Hilst you, , with assiduous toil
Reap the rich fruits of learning's fertile soil; Now search whate'er historick truth has shewn, And make the wealth of ages past your own; Now crop the blossoms of poetick flow'rs, And range delighted in the Muses bowers; Say, will the sweetest of her sex attend To lines by friendship, not by by flatt'ry penn'd; To lines which tempt not worth with empty praise; But to still greater height that worth would raise; To lines which dare against a world decide, And stem the rage of custom's rapid tide!
Come then, , freely let us scan
The coward insults of that tyrant, man. Self-prais'd, and grasping at despotick pow'r, He looks on slav'ry as the female dow'r; To Nature's boon ascribes what force has giv'n, And usurpation deems the gift of heav'n. See the first-peopled East, where sheds Her balmy spices o'er her fertile meads: There, while th' stretch'd his wide domain From distant Indus to the Cyprian main, All nature's laws by impious force were broke; The female sex to slav'ry's galling yoke Bow'd their fair necks: from social life confin'd, And all th' exertions of th' enlighten'd mind, Clos'd in a proud Seraglio's wanton bow'rs, The dalliance of a tyrant's looser hours. By kings' examples subjects form their lives, Dependent satraps had their train of wives; Proportion'd pow'r each petty tyrant craves, And each poor female was the slave of slaves.
When next o'erturn'd th' Assyrian throne, Destroy'd her tyranny and fix'd its own; The fair distress'd no milder treatment saw, This was indeed th' unalterable law. In future times, whatever masters came, Tyrants were chang'd, but tyranny the same: At length t' accumulate the female woes, The grand impostor arose; Swoln with prophetick lyes, he lay'd his plan On the firm basis of the pride of man; "Women, the toys of men, and slaves of lust, "Are but mere moulds to form man's outward crust; "The heavenly spark, that animates the clay, "Of the prime essence that effulgent ray, "Th' immortal soul is all to man confin'd, "Not meanly squander'd on weak woman-kind."
Accursed wretch! by hell's black council driv'n
Thus to debase the fairest work of heav'n. And could Religion rear her sacred head Fraught with such doctrines? could such errors spread From western , and the sun-burnt Moor, To the cold ever-frozen shore? Ev'n too not exempt, , once the seat Where Sense and Freedom held the reins of state; Where Force was Reason's hand-maid; where the bands Of Love and Friendship join'd the wedded hands; Where flourish'd once, and flourish still in fame Th' matron, and the dame.
In too Liberty once reign'd, in
The female virtues were allow'd to bloom, And bloom they did: when fatal plain Was heap'd with mountains of the Roman slain, Was there a matron wept her children dead? Was there a matron wept not those that fled? Then when each rumour seem'd the voice of fate, And spoke the victor thund'ring at their gate, Was there one mention'd peace? did they not pour Their wealth, their jewels to the publick store, In emulous haste all pressing to be poor?
Alas how chang'd! how are the mighty sunk, From the firm Patriot to the whining Monk! Where Industry secur'd the publick good, Where censors, consuls, and dictators plough'd. Now lazy zealots batten on the spoil, And consecrated Sloth devours the farmer's toil. But oh still worse! where Love and Friendship shone, Domestick Tyranny has fix'd his throne, With all his train of monsters: at his side Swoln with self-flatteries sits stiff-neck'd Pride; Two twin-born fiends his other ear engage, Heart-canker'd Jealousy, and fire-ey'd Rage; In front, his empire's sole support and source, Rattling chains, bars and locks, stalks brutal Force; Whilst pale and shrivel'd, crouch'd beneath the chair, Lies sneaking, conscious Worthlessness; and near Squint-ey'd Suspicion lurks, with self-distracting Fear.
Hail, happy , dear parental land, Where Liberty maintains her latest stand! Oh while amidst tyrannick realms I rove, Enamour'd let me pour my filial love Into thy bosom. When the raven wings Of darkness hover o'er me, when the springs Of every outward sense are shut, my soul Thee oft revisits, oft without controul Ranges thy fields delighted, and inhales Friendship's pure joys, and Freedom's healthful gales.