mankind.

8 Hither th'oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and succour, at your court;
And then your Highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.

9 Fame, swifter than your winged navy, flies
Through every land that near the ocean lies,
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.

10 With such a chief the meanest nation bless'd,
Might hope to lift her head above the rest;
What may be thought impossible to do
By us, embraced by the sea and you?

11 Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea,
And every coast may trouble, or relieve;
But none can visit us without your leave.

12 Angels and we have this prerogative,
That none can at our happy seats arrive;
While we descend at pleasure, to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.

13 Our little world, the image of the great,
Like that, amidst the boundless ocean set,
Of her own growth hath all that Nature craves,
And all that's rare, as tribute from the waves.

14 As Egypt does not on the clouds rely,
But to the Nile owes more than to the sky;
So what our earth, and what our heaven denies,
Our ever constant friend, the sea, supplies.

15 The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know,
Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow;
Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine;
And, without planting, drink of every vine.

16 To dig for wealth we weary not our limbs;
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims;
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow;
We plough the deep, and reap what others sow.

17 Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds;
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds;
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown,
Could never make this island all her own.

18 Here the Third Edward, and the Black Prince, too,
France-conqu'ring Henry flourish'd, and now you;
For whom we stay'd, as did the Grecian state,
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.

19 When for more worlds the Macedonian cried,
He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide
Another yet; a world reserved for you,
To make more great than that he did subdue.

20 He safely might old troops to battle lead,
Against th'unwarlike Persian and the Mede,
Whose hasty flight did, from a bloodless field,
More spoils than honour to the victor yield.

21 A race unconque