Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/263

Rh In Virtue's fasti be inscribed your fame, And uttered yours with Howard's honoured name; Friends of the friendless—Hail, ye generous band! Whose efforts yet arrest Heaven's lifted hand, Around whose steady brows, in union bright, The civic wreath and Christian's palm unite: Your merit stands, no greater and no less, Without, or with the varnish of success: But seek no more to break a nation's fall, For ye have saved yourselves—and that is all. Succeeding times your struggles, and their fate, With mingled shame and triumph shall relate; While faithful History, in her various page, Marking the features of this motley age, To shed a glory, and to fix a stain, Tells how you strove, and that you strove in vain.