Classic Poem

How Custom steels the human breast
To deeds that Nature's thoughts detest!
How Custom consecrates to fame
What Reason else would give to shame!
Fair Spring supplies the favouring gale,
The Naval Plunderer spreads his sail,
And, ploughing wide the watry way,
Explores with anxious eyes his prey.

The man he never saw before,
The man who him no quarrel bore,
He meets, and Avarice prompts the fight;
And Rage enjoys the dreadful sight
Of decks with streaming crimson dy'd,
And wretches struggling in the tide,
Or, midst the' explosion's horrid glare,
Dispers'd with quivering limbs in air.

The merchant now on foreign shores
His captur'd wealth in vain deplores;
Quits his fair home, O mournful change!
For the dark prison's scanty range;
By Plenty's hand so lately fed,
Depends on casual alms for bread;
And, with a father's anguish torn,
Sees his poor offspring left forlorn.

And yet, such Man's misjudging mind,
For all this injury to his kind,
The prosperous Robber's native plain
Shall bid him welcome home again;
His name the song of every street,
His acts the theme of all we meet,
And oft the artist's skill shall place
To public view his pictur'd face!

If glory thus be earn'd, for me
My object glory ne'er shall be;
No, first in Cambria's loneliest dale
Be mine to hear the shepherd's tale!
No, first on Scotia's bleakest hill
Be mine the stubborn soil to till!
Remote from wealth, to dwell alone,
And die, to guilty praise unknown!