Not only mourning groves, but human tears,
The weeping Widow's tears, the Orphan's cries,
Sadly deplore that e'er thy powers were known.
Yet let thy Advent be the Soldier's song,
No longer doom'd to grapple with the Foe
With Teeth and Nails--When close in view, and in
Each-other's grasp, to grin, and hack, and stab;
Then tug his horrid weapon from one breast
To hide it in another:--with clear hands
He now expertly poizing thy bright tube,
At distance kills, unknowing and unknown;
Sees not the wound he gives, nor hears the shriek
Of him whose breast he pierces.... GUNPOWDER!
(O! let Humanity rejoice) how much
The Soldier's fearful work is humaniz'd,
Since thy momentous birth--stupendous power.
In Britain, where the hills and fertile plains,
Like her historic page, are overspread
With vestiges of War, the Shepherd Boy
Climbs the green hillock to survey his flock;
Then sweetly sleeps upon his favourite hill,
Not conscious that his bed's a Warrior's Tomb.
The ancient Mansions, deeply moated round,
Where, in the iron Age of Chivalry,
Redoubted Barons wag'd their little Wars;
The strong Entrenchments and enormous Mounds,
Rais'd to oppose the fierce, perfidious Danes;
And still more ancient traces that remain
Of Dykes and Camps, from the far distant date
When minstrel Druids wak'd the soul of War,