Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/129

Ordain'd for common happiness. Wide, o'er 655
The globe terraqueous, let Britannia pour
The fruits of plenty from her copious horn.
What can avail to her, whose fertile earth
By Ocean's briny waves are circumscrib'd,
The armed host, and murdering sword of war, 660
And conquest o'er her neighbours ? She ne'er breaks
Her solemn compacts in the lust of rule :
Studious of arts and trade, she ne'er disturbs
The holy peace of states. 'Tis her delight
To fold the world with harmony, and spread, 665
Among the habitations of mankind,
The various wealth of toil, and what her Fleece,
To clothe the naked, and her skilful looms
Peculiar give. Ye, too, rejoice, ye Swains !
Increasing commerce shall reward your cares. 670
A day will come, if not too deep we drink
The cup which luxury on careless wealth,
Pernicious gift ! bestows ; a day will come
When, thro' new channels sailing, we shall clothe
The Californian coast, and all the realms 675
That stretch from Hainan Straits to proud Japan,
And the green isles, which on the left arise
Upon the glassy brine, whose various capes
Not yet are figur'd on the sailors' chart :
Then every variation shall be told 680
Of the magnetic steel, and currents mark'd
Which drive the heedless vessel from her course.
That portion, too, of land, a track immense,
Beneath th' Antarctic spread, shall then be known,
And new plantations on its coast arise. 685
Then rigid winter's ice no more shall wound
The only naked animal ; but man
With the soft Fleece shall every where be cloath'd.
Th' exulting Muse shall then, in vigour fresh,