Page:An Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England - Akenside (1758).djvu/10

 Shall then this glory of the antique age, This pride of men, be lost among mankind? Shall war's heroic arts no more ingage The unbought hand, the unsubjected mind? Doth valour to the soul no more belong? No more with scorn of violence and wrong Doth forming Nature now her sons inspire, That, like some mystery to few reveal'd, The skill of arms implicitly they yield, And from their own defence abash'd and aw'd retire?

O shame to human life, to human laws! The loose advent'rer, hireling of a day, Who his fell sword without affection draws, Whose God, whose country is a tyrant's pay, This man the lessons of the field can learn; Can every palm, which decks a warrior, earn, And every pledge of conquest: while in vain, To guard your altars, rights, paternal lands, Are social arms held out to your free hands: Too arduous is the lore; too irksome were the pain. XII. Meantime