Correct her manners, and inspire her youth.

For, tho' deprav'd and funk, fhe brought thee forth,
And glories in thy name; fhe points thee out
To all her fons, and bids them eye thy star:
While in expectance of the fecond life,

When Time shall be no more, thy facred duft
Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.

The End.

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BRI

BRITANNIA,

A

РОЕМ.

A

S on the fea-beat fhore Britannia fat,

Of her degenerate fons the faded fame,
Deep in her anxious heart, revolving fad:
Bare was her throbbing bofom to the

gale,

That hoarfe, and hollow, from the bleak furge blew;
Loofe flow'd her treffes; rent her azure robe..
Hung o'er the deep from her majestick brow

She tore the laurel and the tore the bay.

Nor

Nor ceas'd the copious grief to bathe her cheek;
Nor ceas'd her fobs to murmur to the Main.
Peace difcontented nigh, departing, ftretch'd
Her dove-like wings. And War, tho' greatly rous'd,
Yet mourn'd his fetter'd hands. While thus the Queen
Of nations spoke; and what fhe faid the Muse
Recorded, faithful, in unbidden ver fe.

20

10

Even not yon fail, that, from the sky-mixt wave, Dawns on the fight, and wafts the Royal Youth, A freight of future glory to my shore; Even not the flattering view of golden days, And rifing periods yet of bright renown, Beneath the Parents, and their endless line Thro'late revolving time, can footh my rage; While, unchaftis'd, the infulting Spaniard dares Infeft the trading flood, full of vain War Defpife my Navies, and my Merchants feize; As, trufting to falle peace, they fearless roam The world of waters wild, made, by the toil, And liberal blood of glorious ages, mine: Nor burfts my fleeping thunder on their head. Whence this unwonted patience? this weak doubt? 3.0

25

This tame befeeching of rejected peace?
This meek forbearance? this unnative fear,
To generous Britons never known before?
And fail'd my fleets for this; on Indian tides

To float, unactive, with the veering winds?
The mockery of war! while hot disease,
And floth distemper'd, fwept off burning crowds,
For action ardent; and amid the deep,
Inglorious, funk them in a watry grave.
There now they lie beneath the rowling flood,
Far from their friends, and country unaveng'd;
And back the weeping war-fhip comes again,
Difpirited, and thin; her fons afham'd
Thus idly to review their native fhore;

35

49

With not one glory sparkling in their eye,

45

One triumph on their tongue. A paffenger,

The violated Merchant comes along;

That far-fought wealth, for which the noxious gale

Hedrew, and fweat beneath Equator funs,

By lawless force detain'd; a force that foon

59

Would melt away, and every fpoil refign,

Were once the British lyon heard to roar.
Whence is it that the proud Iberian thus,

In their own well-afferted element,

Dar

Dares rouze to wrath the Masters of the Main?

Who told him, that the big incumbent war

Would not, ere this, have roll'd his trembling ports

In fmoaky ruin? and his guilty ftores,

55

Won by the ravage of a butcher'd world,

Yet unatton'd, funk in the (wallowing deep,

ба

Or led the glittering prize into the Thames?

There was a time (Ohlet my languid fons Refume their spirit at the roufing thought!) When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet,

Swell'd o'er the lab'ring furge; like a whole heaven

65

Of clouds, wide-roll'd before the boundless breeze,
Gaily the fplendid Armament along

Exultant plough'd, reflecting a red gleam,

As funk the fun, o'er all the flaming vast;

Tall, gorgeous, and elate; drunk with the dream
Of eafy conqueft; while their bloated war,
Stretch'd out from sky to sky, the gather'd force
Of ages held in its capacious womb.

But foon, regardlefs of the cumbrous pomp,
My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few,
With tempeft black, the goodly scene deform'd,
And laid their glory wafte. The bolts of fate

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75

Refiftless