Thou too great father of the British floods! With joyful pride survey’st our lofty woods; Where tow’ring oaks their growing honours rear, And future navies on thy shores appear, Not Neptune’s self, from all her streams, receives A wealthier tribute, than to thine he gives. No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear, No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear; Nor Po so swells the fabling poets lays, While led along the skies his current strays, As thine, which visits Windsor’s fam’d abodes. If you are still refractory, and stand up for the panegyrists of the Po, I must call Denham in aid of my argument, and I hope you will have the taste and candour to acknowledge, that the following are, beyond comparison, the noblest lines that ever were written on a river. My eye descending from the hill, surveys Where Thames among the wanton vallies strays, Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean’s sons, By his old sire, to his embraces runs; Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal Life to meet Eternity. Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold; His genuine and less guilty wealth t’explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore; O’er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing, And hatches plenty for th’ ensuing spring; Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay, Like mothers which their children overlay. Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. No unexpected inundations spoil The mower’s hopes, nor mock the plowman’s toil: But, godlike, his unweary’d bounty flows: First loves to do, then loves the good he does. Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, But free and common, as the sea or wind; When he, to boast, or to disperse his stores, Full of the tribute of his grateful shores, Visits the world, and in his flying towers, Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; Finds wealth where ’tis, bestows it where it wants, Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants. So that, to us, no thing, no place is strange, While his fair bosom is the world’s exchange. O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream, My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full. Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast, Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, ’s lost.