Wars, cruel wars, and hostile Britain's rage Have banished long the pleasures of the stage; From the gay painted scene compelled to part, ( Forgot the melting language of the heart )
Constrained to shun the bold theatric show, To act long tragedies of real woe, Heroes, once more attend the comic muse; Forget our failings, and our faults excuse.
In that fine language is our fable drest Which still unrivalled, reigns o'er all the rest; Of foreign courts the study and the pride, Who to know this abandon all beside;
Bold, though polite, and ever sure to please; Correct with grace, and elegant with ease; Soft from the lips its easy accents roll, Formed to delight and captivate the soul:
In this Eugenia tells her easy lay, The brilliant work of courtly Beaumarchais: In this Racine, Voltaire, and Boileau sung, The noblest poets in the noblest tongue.
If the soft story in our play expressed Can give a moment's pleasure to your breast, To you, Great Men,we must be proud to say That moment's pleasure shall our pains repay:
Returned from conquest and from glorious toils, From armies captured and unnumbered spoils; Ere yet again, with generous France allied, You rush to battle, humbling British pride;
While arts of peace your kind protection share, O let the Muses claim an equal care. You bade us first our future greatness see, Inspired by you, we languished to be free;
Even here where Freedom lately sat distrest, See, a new Athens rising in the west! Fair science blooms, where tyrants reigned before, Red war, reluctant, leaves our ravaged shore —
Illustrious heroes, may you live to see These new Republics powerful, great, and free; Peace, heaven born peace, o'er spacious regions spread, While discord, sinking, veils her ghastly head.
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