OF fields! of forts! and floods! unknown to
fame,
That now demand from Caesar’s arms a name,
Sing, Britons! tho’ uncouth the sound.
                    AIR:
Tho’ rough Selingenstadt
The harmony defeat,
Tho’ Klein Ostein
The verse confound;
Yet, in the joyful strain,
Aschaffenburgh or Dettingen
Shall charm the ear they seen to wound.
               Recitative.
Now chas’d ambition hides her head,
With shame reflecting how she fled:
By night secure the fords the Mayne,
To seize her quarry on the plain.
               Chorus.
Press’d to repass the streams by day,
Becomes herself the hunted prey.
               Recitative.
Well might her arms to safer flights be press’d,
Where firm Augustus stood in front confess’d,
                    Air.]
Behold! in clouds of fire, serene,
The royal hero heads his pow’rs:
Alike to fame, with raptures seen,
His younger hope, the eaglet, soars.
Fortune, to his grace her fav’rite son,
Stamps on his bleeding form renown;
Conscious, to make his fame complete,
The stream would prove Plantagenent.
               Recitative.
Thus has the crimson honour, and the fear.
Outshone the azure, and the radiant star.
                    Air.
Now should our CAESAR’s natal night
Demand him to adorn the ball,
Not less his movement would delight,
‘Tho’ short of former charm it fall.
The halting measure now would rise
With warmer pleasure to our eyes:
Now would he move with nobler mein,
And grace the day with Dettingen.
               Recitative.
Ye Britons! belss’d in such a race,
Alike secure in arms or peace,
What can your happiness annoy,
Unless yourselves yourselves destroy?
               Duette
Unite, unite, support your prince,
Who forms his fame on your defence,
For life, so dear, expos’d for you,
What can too much the grateful do?
               Chorus
With vocal Io’s crown the day;
From rocky Albion’s forts around,
Loud cannon shall intone the lay,
Till foreign shore the song resound.