Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem in two books. By the author of sympathy [i.e. S. J. Pratt] |
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| I. |
| II. |
 | Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem |  |
See where Marino lifts her craggy brow,
Half hid in clouds, and cover'd half with snow,
Beyond the Appenines, there Freedom reigns,
And scorns the thraldom of Italian plains;
There see untax'd the small republic grow,
And spurn the bondage of the vales below,
Close on the liberal Heav'n behold it stands,
And proud looks down on tributary lands,
What, tho' those tributary lands display
The blooming fragrance of perpetual May,
Like the coy sensitive each lovely flower,
Still seems to tremble at the touch of power.
Blest be the good Dalmatian's generous earth,
Which boasts, Oh! Rome, than thine a nobler birth,
Thou but the refuge of a robber band,
But there devotion rais'd the folded hand,
And many a century this little state
Has stood the storms of Fortune and of Fate,
Whilst thy sunk cities once the boast of Fame,
Have nought to mark them but an empty name:
What tho' no streams here lave the scant domain
But melting snows and reservoirs of rain;
Tho' hillocks scatter'd round the parent hill,
At once thy pride and penury reveal,
A narrow circuit, and a labour'd soil,
Which yields subsistance but to endless toil,
Dear is the grain that decks thy Mountains side,
Beyond the harvest of Italia's pride.
Half hid in clouds, and cover'd half with snow,
Beyond the Appenines, there Freedom reigns,
And scorns the thraldom of Italian plains;
There see untax'd the small republic grow,
And spurn the bondage of the vales below,
Close on the liberal Heav'n behold it stands,
And proud looks down on tributary lands,
What, tho' those tributary lands display
The blooming fragrance of perpetual May,
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Still seems to tremble at the touch of power.
Blest be the good Dalmatian's generous earth,
Which boasts, Oh! Rome, than thine a nobler birth,
Thou but the refuge of a robber band,
But there devotion rais'd the folded hand,
And many a century this little state
Has stood the storms of Fortune and of Fate,
Whilst thy sunk cities once the boast of Fame,
Have nought to mark them but an empty name:
What tho' no streams here lave the scant domain
But melting snows and reservoirs of rain;
Tho' hillocks scatter'd round the parent hill,
At once thy pride and penury reveal,
A narrow circuit, and a labour'd soil,
Which yields subsistance but to endless toil,
Dear is the grain that decks thy Mountains side,
Beyond the harvest of Italia's pride.
| Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem | |