Classic Poem

 Nation! for pomp renown'd! 'tis now
A taste correct and rais'd ye show.
Oft, in your fanes, th' admiring eye
Hath gaz'd your scenic piety:
Beheld the harlot Error there,
With painted charms and flowery vest,
Seduce th' enainour'd mind to own her fair,
And, with unholy love possest,
Deluded Reason captive led,
By Heav'n of old betroth'd with modest Truth to wed:
Oft hath the stranger's fond amaze
Fed on your court's imperial blaze;
Where Rank's most dazzling circle shone
Round Europe's most refulgent throne;
Luxuriant show! profusely bright!
All gay with wantonness of light,
In splendours rich, and luscious to the sight!
At length your land a scene supplies,
Whose beauties charm judicious eyes:
The Nation's self in state is shown,
With all her blazing glories on.
Superb in multitude she awes the eye!
The pomp of numbers forms her majesty!
Her sons, assembled in a swarm immense,
Compose her plain, sublime magnificence!
As the fam'd Roman mother, greatly good,
Her children, as her jewels, proudly show'd,
Gallia her sons her brightest honours deems,
And gathers round her all her countless gems!
Pomp, that derides the tiny royalty,
Made up of cushion and of canopy,
Of pall and scepter'd hand and cinctur'd brow,
Of ore that glitters and of stones that glow,
That e'er e'en in the gem'd and gorgeous east,
The worship'd one , the puny unit dress'd.
Deck him now, Art, and, in his proud array,
Bloom all thy beauties, all thy glories play!
Let sparkling pebbles and embroider'd dies
Strive with th' enamel'd mead and spangled skies!
All the mine's little stars around him meet!
Spring all the loom's gay flowers beneath his feet!
The sweep of robe and swell of drapery,
AttempThis pigmy form to magnify!
The throne's small rise supply his lack of height,
Elate the child and please the children's sight;
And base prostration's trick mean bondmen try,
To make a head as low as theirs look high:
This glory laughs at all the puppet-state,
And scoffs the fairy toil to make minuteness great.