"Thrice genial clime! Oh, favoured, sweet Cabul! Well art thou named the bless'd—the beautiful! With snow-peaked hills around thee,—guarding arms! Ah! would thy sons were worthy of thy charms! Wild are those tribes, a free but barbarous race, Crime still the shadow darkening Nature's face. What to the Affghan's eye is smiling earth? What scenes of glory?—things of little worth; Not his the finer joys, the charms of lore, The taste that brightens, and the thoughts that soar, His highest aim to lead his mountain horde, And bathe in blood his Koran-graven sword."