And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,
Too little payment for so great a debt.
The Poles were bound to their country by the peculiarities of its institutions and usages; perhaps, also, by the very defects of their government, which at last contributed to its fall, by those dangerous privileges and by that tumultuary independence, which rendered their condition as much above that of the slaves of absolute monarchy, as it was below the lot of those who inherit the blessings of legal and moral freedom.
When God said,
"Be gathered now ye waters under heaven,
Into one place, and let dry land appear,"
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sank a hollow bottom, broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters.—Milton.
You must note beside,
That we have tried the utmost of our friends,
Our legions are brimful, our cause is rife;
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline:
There is a tide in the affairs of man,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
