Oh, then how blind to all that truth requires, Who think it freedom when a part aspires! Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, Except when fast approaching danger warms: 380 But when contending chiefs blockade the throne, Contracting regal power to stretch their own; When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 385 Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law; The wealth of climes where savage nations roam, Pillag’d from slaves to purchase slaves at home; Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start, Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; 390 Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown, I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour, When first ambition struck at regal power, And thus polluting honour in its source, 395 Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore, Her useful sons exchang’d for useless ore? Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste, 400 Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, Lead stern depopulation in her train, And over fields where scatter’d hamlets rose, In barren, solitary pomp repose? Have we not seen, at pleasure’s lordly call, 405 The smiling, long frequented village fall? Behold the duteous son, the sire decay’d, The modest matron, and the blushing maid, Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train, To traverse climes beyond the western main; 410 Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, And Niagara stuns with thundering sound? Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways, Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 415 And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim; There, while above the giddy tempest flies, And all around distressful yells arise, The pensive exile, bending with his woe, To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, 420 Casts a long look where England’s glories shine, And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.