Page:Fears in Solitude - Coleridge (1798).djvu/17

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Pull'd off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
A radical causation to a few
Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
Who borrow all their hues and qualities
From our own folly and rank wickedness,
Which gave them birth, and nurse them. Others, meanwhile.
Dote with a mad idolatry; and all,
Who will not fall before their images,
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Ev'n of their country!—Such have I been deem'd.
But, O dear Britain! O my mother Isle!
Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy
To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,
A husband and a father! who revere
All bonds of natural love, and find them all
Within the limits of thy rocky shores.
O native Britain! O my mother Isle!
How should'ft thou prove aught else but dear and holy
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks, and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,

C