All true-born americans! join, as of old; For freedom's defence, be your firm resolution; Whoever invades you by force, or with gold, Alike is a foe to a free constitution: Unite to pull down that imposture, a crown; Oppose it at least, tis a mark of the beast: All tyranny's engines again are at work To make you as poor and as base as the turk. Abandon'd to all the intrigues of a knave, Abounding with sharpers of every description, They would plunder our towns, and prohibit the wave; Their treaties of commerce are all a deception: Not a ship do we send but they rob without end; With their law of blockade they have ruin'd our trade; The shops of mechanics at midnight they burn That home manufactures may cease to be worn. Look round the wide world; and observe with a sigh, Wherever a monarch presides o'er a nation, Sweet nature appears with a tear in her eye, And the mantle of sorrow enshrouds the creation. The ocean is chain'd, all freedom restrain'd, The soil is resign'd to the pests of mankind, To royals and nobles, the guard of the throne, And the slaves they have bribed, to make freedom their own. All hail to the nation, immortal and great, Who, rising on bold philosophical pinion, Reforms, and enlightens, and strengthens the state, Not places her weal in excess of dominion. What reason can do she intends to pursue; And true to the plan, on which she began, Will the volume unfold she to freedom assign'd, Till tyrants are chased from the sight of mankind. Since the day we declared, they were masters no more, The day we arose from the colony station, Has England attack'd us, by sea and by shore, In war by the sword, as in peace by vexation; Impressment they claim'd, till our seamen, ashamed, Grew sick of our flag, that against the old hag Of Britain, no longer their freedom protected But left them, like slaves, to be lash'd and corrected. Old Rome, that in darkness so long had been lost, Since on her republic bright freedom was shining: The warmth of her spirit congeal'd in a frost, Under tyrants and popes, many centuries, pining: At the close of the page, who can bridle his rage To see her return to the fetters she broke, When tyranny sicken'd, and liberty spoke: What an image of clay have they thrown in her way! The king and the priest on her carcass will feast; When these are allied, the world they divide; The nations they plunder, the nations they kill, And bend all the force of the mind to their will: Not the spirit to rise, or the strength to command, But friars and monks--and the scum of the land.-- No more of your Nero's or Caesars complain, Leave Brutus and Cato, and take them again.