The Blessings of Liberty

    from Letter from Italy
    OH LIBERTY, thou goddess heavenly bright,
    Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
    Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
    And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
    Eas'd of her load subjection grows more light,
    And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
    Thou mak'st the gloomy face of Nature gay,
    Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.

    Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's Isle adores;
    How has she oft exhausted all her stores,
    How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
    Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
    On foreign mountains may the sun refine
    The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine,
    With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
    And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:
    We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
    In ten degrees of more indulgent skies,
    Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
    Tho' o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine:
    'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's Isle,
    And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

    Others with towering piles may please the sight,
    And in their proud aspiring domes delight;
    A nicer touch to the stretch'd canvas give,
    Or teach their animated rocks to live:
    'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate,
    And hold in balance each contending state,
    To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war,
    And answer her afflicted neighbours' pray'r.
    The Dane and Swede, rous'd up by fierce alarms,
    Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms:
    Soon as her fleets appear, their terrors cease,
    And all the northern world lies hush'd in peace.

Joseph Addison