From your dust new nations spring _165
With more kindly blossoming.

Perish--let there only be
Floating o'er thy hearthless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally, _170
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;--
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the songs of Albion, _175
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung _180
From his lips like music flung
O'er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror:--what though yet
Poesy's unfailing River,
Which through Albion winds forever _185
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet's grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay _190
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?