Of Liberty; the high conception blast ;
The noble sentiment, th' impatient scorn
Of base subjection, and the swelling wish
For general good, erazing from the mind:
While nought fave narrow selfishness succeeds,
And low defign, the sneaking paffions all
Let loose, and reigning in the rankled breast.
Induc'd at laft, by fcarce-perceiv'd degrees,
Sapping the very frame of government,
And life, a total diffolution comes;
Sloth, ignorance, dejection, flattery, fear.
Oppreffion raging o'er the wafte he makes ;
The human being almost quite extin&t;
And the whole state in broad corruption finks.
Oh, fhun that gulph: that gaping ruin fhun !
And countless ages roll it far away
From you, ye heaven-belov'd! may Liberty,
The light of life, the fun of human-kind!
Whence heroes, bards, and patriots borrow flame,
Ev'n where the keen depreffive north descends,
Still fpread, exalt, and actuate your powers!
While flavish fouthern climates beam in vain!
And may a public spirit from the throne,
Where every virtue fits, go copious forth
Live o'er the land, the finer arts infpire,
Make thoughtful Science raise his penfive head,
Blow the fresh bay, bid Industry rejoice,
And the rough fons of lowest Labour smile.
As when, profuse of spring, the loosen'd weft
Lifts up the pining year, and balmy breathes
Youth, life, and love, and beauty o'er the world.
But hafte we from these melancholy fhores,
Nor to deaf winds and waves our fruitless plaint
Pour weak; the country claims our active aid ;
That let us roam; and where we find a spark
Of public virtue, blow it into flame.
Lo! now my fons, the fons of freedom! meet
In aweful fenate; thither let us fly;
Burn in the patriot's thought, flow from his tongue
In fearless truth; myself, transform'd, prefide,
And shed the spirit of Britannia round.
This faid; her fleeting form, and airy train,
Sunk in the gale; and nought but ragged rocks
Rufh'd on the broken eye; and nought was heard
But the rough cadence of the dashing wave.
The following Poem is thrown into the form of a Poeti-
cal Vifion. Its scene the ruins of ancient Rome. The
Goddess of Liberty, who is fupposed to speak through
the whole, appears, characterized as British Liberty;
to ver. 44. Gives a view of ancient Italy, and par-
ticularly of republican Rome, in all her magnificence
and glory; to ver. 112. This contrafted by modern
Italy; its vallies, mountains, culture, cities, people :
the difference appearing ftrongeft in the capital city
Rome; to ver. 234. The ruins of the great works
of Liberty more magnificent than the borrowed pomp
of Oppreffion; and from them revived Sculpture,
Painting, and Architecture; to ver. 256. The old
Romans apoftrophized, with regard to the feveral
melancholy changes in Italy: Horace, Tully, and
Virgil, with regard to their Tibur, Tusculum, and
Naples; to ver..287. That once finest and most or-
namented part of Italy, all along the coast of Baix,
how changed; to ver. 321. This defolation of Italy
applied to Britain; to ver. 344. Addrefs to the
Goddess of Liberty, that she would deduce from the
firft ages, her chief eftablishments, the defcription of
which conftitute the fubject of the following parts of
this Poem. She affents, and commands what she says
to be fung in Britain; whofe happiness, arising from
freedom, and a limited monarchy, she marks; to ver.
391. An immediate Vision attends, and paints her
words. Invocation.
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