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England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--My country! and, while yet a nook is leftWhere English minds and manners may be found,Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy climeBe fickle, and thy year most part deform'dWith dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,And fields without a flow'r, for warmer FranceWith all her vines; nor for Ausonia's grovesOf golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.To shake thy senate, and from heights sublimeOf patriot eloquence to flash down fireUpon thy foes, was never meant my task:But I can feel thy fortunes, and partakeThy joys and sorrows, with as true a heartAs any thund'rer there. And I can feelThy follies, too; and with a just disdainFrown at effeminates, whose very looksReflect dishonour on the land I love.How, in the name of soldiership and sense,Should England prosper, when such things, as smoothAnd tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'erWith odours, and as profligate as sweet;Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,And love when they should fight; when such as thesePresume to lay their hand upon the arkOf her magnificent and awful cause?Time was when it was praise and boast enoughIn ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,That we were born her children. Praise enoughTo fill th' ambition of a private man,That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.Farewell those honours, and farewell with themThe hope of such hereafter! They have fall'nEach in his field of glory; one in arms,And one in council--Wolfe upon the lapOf smiling victory that moment won,And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame!They made us many soldiers. Chatham, stillConsulting England's happiness at home,Secur'd it by an unforgiving frownIf any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,Put so much of his heart into his act,That his example had a magnet's force,And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!Or all that we have left is empty talkOf old achievements, and despair of new.
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There is a pleasure in poetic painsWhich only poets know. The shifts and turns,Th' expedients and inventions multiformTo which the mind resorts in chase of termsThought apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,T' arrest the fleeting images that fillThe mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,And force them sit, till he has pencill'd offA faithful likeness of the forms he views;Then to dispose his copies with such artThat each may find its most propitious light,And shine by situation hardly lessThan by the labour and the skill it cost,Are occupations of the poet's mindSo pleasing, and that steal away the thoughtWith such address from themes of sad import,That, lost in his own musings, happy man!He feels th' anxieties of life, deniedTheir wonted entertainment, all retire.Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.Fastidious, or else listless, or perhapsAware of nothing arduous in a taskThey never undertook, they little noteHis dangers or escapes, and haply findTheir least amusement where he found the most.But is amusement all? Studious of song,And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,I would not trifle merely, though the worldBe loudest in their praise who do no more.Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?It may correct a foible, may chastiseThe freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;But where are its sublimer trophies found?What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'dBy rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,That fear no discipline of human hands. The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'dWith solemn awe, that bids me well bewareWith what intent I touch that holy thing)--The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,Spent all his force, and made no proselyte)--I say the pulpit (in the sober useOf its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs)Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand,The most important and effectual guard,Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause.
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