Too flourishing a spring,
And too warm summers bring:
Our British soil is over rank, and breeds
Among the noblest flowers a thousand pois'nous weeds,
And every stinking weed so lofty grows,
As if 'twould overshade the Royal Rose;
The Royal Rose, the glory of our morn,
But, ah! too much without a thorn.


VI

Forgive (original mildness) this ill-govern'd zeal,
'Tis all the angry slighted Muse can do
In the pollution of these days;
No province now is left her but to rail,
And poetry has lost the art to praise,
Alas, the occasions are so few:
None e'er but you,
And your Almighty Master, knew
With heavenly peace of mind to bear
(Free from our tyrant passions, anger, scorn, or fear)
The giddy turns of popular rage,
And all the contradictions of a poison'd age;
The Son of God pronounced by the same breath
Which straight pronounced his death;
And though I should but ill be understood,
In wholly equalling our sin and theirs,
And measuring by the scanty thread of wit
What we call holy, and great, and just, and good,