The nations not so blest as thee,
  Must in their turns to tyrants fall,
  Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free,
  The dread and envy of them all. 
  Rule, Britannia, etc.

  Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
  More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
  As the loud blast that tears the skies,
  Serves but to root thy native oak. 
  Rule, Britannia, etc.

  Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
  And their attempts to bend thee down
  Will but arouse thy generous flame,
  But work their woe and thy renown. 
  Rule, Britannia, etc.

  To thee belongs the rural reign;
  Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
  All thine shall be the subject main,
  And every shore it circles thine. 
  Rule, Britannia, etc.

  The Muses, still with freedom found,
  Shall to thy happy coast repair;
  Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned,
  And manly hearts to guard the fair! 
  Rule, Britannia, etc.

  From THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

  O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
  Do not complain of this thy hard estate: 
  That like an emmet thou must ever moil
  Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
  And, certes, there is for it reason great,
  For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail
  And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
  Withouten that would come an heavier bale—­
  Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

  In lowly dale, fast by a river’s side,
  With woody hill o’er hill encompassed round,
  A most enchanting wizard did abide,
  Than whom, a fiend more fell is nowhere found. 
  It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;
  And there a season atween June and May,
  Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
  A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
  No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.

  Was naught around but images of rest: 
  Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;
  And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest,
  From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
  Where never yet was creeping creature seen. 
  Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played,
  And hurled everywhere their waters sheen,
  That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,
  Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

  Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,
  Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
  And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
  And vacant shepherds piping in the dale;
  And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
  Or stock doves ’plain amid the forest deep,
  That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
  And still a coil the grasshopper did keep: 
  Yet all these sounds, yblent, inclined all to sleep.