Classic Poem

In northern climes where furious tempests blow,
And men more furious raise worse storms below,
At nature's elbow, distant and remote,
Happy for Europe had she been forgot,
The world's proboscis, near the globe's extremes,
For barb'rous men renowned, and barb'rous names,
There Poland lies too much her maker's care,
And shares the mod'rate blessings of the air,
Just as far off from heav'n as we are here:
Under the arctic circle of the sky,
Where virtue's streams run low, and nature's high,
For heat of clime too far, of blood too nigh,
Tempered for plenty, plenteously supplied
With men advanced in ev'ry grace but pride.
A mighty nation throngs the groaning land,
Rude as the climate, num'rous as the sand:
Uncommon monstrous virtues they possess,
Strange odd prepost'rous Polish qualities;
Mysterious contraries they reconcile,
The pleasing frown and the destroying smile;
Precisely gay, and most absurdly grave,
Most humbly high, and barbarously brave;
Debauch'dly civil and profanely good,
And filled with gen'rous brave ingratitude,
By bounty disobliged, by hatred won,
Bold in their danger, cowards when 'tis gone;
To their own ruin they're the only tools,
Wary of knaves, and eas'ly choused by fools;
Profoundly empty, yet declar'dly wise,
And fond of blind impossibilities;
Swelled with conceit, they boast of all they do,
First praise themselves, then think that praise their due
So fond of flatt'ring words, so vain in pride,
The world mocks them, and they the world deride;
Value themselves upon their nation's merit,
In spite of all the vices the inherit;
So wedded to the country where they dwell,
They think that's heav'n, and all the world's a hell.
Their frozen Vistula they'd not forgo
For fruitful Danube, or the flow'ry Po.
Rapid Boristhenes delights them more
Than pearly streams, or a Peruvian shore:
And Russian Dwina dwells upon their song,
Hurried by barb'rous steeps and hills, and pushed
The land too happy would the people bless,
Could they agree to know their happiness;
Nature with very liberal hand supplies
Her situation-insufficiencies:
The temperate influence revolves of course,
And spite of climate nature works by force.
The bounteous spring the winter's waste repairs,
And makes the world grow young in spite of yea
The fruitful earth uncommon freedom shows,
And foreign wealth by foreign commerce flows.
But peopled with a hardened thankless race,
Whose crimes add horror to the milder place,
The bounties by indulgent Heav'n bestowed
Corrode the mischief and debauch the blood.
That native fierceness which in Christian land.
Makes heroes, and their poets' praise commar
Here 'tis a vice, which rankles up to feud,
And nourishes the gust of vile ingratitude.
Pride, plenty's handmaid, deeply taints their
And seeds of faction mix the crimson flood
Eternal discords brood upon the soil,
And universal strifes the state embroil,
In every family the temper reigns,
In every action seed of gall remains.
The very laws of peace create dispute,
And makes them quarrel who shall exe
Their valued constitutions are so lame,
That governing the governments inflame.
Wild aristocracy torments the state,
And people their own miseries create.
In vain has Heav'n its choicer gifts bestowed,
And strives in vain to do a wilful nation good:
Such is the people's folly, such their fate,
As all decrees of peace anticipate.
Immortal jars in ev'ry class appear,
Conceived in strife, and nursed to civil war.
Such, Poland, is thy people, such thy name,
Yet still thy sons our panegyrics claim,
Because their partial genius is inclined
To think they merit more than all mankind.
Imaginary happiness will do
For near as many uses as the true:
And if the Poles in their own plagues delight,
Wise Heaven's too just to let them thrive in spite.