Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/164

For parent foil as strong sensation beats,
Midst joyless wilds, as aromatic seats;
Thence to the muse, the sacred spirit springs,
That swells her numbers, and her rapture wings;
Thence, for his Rome, the Roman smiled on death,
And to the Scythian blooms his barren heath: 20
It creeps, an instinct in the dastard Nave,
And glows, a passion in the free and brave;
It gives the vile to bear a tyrant's thrall,
No wrongs can rouse them, for no chains can gall:
But to the brave, no charms a clime can boast,
Where virtue or where liberty is lost.
 O liberty! thou life-enlivening name,
Thy forms how varying, yet thy powers the same!
From thee the fields assume their smiling face,
The notes their music, and the paint its grace. 30
Thine are the plastic arts that mould the bust,
And breathe its beauties o'er the dome august;
Is there a bard who feels thy just controul?
The muse pours all her godhead on his soul;
She prompts the sigh, she swells the impassioned gush,
Glows in his warmth, and reddens in his blush;
The blush, that o'er an honest cheek streams fair,
When mortals hug the shameful chains they wear.