Ask on their mountains yon deserted band,
That point to Paoli with no plausive land;
Despising still, their freeborn souls unbroke,
Alike the Gallic and Ligurian yoke!

Yet while the patriot's generous rage we share,
Still civil safety calls us back to care ;-
To Britain lost in either Henry's day,

Her woods, her mountains, one wild scene of prey! Fair Peace from all her bounteous valleys fled, And law beneath the barbed arrow bled.

In happier days, with more auspicious fate,
The far-fam'd Edward heal'd his wounded state;
Dread of his foes, but to his subjects dear,
These learn'd to love, as those are taught to fear;
Their laurell'd Prince with British pride obey,
His glory shone their discontent away.

With care the tender flower of love to save,
And plant the olive on Disorder's grave,
For civil storms fresh barriers to provide,
He caught the favouring calm and falling tide.

The social laws from insult to protect,
To cherish peace, to cultivate respect;
The rich from wanton cruelty restrain,
To smooth the bed of penury and pain;
The hapless vagrant to his rest restore,

The maze of fraud, the haunts of theft explore;
The thoughtless maiden, when subdued by art,
To aid, and bring her rover to her heart;
Wild riot's voice with dignity to quell,
Forbid unpeaceful passions to rebel,

Wrest from revenge the meditated harm,
For this fair Justice rais'd her sacred arm;
For this the rural magistrate, of yore,
Thy honours, Edward, to his mansion bore.

Oft, where old Air in conscious glory sails,
On silver waves that flow through smiling vales,
In Harewood's groves, where long my youth was
laid,

Unseen beneath their ancient world of shade,
With many a group of antique columns crown'd,
In gothic guise such mansion have I found.

Nor lightly deem, ye apes of modern race,
Ye cits that sore bedizen Nature's face,
Of the more manly structures here ye view;
They rose for greatness that ye never knew!
Ye reptile cits, that oft have mov'd my spleen
With Venus, and the Graces on your green!
Let Plutus, growling o'er his ill-got wealth,
Let Mercury, the thriving god of stealth,
The shopman, Janus, with his double looks,
Rise on your mounts, and perch upon your books:
But, spare my Venus, spare each sister Grace,
Ye cits, that sore bedizen Nature's face!

Ye royal architects, whose antic taste,

Would lay the realms of Sense and Nature waste;
Forgot, whenever from her steps ye stray,
That folly only points each other way;

Here, though your eye no courtly creature sees,
Snakes on the ground, or monkeys in the trees;
Yet let not too severe a censure fall,

On the plain precincts of the ancient Hall.

For though no sight your childish fancy meets,
Of Thibet's dogs, or China's paroquets;
Though apes, asps, lizards, things without a tail,
And all the tribes of foreign monsters fail;
Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown,
The iron griffin and the sphinx of stone;
And mourn, neglected in their waste abodes,
Fire-breathing drakes, and water-spouting gods.

Long have these mighty monsters known disgrace, Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place; Where round the Hall, the oak's high surbase rears T › field-day triumphs of two-hundred years.

The' enormous antlers here recal the day
That saw the forest-monarch forc'd away;
Who, many a flood, and many a mountain past,
Nor finding those, nor deeming these the last,
O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepar'd to fly,
Long ere the death-drop fill'd his failing eye!

Here, fam❜d for cunning, and in crimes grown old,
Hangs his grey brush, the felon of the fold!
Oft, as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer,
The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer,
And tells his old, traditionary tale,
Though known to every tenant of the vale.

Here, where, of old, the festal ox has fed,
Mark'd with his weight,the mighty horns are spread:
Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,
Where the vast master with the vast sirloin
Vied in round magnitude-Respect I bear
To thee, though oft the ruin of the chair,

These, and such antique tokens, that record
The manly spirit, and the bounteous board,
Me more delight than all the gew-gaw train,
The whims and zigzags of a modern brain;
More, than all Asia's marmosets to view,
Grin, frisk, and water, in the walks of Kew.

Through these fair valleys, stranger, hast thou stray'd,

By any chance, to visit Harewood's shade;
And seen with honest, antiquated air,

In the plain Hall the magistratial chair?
There Herbet sate-the love of human kind,
Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,
In the free eye the featur'd soul display'd,
Honours strong beam, and Mercy's melting shade;
Justice, that, in the rigid paths of law,

Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw;
Bend o'er her urn with many a generous fear,
Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear;
Fair Equity, and Reason scorning art,

And all the sober virtues of the heart--
These sat with Herbert, these shall best avail,
Where statues order, or where statues fail.
Be this, ye rural Magistrates, your plan;
Firm be your justice, but be friends to Man.

He whom the mighty master of this ball,
We fondly deem, or farcically call,
To own the Patriarch's truth however loth,
Holds but a mansion crush'd before the moth.
Frail in his genius, in his heart too, frail;
Born but to err, and erring to bewail;

Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore, And give to life one human weakness more?

Still mark if Vice or Nature prompts the deed;
Still mark the strong temptation and the need:
On pressing Want, on Famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

For him, who, lost to every hope of life,
Has long with fortune held unequal strife,
Known to no human love, no human care,
The friendless, homeless object of despair;
For the poor Vagrant, feel while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.
Alike, if folly or misfortune brought

Those last of woes his evil days have wrought;
Believe with social mercy and with me,
Folly's misfortune in the first degree.

Perhaps on some inhospitable shore

The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore:
Who, then, no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain :
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears!

O Edward, here thy fairest laurels fade!
And thy long glories darken into shade.
While yet the palms thy hardy veterans won,
The deeds of valour that for thee were done,