But view them closer, craft and fraud appear—

appear—

Even liberty itself is barter’d here.

At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies;

The needy sell it, and the rich man buys:

A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,

Here wretches seek dishonourable graves;

And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,

Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old—

old—

Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold,

23

War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;

How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

Fir’d at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,

And flies where Britain courts the western spring;

Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,

And brighter streams than fam’d Hydaspes glide.

There, all around, the gentlest breezes stray;

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