Hail! beauteous lands[174] that crown the Southern Seas; Dear happy seats of Liberty and Ease! Hail! whose green coasts the peaceful ocean laves, Incessant washing with its watery waves! Delicious islands! to whose envied shore Thee, gallant COOK! the ship _Endeavour_[175] bore. There laughs the sky, there zephyr’s frolic train, And light-wing’d loves, and blameless pleasures reign: There, when two souls congenial ties unite, No hireling _Bonzes_ chant the mystic rite; Free every thought, each action unconfin’d, And light those fetters which no rivets bind. There in each grove, each sloping bank along, And flow’rs and shrubs and odorous herbs among, Each shepherd clasp’d, with undisguis’d delight, His yielding fair one,—in the Captain’s sight; Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led, Preferr’d new lovers to her sylvan bed.[176] Learn hence, each nymph, whose free aspiring mind Europe’s cold laws,[177] and colder customs[178] bind— O! learn, what Nature’s genial laws decree— What Otaheite[179] is, let Britain be! · · · · · Of WHIST or CRIBBAGE mark th’ amusing game— The partners _changing_, but the SPORT the _same_. Else would the gamester’s anxious ardour cool, Dull every deal, and stagnant every pool. —Yet must _one_[180] Man, with one unceasing Wife, Play the LONG RUBBER of connubial life. Yes! human laws, and laws esteem’d divine, The generous passion straiten and confine; And, as a stream, when art constrains its course, Pours its fierce torrent with augmented force, So, Passion[181] narrowed to one channel small, _Unlike_ the former, does not flow at all. —For Love _then_ only flaps his purple wings, When uncontroll’d by priestcraft or by kings. Such the strict rules, that, in these barbarous climes, Choke youth’s fair flow’rs, and feelings turn to crimes; And people every walk of polish’d life[182] With that two-headed monster, MAN and WIFE. Yet bright examples sometimes we observe, Which from the general practice seem to swerve; Such as presented to Germania’s[183] view, A KOTZEBUE’S bold emphatic pencil drew: Such as, translated in some future age, Shall add new glories to the British stage; —While the moved audience sit in dumb despair, “Like Hottentots,[184] _and at each other stare_”.