Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul,
Who stem'd the torrent of a downward age
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again,
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.
Bright, at his call, thy Age of Men effulg'd,
Of Men on whom late time a kindling eye
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read. 1520 Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew
The grave where Russel lies; whose temper'd blood,
With calmest cheerfulness for thee resign'd,
Stain'd the sad annals of a giddy reign;
Aiming at lawless power, tho' meanly sunk
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend, the British Cassius, fearless bled;
Of high determin'd spirit, roughly brave,
By antient learning to th' enlightened love
Of antient freedom warm'd. Fair thy renown
In awful sages and in noble Bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and wak'd the Muses' song.
Thine is a Bacon; hapless in his choice,
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,
And thro' the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm but pliant virtue, forward still
To urge his course: him for the studious shade
Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact, and elegant; in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd.
The great deliverer he! who from the gloom
Of cloister'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true Philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms, 1545
And definitions void: he led her forth,
Daughter of Heaven! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to Heaven again.
The generous Ashley thine, the friend of Man;
Who scann'd his Nature with a brother's eye,
His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,
To touch the finer movements of the mind,
And with the moral beauty charm the heart.
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search
Amid the dark recesses of his works,
The great CREATOR Sought? And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own?
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Thro' the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature's boast?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as Chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime.
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son;
Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground:
Nor thee, his antient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well moraliz'd, shines thro' the Gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown
May my song soften, as thy Daughters I,
Britannia, hail! for beauty is their own,
The feeling heart, simplicity of life,
And elegance, and taste: the faultless form,
Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek,
Where the live crimson, through the native white
Soft-shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom,
And every nameless grace; the parted lip
Like the red rose-bud moist with morning-dew,
Breathing delight; and, under flowing jet,
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown,
The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast;
The look resistless, piercing to the soul,
And by the soul inform'd, when drest in love
She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.
Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight,
Of distant nations; whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave!
O THOU! by whose almighty Nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,
Send forth the saving Virtues round the land,
In bright patrol; while Peace, and social Love;
The tender-looking Charity, intent
On gentle deeds, and shedding tears thro' smiles;
Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of mind;
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