Thus property and sovereign sway, at last,
  In equal balances were justly cast: 
  But this new Jehu spurs the hot-mouth’d horse—­
  Instructs the beast to know his native force; 120
  To take the bit between his teeth, and fly
  To the next headlong steep of anarchy. 
  Too happy England, if our good we knew,
  Would we possess the freedom we pursue! 
  The lavish government can give no more: 
  Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor. 
  God tried us once; our rebel-fathers fought,
  He glutted them with all the power they sought: 
  Till, master’d by their own usurping brave,
  The free-born subject sunk into a slave. 130
  We loathe our manna, and we long for quails;
  Ah, what is man when his own wish prevails! 
  How rash, how swift to plunge himself in ill! 
  Proud of his power, and boundless in his will! 
  That kings can do no wrong, we must believe;
  None can they do, and must they all receive? 
  Help, Heaven! or sadly we shall see an hour,
  When neither wrong nor right are in their power! 
  Already they have lost their best defence—­
  The benefit of laws which they dispense. 140
  No justice to their righteous cause allow’d;
  But baffled by an arbitrary crowd. 
  And medals graved their conquest to record,
  The stamp and coin of their adopted lord.

   The man[83] who laugh’d but once, to see an ass
  Mumbling make the cross-grain’d thistles pass,
  Might laugh again to see a jury chaw
  The prickles of unpalatable law. 
  The witnesses, that leech-like lived on blood,
  Sucking for them was medicinally good; 150
  But when they fasten’d on their fester’d sore,
  Then justice and religion they forswore,
  Their maiden oaths debauch’d into a whore. 
  Thus men are raised by factions, and decried;
  And rogue and saint distinguish’d by their side. 
  They rack even Scripture to confess their cause,
  And plead a call to preach in spite of laws. 
  But that’s no news to the poor injured page;
  It has been used as ill in every age,
  And is constrain’d with patience all to take:  160
  For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make? 
  Happy who can this talking trumpet seize;
  They make it speak whatever sense they please: 
  ’Twas framed at first our oracle to inquire;
  But since our sects in prophecy grow higher,
  The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.

   London, thou great emporium of our isle,
  O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile! 
  How shall I praise or curse to thy desert? 
  Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part? 170
  I call thee Nile; the parallel will stand;
  Thy tides of wealth o’erflow the fatten’d land;
  Yet monsters from thy large increase we