' 1200
Not quite so fast as lightning flies,
Wing'd with red anger, through the skies;
Not quite so fast as, sent by Jove,
Iris descends on wings of love;
Not quite so fast as Terror rides
When he the chasing winds bestrides,
Crape hobbled; but his mind was good--
Could he go faster than he could?
Near to that tower, which, as we're told,
The mighty Julius raised of old, 1210
Where, to the block by Justice led,
The rebel Scot hath often bled;
Where arms are kept so clean, so bright,
'Twere sin they should be soil'd in fight;
Where brutes of foreign race are shown
By brutes much greater of our own;
Fast by the crowded Thames, is found
An ample square of sacred ground,
Where artless Eloquence presides,
And Nature every sentence guides. 1220
Here female parliaments debate
About religion, trade, and state;
Here every Naiad's patriot soul,
Disdaining foreign base control,
Despising French, despising Erse,
Pours forth the plain old English curse,
And bears aloft, with terrors hung,
The honours of the vulgar tongue.
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