Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/129

 Ordain'd for common happiness. Wide, o'er The globe terraqueous, let Britannia pour The fruits of plenty from her copious horn. What can avail to her, whose fertile earth By Ocean's briny waves are circumscrib'd, The armed host, and murdering sword of war, And conquest o'er her neighbours ? She ne'er breaks Her solemn compacts in the lust of rule : Studious of arts and trade, she ne'er disturbs The holy peace of states. 'Tis her delight To fold the world with harmony, and spread, Among the habitations of mankind, The various wealth of toil, and what her Fleece, To clothe the naked, and her skilful looms Peculiar give. Ye, too, rejoice, ye Swains ! Increasing commerce shall reward your cares. A day will come, if not too deep we drink The cup which luxury on careless wealth, Pernicious gift ! bestows ; a day will come When, thro' new channels sailing, we shall clothe The Californian coast, and all the realms That stretch from Hainan Straits to proud Japan, And the green isles, which on the left arise Upon the glassy brine, whose various capes Not yet are figur'd on the sailors' chart : Then every variation shall be told Of the magnetic steel, and currents mark'd Which drive the heedless vessel from her course. That portion, too, of land, a track immense, Beneath th' Antarctic spread, shall then be known, And new plantations on its coast arise. Then rigid winter's ice no more shall wound The only naked animal ; but man With the soft Fleece shall every where be cloath'd. Th' exulting Muse shall then, in vigour fresh,