While o'er the lawn, with dance and festive song,
Young Pleasure led the jocund hours along:
In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seen
To crown the valleys with eternal green: 60
For wealth, for valour, courted and revered,
What Albion is, fair Candia then appear'd.
Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke?
The free-born spirit of her sons is broke,
They bow to Ottoman's imperious yoke.
No longer fame their drooping heart inspires,
For stern oppression quench'd its genial fires:
Though still her fields, with golden harvests crown'd,
Supply the barren shores of Greece around,
Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles, 70
There hope ne'er dawns, and pleasure never smiles:
The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,
And hears his famish'd babes lament in vain.
These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soil
A seventh year mock the weary labourer's toil.
No blooming Venus, on the desert shore,
Now views with triumph captive gods adore;
No lovely Helens now with fatal charms
Excite the avenging chiefs of Greece to arms;
No fair Penelopes enchant the eye, 80
For whom contending kings were proud to die:
Here sullen beauty sheds a twilight ray,
While sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay:
Those charms, so long renown'd in classic strains,
Had dimly shone on Albion's happier plains!
Now in the southern hemisphere the sun