1. A people entrenched against adversity
Unshaken by tribulation’s severity

2. Had they but roused to scale distraction’s crest
Distraction’s crest they’d surely have unseated

3. Rebellious, scorning days of suffering yet
To settle, broken, upon anguish’s bed

4. Their age attains the heavens' vaulting scope
Their heads the very clouds began to butt

5. Their pride despite the warring winds bowed down
Their necks before the tempest meekly louted

6. An exemplar guiding times alongside
And transporting eras past astride

7. Should you perplexity itself perplex
Then we perplexity’s perplexity

8. We first in being, dread of all that lives
Among us none is found the dreadful dreads

9. Now ask of those whom heaven’s winds obeyed
And clouds submitted, wind-tossed, to their will

10. Do our canals leak now, or does there sprout
Upon our whips a sudden bloom of flowers?

11. Or have you seen some fault in us, save that
We do not suffer insults with good grace?

12. All hail, from folk who will not be misled
And cannot know the way that loss is tread

13. Creation marveled at your acts, and wide
Around your forests wolves began to pad

14. The path to justice now made plain to all
And naked truth spoke truly, rightly clad

15. No right returns except by way of war
To those who claim it, and blades keep it glad

16. The guttural cry yields not to cooing pleas
Or gentle remonstrance, but to stabs

17. Let fire and iron decide for you
In them concludes all argument and rows