Ode for General Washington's Birthday

No Spartan tube, no Attic shell, / No lyre Aeolian I awake; / 'Tis liberty's bold note I swell, / Thy harp, Columbia, let me take! / See gathering thousands, while I sing, / A broken chain exulting bring, / And dash it in a tyrant's face, / And dare him to his very beard, / And tell him he no more is feared- / No more the despot of Columbia's race! / A tyrant's proudest insults brav'd, / They shout-a People freed! They hail an Empire saved. / Where is man's god-like form? / Where is that brow erect and bold- / That eye that can unmov'd behold / The wildest rage, the loudest storm / That e'er created fury dared to raise? / Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base, / That tremblest at a despot's nod, / Yet, crouching under the iron rod, / Canst laud the hand that struck th' insulting blow! / Art thou of man's Imperial line? / Dost boast that countenance divine? / Each skulking feature answers, No! / But come, ye sons of Liberty, / Columbia's offspring, brave as free, / In danger's hour still flaming in the van, / Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!

Alfred! on thy starry throne, / Surrounded by the tuneful choir, / The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre, / And rous'd the freeborn Briton's soul of fire, / No more thy England own! / Dare injured nations form the great design, / To make detested tyrants bleed? / Thy England execrates the glorious deed! / Beneath her hostile banners waving, / Every pang of honour braving, / England in thunder calls, "The tyrant's cause is mine! " / That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice / And hell, thro' all her confines, raise the exulting voice, / That hour which saw the generous English name / Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!