WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Poems cover

Poems

Chapter 115: SONG.
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A varied collection of lyrical and occasional poems encompassing light social verse, pastoral descriptions, travel pieces gathered from earlier fugitive publication, and personal elegies. Pieces range from tranquil nature scenes and grotto meditations to expressions of romantic longing and formal dedications; a prominent elegy mourns a beloved brother and traces grief and memory. The preface frames the poems as modest divertissements written across youth and maturity, and some material derives from the author's tours. The tone alternates between playful, reflective, and mournful, favoring accessible meters and conventional poetic imagery rather than experimental forms.

THE FOLLOWING TWO SONGS

Were written during a Period when it was confidently believed that the
French would invade our Country.

SONG.

To the Tune of “Ye Gentlemen of England.”

No gentleman of England now sits at home at ease,
But emulates on shore the heroes of the seas;
A common cause unites them, to meet the daring foe,
All they wish, all they ask, is a fav’ring wind to blow.

Oh! let them come along, and may no tempests low’r,
But fairly may we try our valour and our pow’r,
That Hist’ry may not say, should these robbers be laid low,
To the storm ’tis alone the victory we owe.

Soon shall these infidels the dreadful diff’rence prove,
’Twixt slaves impell’d by fear, and freemen bound by love;
Our foes shall never rise again, when once they are laid low,
On the sea, on the shore, for justice strikes the blow.

SONG.

      When storms on the ocean
      Create high emotion,
      It pleases the wish
      Of the monarch of fish,
For he gambols and sports in the motion.

      Should a shoal of small fry
      Attempt to draw nigh,
      With a flap of his tail,
      Th’ imperial whale
Makes them pay for their rashness, and die.

      Oh! thus, on the seas,
      Just with the same ease,
      Should the enemy come,
      In ship, boat, or bomb,
We will knock them about as we please;

      Till at last they shall cry,
      “We are the small fry,
      And Britannia’s the whale,
      By a flap of whose tail,
If we dare to approach her we die.”