His Return to London
From the dull confines of the drooping west
To see the day spring from the pregnant east,
Ravish’d in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blest place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallow’d foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown’d.
O fruitful genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, year by year.
O place! O people! Manners! fram’d to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free—born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is, though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call’d back, henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess’d by thee!
For, rather than I’ll to the west return,
I’ll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.
