Britain! high favour'd of indulgent Heaven!
Nature's anointed empress of the deep!
The nurse of merchants, who can purchase crowns!
Supreme in commerce! that exuberant source
Of wealth, the nerve of war; of wealth, the blood,
The circling current in a nation's veins,
To set high bloom on the fair face of peace!
This once so celebrated seat of power,
From which escap'd the mighty Caesar triumph'd!
Of Gallic lilies this eternal blast!
This terror of armadas! this true bolt,
Ethereal-temper'd, to repress the vain
Salmonean thunders from the papal chair!
This small isle wide-realm'd monarchs eye with awe!
Which says to their ambition's foaming waves,
"Thus far, nor farther!"--Let her hold, in life,
Nought dear disjoin'd from freedom and renown;
Renown, our ancestors' great legacy,
To be transmitted to their latest sons.
By thoughts inglorious, and un-British deeds,
Their cancel'd will is impiously profan'd.
Inhumanly disturb'd their sacred dust.
Their sacred dust with recent laurels crown,
By your own valour won. This sacred isle,
Cut from the continent, that world of slaves;
This temple built by Heaven's peculiar care,
In a recess from the contagious world,
With ocean pour'd around it for its guard,
And dedicated, long, to liberty,
That health, that strength, that bloom, of civil life!
This temple of still more divine; of faith
Sifted from errors, purified by flames,
Like gold, to take anew truth's heavenly stamp,
And (rising both in lustre and in weight)
With her bless'd Master's unmaim'd image shine;
Why should she longer droop? why longer act
As an accomplice with the plots of Rome?
Why longer lend an edge to Bourbon's sword,
And give him leave, among his dastard troops,
To muster that strong succour, Albion's crimes?
Send his self-impotent ambition aid,
And crown the conquest of her fiercest foes?
Where are her foes most fatal? Blushing truth,
"In her friends' vices,"--with a sigh replies.
Empire on virtue's rock unshaken stands;
Flux as the billows, when in vice dissolv'd.
If Heaven reclaims us by the scourge of war,
What thanks are due to Paris and Madrid?
Would they a revolution?--Aid their aim,
But be the revolution--in our hearts!
Wouldst thou (whose hand is at the helm) the bark,
The shaken bark of Britain, should outride
The present blast, and every future storm?
Give it that ballast whi