University of Virginia Library

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193

TO MR. GLOVER; ON HIS POEM OF LEONIDAS.

Go on, my friend, the noble task pursue,
And think thy genius is thy country's due;
To vulgar wits inferior themes belong,
But Liberty and Virtue claim thy song.
Yet cease to hope, tho' grac'd with every charm,
The patriot verse will cold Britannia warm;
Vainly thou striv'st our languid hearts to raise,
By great examples, drawn from better days:
No longer we to Sparta's fame aspire,
What Sparta scorn'd, instructed to admire;

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194

Nurs'd in the love of wealth, and form'd to bend
Our narrow thoughts to that inglorious end:
No generous purpose can enlarge the mind,
No social care, no labour for mankind,
Where mean self-interest every action guides,
In camps commands, in cabinets presides;
Where luxury consumes the guilty store,
And bids the villain be a slave for more.

O people far unlike the Grecian race,
That deems a virtuous poverty disgrace,
That suffers publick wrongs, and publick shame,
In council insolent, in action tame!
Say, what is now th'ambition of the great?
Is it to raise their country's sinking state;
Her load of debt to ease by frugal care,
Her trade to guard, her harrass'd poor to spare?
Is it, like honest Somers, to inspire
The love of laws, and freedom's sacred fire?

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195

Is it, like wise Godolphin, to sustain
The balanc'd world, and boundless power restrain?
Or is the mighty aim of all their toil,
Only to aid the wreck, and share the spoil?
On each relation, friend, dependant, pour,
With partial wantonness, the golden shower,
And, fenc'd by strong corruption, to despise
An injur'd nation's unavailing cries?
Rouze, Britons, rouze! if sense of shame be weak,
Let the loud voice of threatening danger speak.
Lo! France, as Persia once, o'er every land
Prepares to stretch her all-oppressing hand.
Shall England sit regardless and sedate,
A calm spectatress of the general fate;
Or call forth all her virtue, and oppose,
Like valiant Greece, her own and Europe's foes?
O let us seize the moment in our power,
Our follies now have retch'd the fatal hour;
No later term the angry gods ordain;
This crisis lost, we shall be wise in vain.

And thou, great poet, in whose nervous lines
The native majesty of freedom shines,

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196

Accept this friendly praise; and let me prove
My heart not wholly void of publick love;
Though not like thee I strike the sounding string
To notes which Sparta might have deign'd to sing,
But, idly sporting in the secret shade,
With tender trifles sooth some artless maid.