The Norman Bastard, how divine his call! And where's his heav'nly high original? These naked nations, long a helpless prey, To foreign and domestic tyranny;-- Their infant strength unfit to guard their name-- Was left exposed to ev'ry robber's claim, An open prey to pirates, and the isle, To wild invaders, grew an early spoil. The Romans ravaged long our wealthy coast, And long our plains fed Caesar's num'rous host. What birthright raised that rav'nous leader's name? His sword, and not his fam'ly, form'd his claim. Where'er the Roman eagles spread their wings, They conquer'd nations, and they pull'd down kings; Caesar in triumph o'er the whole presided, And right of conquest half the world divided. For Liberty our sires in arms appear'd, And in its sacred name with courage warr'd; Made the invaders buy their conquest dear, And legions of their bones lie buried here. * * The hillocks or barrows still remaining in most parts of Eng-land were the graves of the soldiers. There are four very large ones near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, close to the road. The plains in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire are full of these monuments of the valorous achievements of the Britons iu defence of their liberty. When these their work of slaughter had fulfill'd, And seas of British blood bedew'd the field; Shoals of Barbarian Goths, worse thieves than they, From Caledonian Friths, and frozen Tay, O'erspread the fruitful, now abandon'd plains, And led the captured victims in their chains: The weaken'd natives, helpless and distrest, Doom'd to be plunder'd, ravish'd, and oppress'd, Employ new thieves from the rude Northern coast, To rob them of the little not yet lost. {178} The work once done, the workmen, to be paid, Only demand themselves, and all they had! In dreadful strife their freedom to maintain, They fought with fury, but they fought in vain; Yet, like Antaeus, every time they fell, Their veins with rage and indignation swell; Not for continued losses they despair, But for still fiercer battle they prepare; Again their blood the Saxon chariots stains, And heaps of heroes strew th' ensanguin'd plains; Thus, though they leave the world, they keep the field, And thus their lives, but not their freedom yield. Three hundred years of bloody contest past, Plunder'd at first, and dispossest at last, The few remains, with freedom still inspir'd, To Western mountains, to resist retired; Their dear abandon'd country thence they view, And thence their thirst of Liberty renew; Offers of peaceful bondage they defy, What's peace to man without his liberty? *