Classic Poem

Hail thou, my native soil! thou blessed plot
Whose equal all the world affordeth not!
Show me who can so many crystal rills,
Such sweet-cloth'd valleys, or aspiring hills,
Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mines,
Such rocks in whom the diamond fairly shines;
And if the earth can show the like again,
Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men.
Time never can produce men to o'ertake
The fames of Greenvil, Davies, Gilbert, Drake,
Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more
That by their power made the Devonian shore
Mock the proud Tagus; for whose richest spoil
The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil
Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost
By winning this, though all the rest were lost.
As oft the sea-nymphs on her strand have set
Learning of fishermen to knit a net
Wherein to wind up their dishevell'd hairs,
They have beheld the frolic mariners
For exercise (got from their early beds)
Pitch bars of silver, and cast golden sleds . . .