STROPHE.
GOD of slaughter, quit the scene,
Lay the crested helmet by;
Love commands, and beauty’s queen
     Rules the power who rules the sky.
Janus, with well-omen’d grace,
     Mounts the year’s revolving car,
And forward turns his smiling face,
     And longs to close the gates of war.
Enough of glory Albion knows—
     Come, ye powers of sweet repose,
          On downy pinions move!
Let the war-worn legions own
Your gentler sway, and from the throne
     Receive the laws of love.

     ANTISTROPHE.
Yet, if Justice still requires
     Roman arts, and Roman souls,
Britain breathes her wonted fires,
     And her wonted thunders rolls,
Added to our fairer isle,
     Gallia mourns her bulwark gone:
Conquest pays the price of toil;
     Either India is our own!
Ye sons of Freedom, grasp the sword.
     Pour, ye rich, th’ imprison’d hoard,
          And teach it how to shine.
Each selfish, each contracted aim,
To Glory’s more exalted claim
     Let Luxury resign.

     EPODE.
     You too, ye British dames, may share,
If not the toils and dangers of the war,
At least its glory. From the Baltick shore,
     From Runic Virtue’s native home,
          Fraught with the tales of antient lore,
     Behold a fair instructress come!
When the fierce * female tyrant of the North
     Claim’d ev’ry realm her conq’ring arms could gain,
     When Discord, red with slaughter, issuing forth
     Saw Albert struggling with the victor’s chain,
          The storm beat high and shook the coast,
          Th’ exhausted treasures of the land
          Could scarce supply th’ embattled host,
          Or pay the insulting foe’s demand.
          What then could Beauty do? † She gave
          Her treasur’d tribute to the brave,
To her own softness join’d the manly heart,
          Sustain’d the soldier’s drooping arms,
          Confided in her genuine charms,
And yielded ev’ry ornament of art.
     —We want them not. Yet, O ye fair,
          Should Gallia, obstinately vain,
          To her own ruin urge despair,
And brave th’ acknowledg’d masters of the main,
Should she, thro’ ling’ring years protract her fall,
          Thro’ seas of blood to her destruction wade,
          Say, could ye feel the gen’rous call,
          And own the fair example here pourtray’d?
          Doubtless ye could. The royal dame
          Would plead her dear adopted country’s cause,
          And each indignant breast unite its flame
          To save the land of Liberty and Laws.

* Margaret de Waldemar, commonly called the Semiramis of the North.

† In the year 1395, the ladies of Mecklenburg, to support their Duke Albert’s pretensions to the crown of Sweden, and to redeem him when he was taken prisoner, gave up all their jewels to the public; for which they afterwards received great emoluments and privileges, particularly the right of succession in fiefs, which had before been appropriated to males only.