38
ON THE TIMES IN ENGLAND.
As wealth and luxury are near allied,
And luxury produces vice and pride.
No happiness is found where virtue fails,
Where folly and where arrogance prevails.
Imperial Rome, the world's proud mistress, found
The empire totter, fall, bowed to the ground,
When wealth and luxury her senate filled;
The state corrupted made her warriors yield;
Enervate they, whose former well-earned fame
So powerful, nations trembled at their name;
They sunk in luxury's devouring flood,
By rude barbarians saw their land subdued.
Athens and Sparta both, in evil hour,
Experienced luxury's destructive power.
O, guard Britannia from the baleful draught,
Which never without ruin can be quaffed!
Britons! descendants of a glorious race
Of heroes, patriots, statesmen! O, erase
Not from your souls the memory of your sires,
But emulate the deeds their fame inspires!
Let not what should be blessings prove your bane;
O, still the virtues of your sires retain!
And luxury produces vice and pride.
No happiness is found where virtue fails,
Where folly and where arrogance prevails.
Imperial Rome, the world's proud mistress, found
The empire totter, fall, bowed to the ground,
When wealth and luxury her senate filled;
The state corrupted made her warriors yield;
Enervate they, whose former well-earned fame
So powerful, nations trembled at their name;
They sunk in luxury's devouring flood,
By rude barbarians saw their land subdued.
Athens and Sparta both, in evil hour,
Experienced luxury's destructive power.
O, guard Britannia from the baleful draught,
Which never without ruin can be quaffed!
Britons! descendants of a glorious race
Of heroes, patriots, statesmen! O, erase
Not from your souls the memory of your sires,
But emulate the deeds their fame inspires!
Let not what should be blessings prove your bane;
O, still the virtues of your sires retain!
