Et tantas audetis tollere moles?
"Quos ego-fed motos præftat componere flu&us. "Poft mihi non fimili pœna commiffa luetis. "Maturate fugam, regique hæc dicite vestro : "Non illi imperium pelagi, fævumque tridentem, "Sed mihi forte datum".
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 surge blew ;
Loofe flow'd her treffes; rent her azure robe.
Hung o'er the deep from her majestic brow
She tore the laurel, and fhe tore the bay.
Nor ceas'd the copious grief to bathe her cheek
Nor ceas'd her fobs to murmur to the main.
Peace difcontented nigh, departing, stretch'd
Her dove-like wings. And War, though greatly rouz'd,
Yet mourns his fetter'd hands. While thus the queen
Of nations fpoke; and what she said the Mufe
Recorded, faithful, in unbidden verfe.
Ev'n 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 ;
Ev'n not the flattering view of golden days,
And rifing periods yet of bright renown,
Beneath the Parents, and their endless line
Through late revolving time, can footh my rage;
While, unchaftis'd, th' infulting Spaniard dares
Infeft the trading flood, full of vain war
Despise my navies, and my merchants seize;
As, trusting to false peace, they fearless roam
The world of waters wild; made, by the toil,
And liberal blood of glorious ages, mine:
Nor bursts my fleeping thunder on their head.
Whence this unwonted patience? this weak doubt? 30
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 watery grave.
There now they lie beneath the rolling flood,
Far from their friends, and country unaveng'd;
And back the drooping war-fhip comes again,
Difpirited, and thin; her fons afham'd
Thus idly to review their native shore;
With not one glory sparkling in their eye,
One triumph on their tongue. A paffenger,
The violated merchant comes along;
That far-fought wealth, for which the noxious gale
He drew, and fweat beneath equator funs,
By lawless force detain'd; a force that foon
Would melt away, and every spoil refign,
Were once the British lion heard to roar.
Whence is it that the proud Iberian thus,
In their own well-afferted element,
Dares rouze to wrath the mafters 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,
Won by the ravage of a butcher'd world,
Yet unaton'd, funk in the swallowing deep,
Or led the glittering prize into the Thames?
There was a time (oh, let my languid fons
Refume their spirit at the rouzing thought!)
When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet,
Swell'd o'er the labouring furge; like a whole heaven
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 Vaft;
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, regardless of the cumberous pomp,
My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few,
With tempeft black, the goodly fcene deform'd,
And laid their glory wafte. The bolts of Fate
Refiftless thunder'd through their yielding fides ;
Fierce o'er their beauty blaz'd the lurid flame;
And feiz'd in horrid grafp, or fhatter'd wide,
Amid the mighty waters deep they funk.
Then too from every promontory chill,
Rank fen, and cavern where the wild wave works,
I swept confederate winds, and fwell'd a storm.
Round the glad ifle, fnatch'd by the vengeful blast, 85
The scatter'd remnants drove; on the blind fhelve,
And pointed rock, that marks th' indented shore,
Relentless dafh'd, where loud the northern main
Howls through the fractur'd Caledonian ifles.
Such were the dawnings of my watery reign; But fince how vaft it grew, how abfolute, Ev'n in those troubled times, when dreadful Blake Aw'd angry nations with the British name, Let every humbled state, let Europe say, Suftain'd, and balanc'd, by my naval arm. Ah, what must those immortal fpirits, think Of your poor fhifts? Thofe, for their country's good Who fac'd the blackest danger, knew no fear, No mean fubmiffion, but commanded peace. Ah, how with indignation must they burn! (If aught, but joy, can touch etherial breasts With fhame! with grief! to see their feeble fons Shrink from that empire o'er the conquer'd feas,
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