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Tyrant of earth! whose banner wide unfurl'd
Waved o'er the ruins of a conquer'd world;
Rome, beneath yon heav'n what region lies,
But calls on thee the vengeance of the skies?
What favour'd shore where ne'er thy legions dread
Have crush'd the flowers of Peace with iron tread?
But now—an outcast band, a robber horde,
And now—of half the globe the scourge and lord.
Ausonia's plains beneath thy bondage groan,
And Carthage sinks, and leaves her place unknown;
E'en fair Athena sees her sacred fane
Shrink at thy touch, and mourns her ægis vain:
For thee the East her sparkling treasures spreads,
For thee her mountains lift their spicy heads;
Ungorged with all the teeming Orient yields
Thou ask'st the North her bleak and barren fields;
Indignant Ister rolls his subject flood,
And feels his eddies warm with native blood;
Albion looks forth from all her cliff's—thy oars
Bear war and bloodshed to her peaceful shores,
Impatient still while Peace and Freedom own
One single spot beneath the starry zone.
And thinks thy soul, elate with conquest's glow,
Thy widening reign no bounds on earth shall know?
Waved o'er the ruins of a conquer'd world;
Rome, beneath yon heav'n what region lies,
But calls on thee the vengeance of the skies?
What favour'd shore where ne'er thy legions dread
Have crush'd the flowers of Peace with iron tread?
But now—an outcast band, a robber horde,
And now—of half the globe the scourge and lord.
Ausonia's plains beneath thy bondage groan,
And Carthage sinks, and leaves her place unknown;
E'en fair Athena sees her sacred fane
Shrink at thy touch, and mourns her ægis vain:
For thee the East her sparkling treasures spreads,
For thee her mountains lift their spicy heads;
Ungorged with all the teeming Orient yields
Thou ask'st the North her bleak and barren fields;
Indignant Ister rolls his subject flood,
And feels his eddies warm with native blood;
Albion looks forth from all her cliff's—thy oars
Bear war and bloodshed to her peaceful shores,
Impatient still while Peace and Freedom own
One single spot beneath the starry zone.
And thinks thy soul, elate with conquest's glow,
Thy widening reign no bounds on earth shall know?
