The standards of all nations are unfurl'd;
She has one foe, and that one foe the world.
And, if he doom that people with a frown,

And mark them with a seal of wrath press'd down,
Obduracy takes place : callous and tough,

The reprobated race grows judgment proof:

Earth shakes beneath them and heaven roars above;
But nothing scares them from the course they love:
To the lascivious pipe and wanton song,

That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,

Down to the gulf from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail—
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail !
They trust in armies, and their courage dies;
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies;
But all they trust in withers, as it must,
When He commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance, at last, pours down upon their coast
A long despis'd, but now victorious, host;
Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege;
Gives liberty the last, the 1. ortal shock,
Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.

A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach, Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach?

B. I know the mind that feels, indeed, the fire The muse imparts, and can command the lyre,

Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame,
She pours a sensibility divine

Along the nerve of every feeling line.
But, if a deed, not tamely to be borne,
Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,

The strings are swept with such a power so loud,
The storm of music shakes th' astonish'd crowd.
So, when remote futurity is brought
Before the keen inquiry of her thought,
A terrible sagacity informs

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms :
He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers;
And, arm'd with strength surpassing human powers,
Seizes events, as yet unknown to man,

And darts his soul into the dawning plan.

Hence in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the same;
Hence British poets, too, the priesthood shar'd,
And every hallowed Druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong;
I play with syllables, and sport in song.

4. At Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and five,

Where discipline helps opening buds of sense,
And makes his pupils proud with silver pence,
I was a poet too: but modern taste
Is so refin'd, and delicate, and chaste,

That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness, has no charms.
Thus, all success depending on an ear,
And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,
And truth cut short to make a period round,
I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse,
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit,

And some wits flag through fear of losing it.
Give me the line that plows its stately course,
Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force;
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.

When labour and when dulness club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand,
Beating alternately, in measur'd time,
The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be;
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.

From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,

All birks and braes, though he was never there ;
Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains,
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;
A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke-
An art contriv'd to advertise a joke,
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words-but in the gap between :

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

To dally much with subjects mean and low,
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so.
Neglected talents rust into decay,

And every effort ends in push-pin play.
The man that means success, should soar above
A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove;
Else, summoning the muse to such a theme,
The fruit of all her labour is whipt-cream.
As if an eagle flew aloft, and then-

Stoop'd from its highest pitch to pounce a wren.
As if the poet, purposing to wed,

Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread.

Ages elaps'd ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard :
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
Thus genius rose and set at order'd times,
And shot a day-spring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose,
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose ;
And tedious years of Gothic darkness pass'd,
Emerg❜d all splendour in our isle at last.
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again.

A. Is genius only found in epic lays?
Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise.

Make their heroic powers your own at once,
Or candidly confess yourself a dunce.

B. These were the chief: each interval of night
Was grac'd with many an undulating light.
In less illustrious bards his beauty shone
A meteor, or a star; in these, the sun.

The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below; Like him, unnotic'd, I, and such as I,

Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly;
Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land,
An ell or two of prospect we command;
But never peep beyond the thorny bound,
Or oaken fence, that hems the paddoc round.

In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart
Had faded, poetry was not an art;
Language, above all teaching, or, if taught,
Only by gratitude and glowing thought,
Elegant as simplicity, and warm

As ecstacy, unmanacled by form,

Not prompted, as in our degenerate days,
By low ambition and the thirst of praise,
Was natural as is the flowing stream,
And yet magnificent-a God the theme!
That theme on earth exhausted, though above
'Tis found as everlasting as his love,

Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things-
The feats of heroes, and the wrath of kings;