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The Base and Cunning staid, and, slaves avow'd,
Submiss to every insult smiling bow'd.
Yet while they smiled and bow'd the abject head,
In chains unfelt their Tyrant Lords they led;
Their av'rice, watching as a bird of prey,
O'er every weakness, o'er each vice held sway;
Till secret art assumed the thwarting face,
And dictate bold; and ruin and disgrace
Closed the unworthy scene. Now trampled low
Beneath the injured native, and the foe
From Belgia lured by India's costly prey,
Thy glorious structure, Gama, prostrate lay;
And lies in desolated awful gloom,
Dread and instructive as a ruin'd tomb.
Nor less on Tago's than on India's coast
Was ancient Lusian Virtue stain'd and lost:
On Tago's banks, heroic ardour's foes,
A soft, luxurious, tinsel'd race, arose;
