YOU brave heroic minds   Worthy your country's name,     That honour still pursue;     Go and subdue! Whilst loitering hinds   Lurk here at home with shame.

Britons, you stay too long:   Quickly aboard bestow you,     And with a merry gale     Swell your stretch'd sail With vows as strong   As the winds that blow you.

Your course securely steer,   West and by south forth keep!     Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals     When Eolus scowls You need not fear;   So absolute the deep.

And cheerfully at sea   Success you still entice     To get the pearl and gold,     And ours to hold Virginia,   Earth's only paradise.

Where nature hath in store   Fowl, venison, and fish,     And the fruitfull'st soil     Without your toil Three harvests more,   All greater than your wish.

And the ambitious vine   Crowns with his purple mass     The cedar reaching high     To kiss the sky, The cypress, pine,   And useful sassafras.

To whom the Golden Age   Still nature's laws doth give,     No other cares attend,     But them to defend From winter's rage,   That long there doth not live.

When as the luscious smell   Of that delicious land     Above the seas that flows     The clear wind throws, Your hearts to swell   Approaching the dear strand;

In kenning of the shore   (Thanks to God first given)     O you the happiest men,     Be frolic then! Let cannons roar,   Frighting the wide heaven.

And in regions far,   Such heroes bring ye forth     As those from whom we came;     And plant our name Under that star   Not known unto our North.

And as there plenty grows   Of laurel everywhere—     Apollo's sacred tree—     You it may see A poet's brows   To crown, that may sing there.

Thy Voyages attend,   Industrious Hakluyt,     Whose reading shall inflame     Men to seek fame, And much commend   To after times thy wit.