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A POLITICAL REVERIE, SELECTION, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Let grecian bards, and roman poets tell
Last Line: And lisping infants praise jehovah's name!
Subject(s): Politics & Government


LET Grecian bards, and Roman poets tell,
How Hector fought, and how old Priam fell;
Paint armies ravaging the Ilian coast,
Show fields of blood, and mighty battles lost;
Let mad Cassandra with dishevelled hair,
With streaming eyes, and frantic bosom bare,
Tell dark presages, and ill-boding dreams,
Of murder, rapine, and the solemn themes
Of slaughter'd cities, and their sinking spires,
By Grecian rage wrapp'd in avenging fires;
To bolder pens I leave the tragic tale,
While some kind muse from Tempe's gentle vale,
With softer symphony shall touch the string,
And happier tidings from Parnassus bring.

Not Caesar's name, nor Philip's bolder son,
Who sigh'd and wept, when he'd one world undone;
Who dropp'd a tear, though not from pity's source,
But grief, to find some bound to brutal force,
Shall tune my harp, or touch the warbling string;
No bold destroyer of mankind I sing;
These plunderers of men I greatly scorn,
And dream of nations, empires yet unborn.

I look with rapture at the distant dawn,
And view the glories of the opening morn;
When justice holds his sceptre o'er the land,
And rescues freedom from a tyrant's hand;
When patriot states in laurel crowns may rise,
And ancient kingdoms court them as allies;
Glory and valour shall be here display'd,
And virtue rear her long dejected head;
Her standard plant beneath these gladden'd skies,
Her fame extend, and arts and science rise;
While Empire's lofty spreading sails unfurl'd,
Roll swiftly on towards the western world!
Long she's forsook her Asiatic throne,
And leaving Afric's barb'rous burning zone,
On the broad ruins of Rome's haughty power,
Erected ramparts round fair Europe's shore:
But in those blasted climes no more presides,
She o'er the vast Atlantic surges rides,
Visits Columbia's distant fertile plains,
Where Liberty, a happy goddess, reigns.

No despot here shall rule with awful sway,
Nor orphan's spoils become the minion's prey,
No more the widow'd bleeding bosom mourns,
Nor injured cities weep their slaughter'd sons;
For then each tyrant, by the hand of fate,
And standing troops, the bane of every state,
For ever spurn'd, shall be removed as far
As bright Hesperus from the polar star;
Freedom and virtue shall united reign,
And stretch their empire o'er the wide domain;
On a broad base the commonwealth shall stand,
When lawless power withdraws its impious hand,
When crowns and sceptres are grown useless things,
Nor petty praetors plunder here for kings.

Then bless'd Religion in her purest forms,
Beyond the reach of persecuting storms,
In purest azure gracefully arranged,
In native majesty shall stand display'd.
Till courts revere her ever sacred shrine,
And nobles feel her influence divine;
Princes and peasants catch the glorious flame,
And lisping infants praise Jehovah's name!





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