From the benignant lands that richly gleam Beneath the Tiber’s fertilizing stream, You next will pass, where borne as he arose, Through colder realms the mighty Danube flows. Girded in pleasant borders ’tis for you The Austrian Vienna there to view; To admire the monarch, warlike, good and wise, With the magnanimous Prussian king who vies An army brave and numerous to sway; Chosen and hardy, forward to obey, Whom as companions honour’d he rewards, And not as slaves abased a lord regards. There agriculture flourish you will see; Public instruction is promoted free; The arts extended rapidly and wide; And these among, in culture and esteem, That with which Orpheus tamed the furious pride Of forest beasts, and cross’d the Lethe’s stream: There all the tales of wonderful effect, Of music’s art divine, with which are deck’d The ancient Greek and Latin histories, No longer will seem fables in your eyes, When near you may applaud the loftiness, The harmony, and the consonance sublime, All that in varied symphonies to express Has power the greatest master of our time; Haydn the great, and merited his fame, Whom to embrace I beg you in my name. But now the confines of the German land I see you leaving, for the distant strand Of Britain’s isle your rapid course to take, And tour political around to make. There in the populous court, whose walls’ long side Bathes the deep Thames in current vast and wide, A nation’s image will before your eyes In all things most extraordinary rise. Not rich of old, but happy now we see By totally unshackled industry. A nation liberal, but ambitious too; Phlegmatic, and yet active in its course; Ingenuous, but its interests to pursue Intent; humane, but haughty; and perforce Whate’er it be, the cause it undertakes, Just or unjust, defends without remorse, And of all fear and danger scorn it makes. There with inevitably great surprise, What in no other country we may see, You will behold to exert their energies Men act and speak with perfect liberty. The rapid fortune too you will admire Which eloquence and valour there acquire; Nor power to rob has wealth or noble birth The premiums due to learning and to worth. You will observe the hive-like multitude Of diligent and able islanders, Masters of commerce they have well pursued, Which ne’er to want or slothfulness defers; All in inventions useful occupied, In manufactures, roads, schools, arsenals, Experiments in books and hospitals, And studies of the liberal arts to guide. There you will know in fine what may attain An education wise; the skilful mode Of patriotic teaching, so to train Private ambition, that it seek the road Of public benefit alone to gain: