiltless of a sting,
And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that scrap'd
Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance,
To cut his passage to the British throne?
One that has suck'd in malice with his milk,
Malice, to Britain, liberty, and truth?
Less savage was his brother-robber's nurse,
The howling nurse of plundering Romulus,
Ere yet far worse than pagan harbour'd there.
Hail to the brave! be Britain Britain still: