Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd. The great deliverer he! who from the gloom Of cloister'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools, Led forth the true philosophy, there long Held in the magic chain of words and forms, And definitions void: he led her forth, Daughter of heaven! that slow-ascending still, Investigating sure the chain of things, With radiant finger points to heaven again. The generous Ashley thine, the friend of man; Who scann'd his nature with a brother's eye, His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim, To touch the finer movements of the mind, And with the _moral beauty_ charm the heart Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search, Amid the dark recesses of his works, The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke, Who made the whole internal world his own? Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame In all philosophy. For lofty sense, Creative fancy, and inspection keen Through the deep windings of the human heart, Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast? Is not each great, each amiable muse Of classic ages, in thy Milton met? A genius universal as his theme, Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime. Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget, The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son, Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground; Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage, Chaucer, whose native manners painting verse, Well moraliz'd, shines through the Gothic cloud Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown. May my song soften, as thy daughters I, Britannia, hail! for beauty is their own, The feeling heart, simplicity of life, And elegance, and taste; the faultless form, Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek, Where the live crimson, through the native white Soft-shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom, And every nameless grace; the parted lip, Like the red rose-bud moist with morning dew, Breathing delight; and, under flowing jet, Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown, The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast, The look resistless, piercing to the soul, And by the soul informed, when dress'd in love She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye. Island of bliss! amid the subject seas That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up, At once the wonder, terror, and delight Of distant nations; whose remotest shore Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm; Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults Baffling, like thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.