Wrapt in historic ardour, who adore

Each classic haunt, and well-remember'd shore,
Where Valour tun'd, amid her chosen throng,
The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song;
Or, wand'ring thence, behold the later charms
Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms!
See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,
And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell!
Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,
Hath Valour left the world-to live no more?
No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,

And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye?
Hampden no more, when suffering freedom calls,
Encounter fate, and triumph as he falls?

Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,

The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm?

F

Yes! in that generous cause for ever strong,

The patriot's virtue, and the poet's song,

Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,

Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!

Yes! there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust,

That slumber yet in uncreated dust,

Ordain'd to fire th' adoring sons of earth

With every charm of wisdom and of worth;
Ordain'd to light, with intellectual day,
The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,
Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow,
And rival all but Shakspeare's name below!

And say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan Heav'n's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man,

When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame,

That embryo spirit, yet without a name,—

That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands

Shall burst the Lybian's adamantine bands?

Who, sternly marking on his native soil,

The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult; to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!

Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,
And holy men give scripture for the deed;

Scourg'd and debas'd, no Briton stoops to save

A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave!

Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand

Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling land,

When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,

Endless her forms, and Man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspir'd by thee
To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,
Yok'd with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil;
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamp'd us in a heav'nly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge!
No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep,

To call upon his country's name, and weep!

Lo! once in triumph on his boundless plain, The quiver'd chief of Congo lov'd to reign; With fires proportion'd to his native sky, Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye; Scour'd with wild feet his sun-illumin'd zone, The spear, the lion, and the woods his own; Or led the combat, bold without a plan, An artless savage, but a fearless man!

The plunderer came:-alas! no glory smiles

For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles;

For ever fallen! no son of Nature now,

With Freedom charter'd on his manly brow! Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away, And, when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,