Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FOREIGN ADDRESS: YE NATIONS, TREMBLE! PARLIAMENT HAS MET, by EDWARD YOUNG (1683-1765)


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THE FOREIGN ADDRESS: YE NATIONS, TREMBLE! PARLIAMENT HAS MET, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Frown you? Frown on; your hour is past!
Last Line: And not abash'd shrink back into their graves.
Subject(s): Great Britain - Parliament


FROWN you? Frown on; your hour is past!
The signal wafted in that blast
Speaks Britain's awful Senate met; beware
Lest in her scale (the womb of right!)
With all your arms, you're found too light,
Till smiles increase that weight your frowns impair.

For, mark the scene of deep debate,
Where Britons sit on Europe's fate;
What loom'd exploit adorns it and inspires?
The walls, the very walls advise,
Each mean, degenerate thought chastise,
And rouse the sons with all their fathers' fires;

Teach them the style they used of old.
Would Britain have her anger told?
Oh, never let a meaner language sound
Than that which through black ether rolls,
Than that which prostrates human souls,
And rocks pale realms, when angry gods have frown'd!

Gods, and their noblest offspring here,
Soft terms refused, impose severe:
Ye nations know! know, all ye sceptred powers!
In sulphurous night, and massy balls,
And floods of flame, the tempest falls,
When Pride presumes, and Britain's Senate lours.

A brighter era is begun;
Our fame advances with the sun;
A virgin Senate blooms: her bosom heaves
With something great, with something new;
Something our god-like sires may view,
And not abash'd shrink back into their graves.





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