No more, my son, the rural reed employ,
Nor trill the trifting strain of empty joy;
No more thy love-resounding sonnets suit
To notes of pastoral pipe or oaten flute.
For hark! high-thron'd on you majestic walls,
To the dear Muse afflicted Freedom calls:
When Freedom calls, and Oxford bids thee sing,
Why stays thy hand to strike the sounding string?
While thus, in Freedom's and in Phoebus' spite,
The venal sons of slavish Cam, unite;
To shake yon towers, when Malice rears her crest,
Shall all my sons in silence idly rest?