To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove;
Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires,
And modern Britons glory in their Sires.[1][2]990
For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell
My country, what her sons should know too well,[3]
Zeal for her honour bade me here engage[4]
The host of idiots that infest her age;
No just applause her honoured name shall lose,
As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse.
Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name!
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour,1000
'Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been—
Earth's chief Dictatress, Ocean's lovely Queen:[5]
But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main;
- ↑ And modern Britons justly praise their sires.—[MS. British Bards and First to Fourth Editions.]
- ↑ The Aboriginal Britons, an excellent ["most excellent" in MS.] poem, by Richards. [The Rev. George Richards, D.D. (1769-1835), a Fellow of Oriel, and afterwards Rector of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The Aboriginal Britons, a prize poem, was published in 1792, and was followed by The Songs of the Aboriginal Bards of Britain (1792), and various other prose and poetical works.]
- ↑ —— what her sons must know too well.—[British Bards.]
- ↑
Zeal for her honour no malignant Rage,
Has bade me spurn the follies of the age.—[MS. British Bards. First Edition.] - ↑ —— Ocean's lonely Queen.—[British Bards.]
—— Ocean's mighty Queen.—[First to Fourth Editions.]
