Войти в систему
Войти с помощью соц. сетей:
What cannot active government perform.
New moulding Man? Wide stretching from these shores,
People savage from remontest time,
A huge neglected empire one vast Mind.
By Heaven inspir'd, from Gothic darkness cali'd.
Immortal Peter! first of monarchs' He
His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods her seas, her ill-submitting sons,
And while the fierce Barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he rais'd the Man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd
Thro'long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state! behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince.
Who left his native throne, where reign'd till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power;
Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of courts;
And roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool,
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts
Of civil wisdom and of martial skille,
Charg'd with the stores Europe home he goes!
Then cities rise amid th'illumin'd waste;
O'er Joyless deserts smiles the rural ring;
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th'astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltick roar,
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the north,
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth files the land, and Ignorance, and Vice,
Of old dishonour proud; it glows around,
Taught by the Royal Hand that rous'd the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade:
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforc'd,
More potent still his great example shew'd.
Войти с помощью соц. сетей: