For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire,
As down the verdant slope your duteous rills
Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives,
Delighted; and your piety applauds;
And bids his copious tide roll on secure,
For faithful are his daughters; and with words
Auspicious gratulates the bark which, now
His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings
Yields to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts
Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn,
When Hermes, from Olympus bent o'er earth
To bear the words of Jove, on yonder hill
Stoops lightly-sailing; oft intent your springs
He views: and waving o'er some new-born stream
His blest pacific wand, "And yet," he cries,
"Yet," cries the son of Maia, "though recluse
"And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs,
"Flows wealth and kind society to men.
"By you my function and my honour'd name
"Do I possess; while o'er the Boetic vale,
"Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms
"By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct
"The English merchant: with the buxom fleece
"Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe
"Sarmatian kings; or to the household Gods
"Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore,
"Dispense the mineral treasure which of old
"Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land
"Was yet unconscious of those generous arts
"Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime
"Transplanted to a more indulgent heaven. "