Attun'd to happy unison of soul;
To whose exalting eye a fairer world,
Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,
Displays its charms; whose minds are richly fraught
With philosophic stores, superior light;
And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns
Virtue, the sons of interest deem romance;
Now call'd abroad, enjoys the falling day:
Now to the verdant portico of woods,
To Nature's vast lycéum, forth they walk;
By that kind school where no proud master reigns,
The full free converse of the friendly heart,
Improving and improv'd. Now from the world,
Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,
And pour their souls in transport, which the sire
Of love approving hears, and calls it good.
Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course?
The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we choose?
All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead ?
Or court the forest glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
While radiant summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene *? Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape: now the raptur'd eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister-hills + that skirt her plain,
To lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.
In lovely contrast to this glorious view,
Calmly magnificent, then will we turn
To where the silver Thames first rural grows.
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray;
Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat;
And, stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd,
With her the pleasing partner of his heart,
* The old name of Richmond, signifying, in Saxon, shining or splendor.
+ Highgate and Hampstead.
The worthy Queensberry yet laments his Gay,
And polish'd Cornbury wooes the willing muse:
Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames;
Fair winding up to where the muse's haunt
In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore
The healing god;* to royal Hampton's pile,
To Clermont's terrass'd height, and Esher's groves,
Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'd
By the soft windings of the silent Mole,
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose.
Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!
O vale of bliss! O softly-swelling hills!
On which the power of cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around,
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all
The stretching landskip into smoke decays!
Happy Britannia! Where, the queen of arts,
Inspiring vigour, liberty abroad
Walks, unconfin'd, even to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.
Rich is thy soil, and merciful thy clime;
Thy streams unfailing in the Summer's drought;
Unmatch'd thy guardian-oaks; thy vallies float
With golden waves: and on thy mountains flocks
Bleat numberless; while roving round their sides,
Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves.
Beneath thy meadows glow, and rise unquell'd
Against the mower's scythe. On every hand
Thy villas shine. Thy country teams with wealth;
And property assures it to the swain,
Pleas'd and unwearied, in his guarded toil.
Full are thy cities with the sons of art;
And trade with joy, in every busy street,
Mingling are heard: ev'n drudgery himself,
As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews
The palace-stone looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield,
With labour burn, and echo to the shouts
Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves
His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet,
Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.
Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth,
By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fir'd,
Scattering the nations where they go; and first
Or on the listed plain, or stormy seas.
Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside;
In genius, and substantial learning, high;
For every virtue, every worth renown'd;
Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;
Yet, like the mustering thunder, when provok'd,
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of those that under grim oppression groan.
Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war,
And more heroic peace, when govern'd well,
Combine; whose hallow'd names the virtues saint,
And his own muses love; the best of kings!
With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine,
Names dear to fame; the first who deep impress'd
On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,
That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,
And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,
Who, with a generous, though mistaken zeal,
Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage,
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor,
A dauntless soul erect, who smil'd on death.
Frugal and wise, a Walsingham is thine;
A* Drake who made thee mistress of the deep,
And bore thy name in thunder round the world.
Then flam'd thy spirit high: but who can speak
The numerous worthies of the maiden reign?
In Raleigh mark their every glory mix'd;
Raleigh, the scourge of Spain! whose breast with all
The sage, the patriot, and the hero, burn'd.
Nor sunk his vigour, when a coward-reign
The warrior fetter'd, and at last resign'd,
To which, since the time of Thomson, may now be added an illustrious line of naval heroes, even down to the last irreparable loss of the country he so gloriously defended-the immortal Nelson.
To glut the vengeance of a vanquish'd foe.
Then, active still and unrestrain'd, his mind
Explor'd the vast extent of ages past,
And with his prison hours enrich'd the world;
Yet found no times, in all the long research,
So glorious, or so base, as those he prov'd,
In which he conquer'd, and in which he bled.
Nor can the muse the gallant Sidney pass,
The plume of war! with early laurels crown'd,
The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay.
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land,
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.
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, though meanly sunk
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend, the * British Cassius, fearless bled;
Of high determin'd spirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to th' enlighten'd love
Of ancient 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 through 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,
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
Through 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 ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners painting verse,
Well-moraliz'd, shines through 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
Anthony Ashly Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury.
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