8 Why are ye tardy? what inglorious care
Detains you from their head, your native post?
Who most their country's fame and fortune share,
'Tis theirs to share her toils, her perils most.
Each man his task in social life sustains.
With partial labours, with domestic gains,
Let others dwell: to you indulgent Heaven
By counsel and by arms the public cause
To serve for public love and love's applause,
The first employment far, the noblest hire, hath given.
9 Have ye not heard of Lacedemon's fame?
Of Attic chiefs in Freedom's war divine?
Of Rome's dread generals? the Valerian name?
The Fabian sons? the Scipios, matchless line?
Your lot was theirs: the farmer and the swain
Met his loved patron's summons from the plain;
The legions gather'd; the bright eagles flew:
Barbarian monarchs in the triumph mourn'd;
The conquerors to their household gods return'd,
And fed Calabrian flocks, and steer'd the Sabine plough.
10 Shall, then, this glory of the antique age,
This pride of men, be lost among mankind?
Shall war's heroic arts no more engage
The unbought hand, the unsubjected mind?
Doth valour to the race no more belong?
No more with scorn of violence and wrong
Doth forming Nature now her sons inspire,
That, like some mystery to few reveal'd,
The skill of arms abash'd and awed they yield,
And from their own defence with hopeless hearts retire?
11 O shame to human life, to human laws!
The loose adventurer, hireling of a day,
Who his fell sword without affection draws,
Whose God, whose country, is a tyrant's pay,
This man the lessons of the field can learn;
Can every palm, which decks a warrior, earn,
And every pledge of conquest: while in vain,
To guard your altars, your paternal lands,
Are social arms held out to your free hands:
Too arduous is the lore: too irksome were the pain.
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