The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
 |
 | The Age Reviewed |  |
Oblivious here, of Albion's beggar'd state,
Feign would creative Fancy draw her great;
Time's wings have swept whole empires to the dust,
And kings but live in monumental rust;
Still, time-subduing ocean swathes the land,
Leaps o'er the rock, and revels on the strand:
From this enduring grandeur of her sea,
We dream our Isle must flourish, while 'tis free:
'Tis but a dream!—in memory's imaged glass
Visions of unforgotten Empires pass:
Where now the empress of the palmy East,
Proud of her walls, and gorgeous at the feast?
Where Greece, the well-remembered classic clime
That bloom'd in science, and that fought sublime,—
And seven-hill'd Rome, who held the world's wide sway,
Till Goth and Vandal crush'd her steel'd array?
All, like the meteors of a Greenland sky,
Emblaz'd th' astounded world, and then pass'd by!
As these fell once, may'st thou not, Britain, fall,
When crimes enerve thee, and thy sons enthrall;
Though suppliant nations feel thy living power,
These stain thy glories, and precede that hour
When forest tribes shall make thy plains their home,
And History sorrow o'er her second Rome!
Feign would creative Fancy draw her great;
Time's wings have swept whole empires to the dust,
And kings but live in monumental rust;
Still, time-subduing ocean swathes the land,
Leaps o'er the rock, and revels on the strand:
From this enduring grandeur of her sea,
We dream our Isle must flourish, while 'tis free:
'Tis but a dream!—in memory's imaged glass
Visions of unforgotten Empires pass:
50
Proud of her walls, and gorgeous at the feast?
Where Greece, the well-remembered classic clime
That bloom'd in science, and that fought sublime,—
And seven-hill'd Rome, who held the world's wide sway,
Till Goth and Vandal crush'd her steel'd array?
All, like the meteors of a Greenland sky,
Emblaz'd th' astounded world, and then pass'd by!
As these fell once, may'st thou not, Britain, fall,
When crimes enerve thee, and thy sons enthrall;
Though suppliant nations feel thy living power,
These stain thy glories, and precede that hour
When forest tribes shall make thy plains their home,
And History sorrow o'er her second Rome!
| The Age Reviewed | |