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Is still the sport! Here Nature Mas my guide,
The Nature of the dissolute; but Thee,
O fostering Nature! I rejected, smiled
At others' tears in pity; and in scorn
At those, which thy soft influence sometimes drew
From my unguarded heart.—The tranquil shores
Of Britain circumscribed me; else, perhaps,
I might have been entangled among deeds,
Which, now, as infamous, I should abhor—
Despise, as senseless: for I strangely relished
The exasperated spirit of that Land,
Which turned an angry beak against the down
Of its own breast; as if it hoped, thereby,
To disencumber its impatient wings.
—But all was quieted by iron bonds
Of military sway. The shifting aims,
The moral interests, the creative might,
The varied functions and high attributes
Of civil Action, yielded to a Power
Formal, and odious, and contemptible.
—In Britain, ruled a panic dread of change;
The weak were praised, rewarded, and advanced;
And, from the impulse of a just disdain,
