Page:The Progress of Poetry - Madan (1783).djvu/15
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Where Thames rolls deep his plenteous tides around,
His banks with thick ascending turrets crown'd:
Yet not these scenes the partial Muse could boast,
Were Liberty, thy great distinction, lost.
Britannia, hail! o'er whose luxuriant plain
For the free native waves the ripening grain:
'Twas sacred Liberty's celestial smile
First lur'd the Muses to thy generous isle;
'Twas Liberty bestow'd the power to sing,
And bid the verse-rewarding laurels spring.
His banks with thick ascending turrets crown'd:
Yet not these scenes the partial Muse could boast,
Were Liberty, thy great distinction, lost.
Britannia, hail! o'er whose luxuriant plain
For the free native waves the ripening grain:
'Twas sacred Liberty's celestial smile
First lur'd the Muses to thy generous isle;
'Twas Liberty bestow'd the power to sing,
And bid the verse-rewarding laurels spring.
Here Chaucer, first, his comic vein display'd,
And merry tales in homely guise convey'd;
Unpolish'd beauties grac'd the artless song,
Tho' rude the diction, yet the sense was strong.
And merry tales in homely guise convey'd;
Unpolish'd beauties grac'd the artless song,
Tho' rude the diction, yet the sense was strong.
To