The self-dependent lordlings stand alone :
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd.
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Repress'd ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over wrought, the general system feels
Its motion stop, or phrenzy fires the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown:
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms,
The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,
Where nobler stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die.

Yet think not, thus when freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great; Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire !

And thou, fair freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone.
By proud contempt, or favour's fost❜ring sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure
I only would repress them to secure ;
For just experience tells, in ev'ry soil,

That those who think must govern those who toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

O then, how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires.
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms :
But when contending chiefs blockade the thronę,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree

To call it freedom when themselves are free; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law; The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam, Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home.

Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve and bare my swelling heart;
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown,

I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And, thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore ?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,

Like flaring tapers bright'ning as they waste?
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,

And over fields, where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren, solitary pomp repose ?
Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid;
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the westerħ main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound!

E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Thro' tangled forests* and thro' dang'rous ways: Where beasts with man divided empire claim, And the brown Indian marks with murd'rous aim;

There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his wo,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,

* Abundantly altered by the hand of industry, and American enterprise, a peaceful asylum from European oppression.

Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary search, to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind!
Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In ev'ry government tho' terrors reign,
Tho' tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in ev'ry place consign'd,

Our own felicity we make or find :

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.