Now basket up the family of plaguesThat waste our vitals. Peculation, saleOf honour, perjury, corruption, fraudsBy forgery, by subterfuge of law,By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keenAs the necessities their authors feel;Then cast them, closely bundled, every bratAt the right door. Profusion is its sire.Profusion unrestrained, with all that’s baseIn character, has littered all the land,And bred within the memory of no fewA priesthood such as Baal’s was of old,A people such as never was till now.It is a hungry vice:—it eats up allThat gives society its beauty, strength,Convenience, and security, and use;Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trappedAnd gibbeted, as fast as catchpole clawsCan seize the slippery prey; unties the knotOf union, and converts the sacred bandThat holds mankind together to a scourge.Profusion, deluging a state with lustsOf grossest nature and of worst effects,Prepares it for its ruin; hardens, blinds,And warps the consciences of public menTill they can laugh at virtue; mock the foolsThat trust them; and, in the end, disclose a faceThat would have shocked credulity herself,Unmasked, vouchsafing this their sole excuse;—Since all alike are selfish, why not they?This does Profusion, and the accursed causeOf such deep mischief has itself a cause.
In colleges and halls, in ancient days,When learning, virtue, piety, and truthWere precious, and inculcated with care,There dwelt a sage called Discipline. His head,Not yet by time completely silvered o’er,Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,But strong for service still, and unimpaired.His eye was meek and gentle, and a smilePlayed on his lips, and in his speech was heardPaternal sweetness, dignity, and love.The occupation dearest to his heartWas to encourage goodness. He would strokeThe head of modest and ingenuous worth,That blushed at its own praise, and press the youthClose to his side that pleased him. Learning grewBeneath his care, a thriving, vigorous plant;The mind was well informed, the passions heldSubordinate, and diligence was choice.If e’er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must,That one among so many overleapedThe limits of control, his gentle eyeGrew stern, and darted a severe rebuke;His frown was full of terror, and his voiceShook the delinquent with such fits of aweAs left him not, till penitence had wonLost favour back again, and closed the breach.But Discipline, a faithful servant long,Declined at length into the vale of years;A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eyeWas quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrungGrew tremulous, and moved derision moreThan reverence in perverse, rebellious youth.So colleges and halls neglected muchTheir good old friend, and Discipline at length,O’erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died.Then study languished, emulation slept,And virtue fled. The schools became a sceneOf solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts,His cap well lined with logic not his own,With parrot tongue performed the scholar’s part,Proceeding soon a graduated dunce.Then compromise had place, and scrutinyBecame stone-blind, precedence went in truck,And he was competent whose purse was so.A dissolution of all bonds ensued,The curbs invented for the mulish mouthOf headstrong youth were broken; bars and boltsGrew rusty by disuse, and massy gatesForgot their office, opening with a touch;Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade;The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest,A mockery of the world. What need of theseFor gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure,Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seenWith belted waist, and pointers at their heels,Than in the bounds of duty? What was learned,If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot,And such expense as pinches parents blueAnd mortifies the liberal hand of love,Is squandered in pursuit of idle sportsAnd vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name,That sits a stigma on his father’s house,And cleaves through life inseparably closeTo him that wears it. What can after-gamesOf riper joys, and commerce with the world,The lewd vain world that must receive him soon,Add to such erudition thus acquired,Where science and where virtue are professed?They may confirm his habits, rivet fastHis folly, but to spoil him is a taskThat bids defiance to the united powersOf fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews.Now, blame we most the nurselings, or the nurse?The children crooked and twisted and deformedThrough want of care, or her whose winking eyeAnd slumbering oscitancy mars the brood?The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge,She needs herself correction; needs to learnThat it is dangerous sporting with the world,With things so sacred as a nation’s trust;The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.
All are not such. I had a brother once—Peace to the memory of a man of worth,A man of letters and of manners too—Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles.He graced a college in which order yetWas sacred, and was honoured, loved, and wept,By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.Some minds are tempered happily, and mixtWith such ingredients of good sense and tasteOf what is excellent in man, they thirstWith such a zeal to be what they approve,That no restraints can circumscribe them moreThan they themselves by choice, for wisdom’s sake.Nor can example hurt them. What they seeOf vice in others but enhancing moreThe charms of virtue in their just esteem.If such escape contagion, and emergePure, from so foul a pool, to shine abroad,And give the world their talents and themselves,Small thanks to those whose negligence or slothExposed their inexperience to the snare,And left them to an undirected choice.
See, then, the quiver broken and decayed,In which are kept our arrows. Rusting thereIn wild disorder and unfit for use,What wonder if discharged into the worldThey shame their shooters with a random flight,Their points obtuse and feathers drunk with wine.Well may the Church wage unsuccessful warWith such artillery armed. Vice parries wideThe undreaded volley with a sword of straw,And stands an impudent and fearless mark.
Have we not tracked the felon home, and foundHis birthplace and his dam? The country mourns—Mourns, because every plague that can infestSociety, that saps and worms the baseOf the edifice that Policy has raised,Swarms in all quarters; meets the eye, the ear,And suffocates the breath at every turn.Profusion breeds them. And the cause itselfOf that calamitous mischief has been found,Found, too, where most offensive, in the skirtsOf the robed pedagogue. Else, let the arraignedStand up unconscious and refute the charge.So, when the Jewish leader stretched his armAnd waved his rod divine, a race obscene,Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forthPolluting Egypt. Gardens, fields, and plainsWere covered with the pest. The streets were filled;The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook,Nor palaces nor even chambers ’scaped,And the land stank, so numerous was the fry.
Asone who, long in thickets and in brakesEntangled, winds now this way and now thatHis devious course uncertain, seeking home;Or, having long in miry ways been foiledAnd sore discomfited, from slough to sloughPlunging, and half despairing of escape,If chance at length he find a greensward smoothAnd faithful to the foot, his spirits rise,He chirrups brisk his ear-erecting steed,And winds his way with pleasure and with ease;So I, designing other themes, and calledTo adorn the Sofa with eulogium due,To tell its slumbers and to paint its dreams,Have rambled wide. In country, city, seatOf academic fame, howe’er deserved,Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last.But now with pleasant pace, a cleanlier roadI mean to tread. I feel myself at large,Courageous, and refreshed for future toil,If toil await me, or if dangers new.
Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflectMost part an empty ineffectual sound,What chance that I, to fame so little known,Nor conversant with men or manners much,Should speak to purpose, or with better hopeCrack the satiric thong? ’Twere wiser farFor me, enamoured of sequestered scenes,And charmed with rural beauty, to repose,Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vineMy languid limbs, when summer sears the plains;Or when rough winter rages, on the softAnd sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous airFeeds a blue flame and makes a cheerful hearth;There, undisturbed by folly, and apprisedHow great the danger of disturbing her,To muse in silence, or at least confineRemarks that gall so many to the few,My partners in retreat. Disgust concealedIs ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the faultIs obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.
Domestic happiness, thou only blissOf Paradise that has survived the fall!Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure,Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirmOr too incautious to preserve thy sweetsUnmixed with drops of bitter, which neglectOr temper sheds into thy crystal cup.Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine armsShe smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored,That reeling goddess with the zoneless waistAnd wandering eyes, still leaning on the armOf Novelty, her fickle frail support;For thou art meek and constant, hating change,And finding in the calm of truth-tried loveJoys that her stormy raptures never yield.Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we madeOf honour, dignity, and fair renown,Till prostitution elbows us asideIn all our crowded streets, and senates seemConvened for purposes of empire less,Than to release the adult’ress from her bond.The adult’ress! what a theme for angry verse,What provocation to the indignant heartThat feels for injured love! but I disdainThe nauseous task to paint her as she is,Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame.No; let her pass, and charioted alongIn guilty splendour shake the public ways;The frequency of crimes has washed them white,And verse of mine shall never brand the wretchWhom matrons now of character unsmirchedAnd chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own.Virtue and vice had boundaries in old timeNot to be passed; and she that had renouncedHer sex’s honour, was renounced herselfBy all that prized it; not for prudery’s sake,But dignity’s, resentful of the wrong.’Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waifDesirous to return, and not received;But was a wholesome rigour in the main,And taught the unblemished to preserve with careThat purity, whose loss was loss of all.Men, too, were nice in honour in those days,And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped,And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained,Was marked and shunned as odious. He that soldHis country, or was slack when she requiredHis every nerve in action and at stretch,Paid with the blood that he had basely sparedThe price of his default. But now,—yes, now,We are become so candid and so fair,So liberal in construction, and so richIn Christian charity (good-natured age!)That they are safe, sinners of either sex,Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, well bred,Well equipaged, is ticket good enoughTo pass us readily through every door.Hypocrisy, detest her as we may(And no man’s hatred ever wronged her yet),May claim this merit still—that she admitsThe worth of what she mimics with such care,And thus gives virtue indirect applause;But she has burnt her mask, not needed here,Where vice has such allowance, that her shiftsAnd specious semblances have lost their use.
I was a stricken deer that left the herdLong since; with many an arrow deep infixtMy panting side was charged, when I withdrewTo seek a tranquil death in distant shades.There was I found by one who had himselfBeen hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.With gentle force soliciting the dartsHe drew them forth, and healed and bade me live.Since then, with few associates, in remoteAnd silent woods I wander, far from thoseMy former partners of the peopled scene,With few associates, and not wishing more.Here much I ruminate, as much I may,With other views of men and manners nowThan once, and others of a life to come.I see that all are wanderers, gone astrayEach in his own delusions; they are lostIn chase of fancied happiness, still woo’dAnd never won. Dream after dream ensues,And still they dream that they shall still succeed,And still are disappointed: rings the worldWith the vain stir. I sum up half mankind,And add two-thirds of the remaining half,And find the total of their hopes and fearsDreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gayAs if created only, like the flyThat spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon,To sport their season and be seen no more.The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise,And pregnant with discoveries new and rare.Some write a narrative of wars, and featsOf heroes little known, and call the rantA history; describe the man, of whomHis own coevals took but little note,And paint his person, character, and views,As they had known him from his mother’s womb;They disentangle from the puzzled skein,In which obscurity has wrapped them up,The threads of politic and shrewd designThat ran through all his purposes, and chargeHis mind with meanings that he never had,Or, having, kept concealed. Some drill and boreThe solid earth, and from the strata thereExtract a register, by which we learnThat He who made it and revealed its dateTo Moses, was mistaken in its age.Some, more acute and more industrious still,Contrive creation; travel nature upTo the sharp peak of her sublimest height,And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixt,And planetary some; what gave them firstRotation, from what fountain flowed their light.Great contest follows, and much learned dustInvolves the combatants, each claiming truth,And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spendThe little wick of life’s poor shallow lampIn playing tricks with nature, giving lawsTo distant worlds, and trifling in their own.Is’t not a pity now, that tickling rheumsShould ever tease the lungs and blear the sightOf oracles like these? Great pity, too,That having wielded the elements, and builtA thousand systems, each in his own way,They should go out in fume and be forgot?Ah, what is life thus spent? and what are theyBut frantic who thus spend it? all for smoke—Eternity for bubbles proves at lastA senseless bargain. When I see such gamesPlayed by the creatures of a Power who swearsThat He will judge the earth, and call the foolTo a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain,And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well,And prove it in the infallible resultSo hollow and so false—I feel my heartDissolve in pity, and account the learned,If this be learning, most of all deceived.Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleepsWhile thoughtful man is plausibly amused.Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I,From reveries so airy, from the toilOf dropping buckets into empty wells,And growing old in drawing nothing up!
’Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound,Terribly arched and aquiline his nose,And overbuilt with most impending brows,’Twere well could you permit the world to liveAs the world pleases. What’s the world to you?—Much. I was born of woman, and drew milkAs sweet as charity from human breasts.I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,And exercise all functions of a man.How then should I and any man that livesBe strangers to each other? Pierce my vein,Take of the crimson stream meandering there,And catechise it well. Apply your glass,Search it, and prove now if it be not bloodCongenial with thine own; and if it be,What edge of subtlety canst thou supposeKeen enough, wise and skilful as thou art,To cut the link of brotherhood, by whichOne common Maker bound me to the kind?True; I am no proficient, I confess,In arts like yours. I cannot call the swiftAnd perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath;I cannot analyse the air, nor catchThe parallax of yonder luminous pointThat seems half quenched in the immense abyss:Such powers I boast not—neither can I restA silent witness of the headlong rage,Or heedless folly, by which thousands die,Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.
God never meant that man should scale the heavensBy strides of human wisdom. In His works,Though wondrous, He commands us in His WordTo seek Him rather where His mercy shines.The mind indeed, enlightened from above,Views Him in all; ascribes to the grand causeThe grand effect; acknowledges with joyHis manner, and with rapture tastes His style.But never yet did philosophic tube,That brings the planets home into the eyeOf observation, and discovers, elseNot visible, His family of worlds,Discover Him that rules them; such a veilHangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth,And dark in things divine. Full often tooOur wayward intellect, the more we learnOf nature, overlooks her Author more;From instrumental causes proud to drawConclusions retrograde, and mad mistake:But if His Word once teach us, shoot a rayThrough all the heart’s dark chambers, and revealTruths undiscerned but by that holy light,Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptisedIn the pure fountain of eternal love,Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she seesAs meant to indicate a God to man,GivesHimHis praise, and forfeits not her own.Learning has borne such fruit in other daysOn all her branches. Piety has foundFriends in the friends of science, and true prayerHas flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!Sagacious reader of the works of God,And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine,Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,And fed on manna. And such thine, in whomOur British Themis gloried with just cause,Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised,And sound integrity not more, than famedFor sanctity of manners undefiled.
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fadesLike the fair flower dishevelled in the wind;Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;The man we celebrate must find a tomb,And we that worship him, ignoble graves.Nothing is proof against the general curseOf vanity, that seizes all below.The only amaranthine flower on earthIs virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.But what is truth? ’twas Pilate’s question putTo truth itself, that deigned him no reply.And wherefore? will not God impart His lightTo them that ask it?—Freely—’tis His joy,His glory, and His nature to impart.But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.What’s that which brings contempt upon a bookAnd him that writes it, though the style be neat,The method clear, and argument exact?That makes a minister in holy thingsThe joy of many, and the dread of more,His name a theme for praise and for reproach?—That, while it gives us worth in God’s account,Depreciates and undoes us in our own?What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,That learning is too proud to gather up,But which the poor and the despised of allSeek and obtain, and often find unsought?Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.
Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man,Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,Domestic life in rural leisure passed!Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,Though many boast thy favours, and affectTo understand and choose thee for their own.But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss,Even as his first progenitor, and quits,Though placed in paradise, for earth has stillSome traces of her youthful beauty left,Substantial happiness for transient joy.Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurseThe growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest,By every pleasing image they present,Reflections such as meliorate the heart,Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;Scenes such as these, ’tis his supreme delightTo fill with riot and defile with blood.Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutesWe persecute, annihilate the tribesThat draw the sportsman over hill and daleFearless, and rapt away from all his cares;Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again,Nor baited hook deceive the fish’s eye;Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and songBe quelled in all our summer months’ retreats;How many self-deluded nymphs and swains,Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!They love the country, and none else, who seekFor their own sake its silence and its shade;Delights which who would leave, that has a heartSusceptible of pity, or a mindCultured and capable of sober thought,For all the savage din of the swift pack,And clamours of the field? Detested sport,That owes its pleasures to another’s pain,That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieksOf harmless nature, dumb, but yet enduedWith eloquence, that agonies inspire,Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs!Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never findA corresponding tone in jovial souls.Well—one at least is safe. One sheltered hareHas never heard the sanguinary yellOf cruel man, exulting in her woes.Innocent partner of my peaceful home,Whom ten long years’ experience of my careHas made at last familiar, she has lostMuch of her vigilant instinctive dread,Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.Yes—thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the handThat feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floorAt evening, and at night retire secureTo thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarmed;For I have gained thy confidence, have pledgedAll that is human in me to protectThine unsuspecting gratitude and love.If I survive thee I will dig thy grave,And when I place thee in it, sighing say,I knew at least one hare that had a friend.
How various his employments, whom the worldCalls idle, and who justly in returnEsteems that busy world an idler, too!Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,Delightful industry enjoyed at home,And nature in her cultivated trimDressed to his taste, inviting him abroad—Can he want occupation who has these?Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,Not waste it; and aware that human lifeIs but a loan to be repaid with use,When He shall call His debtors to account,From whom are all our blessings; business findsEven here: while sedulous I seek to improve,At least neglect not, or leave unemployed,The mind He gave me; driving it, though slackToo oft, and much impeded in its workBy causes not to be divulged in vain,To its just point—the service of mankind.He that attends to his interior self,That has a heart and keeps it; has a mindThat hungers and supplies it; and who seeksA social, not a dissipated life,Has business; feels himself engaged to achieveNo unimportant, though a silent task.A life all turbulence and noise may seem,To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;But wisdom is a pearl with most successSought in still water, and beneath clear skies.He that is ever occupied in storms,Or dives not for it or brings up instead,Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.
The morning finds the self-sequestered manFresh for his task, intend what task he may.Whether inclement seasons recommendHis warm but simple home, where he enjoys,With her who shares his pleasures and his heart,Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymphWhich neatly she prepares; then to his bookWell chosen, and not sullenly perusedIn selfish silence, but imparted oftAs aught occurs that she may smile to hear,Or turn to nourishment digested well.Or if the garden with its many cares,All well repaid, demand him, he attendsThe welcome call, conscious how much the handOf lubbard labour needs his watchful eye,Oft loitering lazily if not o’erseen,Or misapplying his unskilful strength.Nor does he govern only or direct,But much performs himself; no works indeedThat ask robust tough sinews, bred to toil,Servile employ—but such as may amuse,Not tire, demanding rather skill than force.Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his treesThat meet, no barren interval between,With pleasure more than even their fruits afford,Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel.These, therefore, are his own peculiar charge,No meaner hand may discipline the shoots,None but his steel approach them. What is weak,Distempered, or has lost prolific powers,Impaired by age, his unrelenting handDooms to the knife. Nor does he spare the softAnd succulent that feeds its giant growth,But barren, at the expense of neighbouring twigsLess ostentatious, and yet studded thickWith hopeful gems. The rest, no portion leftThat may disgrace his art, or disappointLarge expectation, he disposes neatAt measured distances, that air and sunAdmitted freely may afford their aid,And ventilate and warm the swelling buds.Hence Summer has her riches, Autumn hence,And hence even Winter fills his withered handWith blushing fruits, and plenty not his own,Fair recompense of labour well bestowedAnd wise precaution, which a clime so rudeMakes needful still, whose Spring is but the childOf churlish Winter, in her froward moodsDiscovering much the temper of her sire.For oft, as if in her the stream of mildMaternal nature had reversed its course,She brings her infants forth with many smiles,But, once delivered, kills them with a frown.He therefore, timely warned, himself suppliesHer want of care, screening and keeping warmThe plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweepHis garlands from the boughs. Again, as oftAs the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild,The fence withdrawn, he gives them ev’ry beam,And spreads his hopes before the blaze of day.
To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd,So grateful to the palate, and when rareSo coveted, else base and disesteemed—Food for the vulgar merely—is an artThat toiling ages have but just matured,And at this moment unessayed in song.Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice long since,Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard,And these the Grecian in ennobling strains;And in thy numbers, Philips, shines for ayeThe solitary Shilling. Pardon then,Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame!The ambition of one meaner far, whose powersPresuming an attempt not less sublime,Pant for the praise of dressing to the tasteOf critic appetite, no sordid fare,A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce.
The stable yields a stercoraceous heapImpregnated with quick fermenting salts,And potent to resist the freezing blast.For ere the beech and elm have cast their leafDeciduous, and when now November darkChecks vegetation in the torpid plantExposed to his cold breath, the task begins.Warily therefore, and with prudent heedHe seeks a favoured spot, that where he buildsThe agglomerated pile, his frame may frontThe sun’s meridian disk, and at the backEnjoy close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedgeImpervious to the wind. First he bids spreadDry fern or littered hay, that may imbibeThe ascending damps; then leisurely impose,And lightly, shaking it with agile handFrom the full fork, the saturated straw.What longest binds the closest, forms secureThe shapely side, that as it rises takesBy just degrees an overhanging breadth,Sheltering the base with its projected eaves.The uplifted frame compact at every joint,And overlaid with clear translucent glass,He settles next upon the sloping mount,Whose sharp declivity shoots off secureFrom the dashed pane the deluge as it falls.He shuts it close, and the first labour ends.Thrice must the voluble and restless earthSpin round upon her axle, ere the warmthSlow gathering in the midst, through the square massDiffused, attain the surface. When, behold!A pestilent and most corrosive steam,Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast,And fast condensed upon the dewy sash,Asks egress; which obtained, the overchargedAnd drenched conservatory breathes abroad,In volumes wheeling slow, the vapour dank,And purified, rejoices to have lostIts foul inhabitant. But to assuageThe impatient fervour which it first conceivesWithin its reeking bosom, threatening deathTo his young hopes, requires discreet delay.Experience, slow preceptress, teaching oftThe way to glory by miscarriage foul,Must prompt him, and admonish how to catchThe auspicious moment, when the tempered heat,Friendly to vital motion, may affordSoft fermentation, and invite the seed.The seed selected wisely, plump and smoothAnd glossy, he commits to pots of sizeDiminutive, well filled with well-preparedAnd fruitful soil, that has been treasured long,And drunk no moisture from the dripping clouds:These on the warm and genial earth that hidesThe smoking manure, and o’erspreads it all,He places lightly, and, as time subduesThe rage of fermentation, plunges deepIn the soft medium, till they stand immersed.Then rise the tender germs upstarting quickAnd spreading wide their spongy lobes; at firstPale, wan, and livid; but assuming soon,If fanned by balmy and nutritious airStrained through the friendly mats, a vivid green.Two leaves produced, two rough indented leaves,Cautious he pinches from the second stalkA pimple, that portends a future sprout,And interdicts its growth. Thence straight succeedThe branches, sturdy to his utmost wish,Prolific all, and harbingers of more.The crowded roots demand enlargement nowAnd transplantation in an ampler space.Indulged in what they wish, they soon supplyLarge foliage, overshadowing golden flowers,Blown on the summit of the apparent fruit.These have their sexes, and when summer shinesThe bee transports the fertilising mealFrom flower to flower, and even the breathing airWafts the rich prize to its appointed use.Not so when winter scowls. Assistant artThen acts in nature’s office, brings to passThe glad espousals and insures the crop.
Grudge not, ye rich (since luxury must haveHis dainties, and the world’s more numerous halfLives by contriving delicates for you),Grudge not the cost. Ye little know the cares,The vigilance, the labour, and the skillThat day and night are exercised, and hangUpon the ticklish balance of suspense,That ye may garnish your profuse regalesWith summer fruits, brought forth by wintry suns.Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwartThe process. Heat and cold, and wind and steam,Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming fliesMinute as dust and numberless, oft workDire disappointment that admits no cure,And which no care can obviate. It were long,Too long to tell the expedients and the shiftsWhich he, that fights a season so severe,Devises, while he guards his tender trust,And oft, at last, in vain. The learned and wiseSarcastic would exclaim, and judge the songCold as its theme, and, like its theme, the fruitOf too much labour, worthless when produced.
Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.Unconscious of a less propitious climeThere blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,While the winds whistle and the snows descend.The spiry myrtle with unwithering leafShines there and flourishes. The golden boastOf Portugal and Western India there,The ruddier orange and the paler lime,Peep through their polished foliage at the storm,And seem to smile at what they need not fear.The amomum there with intermingling flowersAnd cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boastsHer crimson honours, and the spangled beau,Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long,All plants, of every leaf, that can endureThe winter’s frown if screened from his shrewd bite,Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims,Levantine regions these; the Azores sendTheir jessamine; her jessamine remoteCaffraria: foreigners from many lands,They form one social shade, as if convenedBy magic summons of the Orphean lyre.Yet such arrangement, rarely brought to passBut by a master’s hand, disposing wellThe gay diversities of leaf and flower,Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms,And dress the regular yet various scene.Plant behind plant aspiring, in the vanThe dwarfish, in the rear retired, but stillSublime above the rest, the statelier stand.So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome,A noble show, while Roscius trod the stage;And so, while Garrick, as renowned as he,The sons of Albion, fearing each to loseSome note of Nature’s music from his lips,And covetous of Shakespeare’s beauty, seenIn every flash of his far-beaming eye.Nor taste alone and well-contrived displaySuffice to give the marshalled ranks the graceOf their complete effect. Much yet remainsUnsung, and many cares are yet behindAnd more laborious; cares on which dependsTheir vigour, injured soon, not soon restored.The soil must be renewed, which often washedLoses its treasure of salubrious salts,And disappoints the roots; the slender roots,Close interwoven where they meet the vase,Must smooth be shorn away; the sapless branchMust fly before the knife; the withered leafMust be detached, and where it strews the floorSwept with a woman’s neatness, breeding elseContagion, and disseminating death.Discharge but these kind offices (and whoWould spare, that loves them, offices like these?)Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased,The scent regaled, each odoriferous leaf,Each opening blossom, freely breathes abroadIts gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets.
So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,All healthful, are the employs of rural life,Reiterated as the wheel of timeRuns round, still ending, and beginning still.Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knollThat, softly swelled and gaily dressed, appearsA flowery island from the dark green lawnEmerging, must be deemed a labour dueTo no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste.Here also grateful mixture of well-matchedAnd sorted hues (each giving each relief,And by contrasted beauty shining more)Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous spade,May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home,But elegance, chief grace the garden showsAnd most attractive, is the fair resultOf thought, the creature of a polished mind.Without it, all is Gothic as the sceneTo which the insipid citizen resorts,Near yonder heath; where industry misspent,But proud of his uncouth, ill-chosen task,Has made a heaven on earth; with suns and moonsOf close-rammed stones has charged the encumbered soil,And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust.He, therefore, who would see his flowers disposedSightly and in just order, ere he givesThe beds the trusted treasure of their seeds,Forecasts the future whole; that when the sceneShall break into its preconceived display,Each for itself, and all as with one voiceConspiring, may attest his bright design.Nor even then, dismissing as performedHis pleasant work, may he suppose it done.Few self-supported flowers endure the windUninjured, but expect the upholding aidOf the smooth-shaven prop, and neatly tiedAre wedded thus, like beauty to old age,For interest sake, the living to the dead.Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffusedAnd lowly creeping, modest and yet fair;Like virtue, thriving most where little seen.Some, more aspiring, catch the neighbour shrubWith clasping tendrils, and invest his branch,Else unadorned, with many a gay festoonAnd fragrant chaplet, recompensing wellThe strength they borrow with the grace they lend.All hate the rank society of weeds,Noisome, and very greedy to exhaustThe impoverished earth; an overbearing race,That, like the multitude made faction-mad,Disturb good order, and degrade true worth.
Oh blest seclusion from a jarring world,Which he, thus occupied, enjoys! RetreatCannot, indeed, to guilty man restoreLost innocence, or cancel follies past;But it has peace, and much secures the mindFrom all assaults of evil; proving stillA faithful barrier, not o’erleaped with easeBy vicious custom raging uncontrolledAbroad and desolating public life.When fierce temptation, seconded withinBy traitor appetite, and armed with dartsTempered in hell, invades the throbbing breast,To combat may be glorious, and successPerhaps may crown us, but to fly is safe.Had I the choice of sublunary good,What could I wish that I possess not here?Health, leisure; means to improve it, friendship, peace,No loose or wanton though a wandering muse,And constant occupation without care.Thus blest, I draw a picture of that bliss;Hopeless, indeed, that dissipated mindsAnd profligate abusers of a worldCreated fair so much in vain for them,Should seek the guiltless joys that I describe,Allured by my report; but sure no lessThat self-condemned they must neglect the prize,And what they will not taste, must yet approve.What we admire we praise; and when we praiseAdvance it into notice, that, its worthAcknowledged, others may admire it too.I therefore recommend, though at the riskOf popular disgust, yet boldly still,The cause of piety and sacred truthAnd virtue, and those scenes which God ordainedShould best secure them and promote them most;Scenes that I love, and with regret perceiveForsaken, or through folly not enjoyed.Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles,And chaste, though unconfined, whom I extol.Not as the prince in Shushan, when he called,Vain-glorious of her charms, his Vashti forth,To grace the full pavilion. His designWas but to boast his own peculiar good,Which all might view with envy, none partake.My charmer is not mine alone; my sweets,And she that sweetens all my bitters, too,Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose formAnd lineaments divine I trace a handThat errs not, and find raptures still renewed,Is free to all men—universal prize.Strange that so fair a creature should yet wantAdmirers, and be destined to divideWith meaner objects even the few she finds.Stript of her ornaments, her leaves and flowers,She loses all her influence. Cities thenAttract us, and neglected Nature pines,Abandoned, as unworthy of our love.But are not wholesome airs, though unperfumedBy roses, and clear suns, though scarcely felt,And groves, if unharmonious yet secureFrom clamour and whose very silence charms,To be preferred to smoke—to the eclipseThat Metropolitan volcanoes make,Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long,And to the stir of commerce, driving slow,And thundering loud with his ten thousand wheels?They would be, were not madness in the headAnd folly in the heart; were England nowWhat England was, plain, hospitable, kind,And undebauched. But we have bid farewellTo all the virtues of those better days,And all their honest pleasures. Mansions onceKnew their own masters, and laborious handsThat had survived the father, served the son.Now the legitimate and rightful lordIs but a transient guest, newly arrivedAnd soon to be supplanted. He that sawHis patrimonial timber cast its leaf,Sells the last scantling, and transfers the priceTo some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again.Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile,Then advertised, and auctioneered away.The country starves, and they that feed the o’er-chargedAnd surfeited lewd town with her fair dues,By a just judgment strip and starve themselves.The wings that waft our riches out of sightGrow on the gamester’s elbows, and the alertAnd nimble motion of those restless joints,That never tire, soon fans them all away.Improvement too, the idol of the age,Is fed with many a victim. Lo! he comes—The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears.Down falls the venerable pile, the abodeOf our forefathers, a grave whiskered race,But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead,But in a distant spot; where more exposedIt may enjoy the advantage of the NorthAnd aguish East, till time shall have transformedThose naked acres to a sheltering grove.He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn,Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise,And streams, as if created for his use,Pursue the track of his directed wandSinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades,Even as he bids. The enraptured owner smiles.’Tis finished. And yet, finished as it seems,Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show,A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.Drained to the last poor item of his wealth,He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished planThat he has touched and retouched, many a dayLaboured, and many a night pursued in dreams,Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heavenHe wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy.And now perhaps the glorious hour is come,When having no stake left, no pledge to endearHer interests, or that gives her sacred causeA moment’s operation on his love,He burns with most intense and flagrant zealTo serve his country. Ministerial graceDeals him out money from the public chest,Or, if that mine be shut, some private purseSupplies his need with an usurious loan,To be refunded duly, when his vote,Well-managed, shall have earned its worthy price.Oh, innocent compared with arts like these,Crape and cocked pistol and the whistling ballSent through the traveller’s temples! He that findsOne drop of heaven’s sweet mercy in his cup,Can dig, beg, rot, and perish well-content,So he may wrap himself in honest ragsAt his last gasp; but could not for a worldFish up his dirty and dependent breadFrom pools and ditches of the commonwealth,Sordid and sickening at his own success.
Ambition, avarice, penury incurredBy endless riot, vanity, the lustOf pleasure and variety, despatch,As duly as the swallows disappear,The world of wandering knights and squires to town;London engulfs them all. The shark is there,And the shark’s prey; the spendthrift, and the leechThat sucks him. There the sycophant, and heThat with bare-headed and obsequious bowsBegs a warm office, doomed to a cold jailAnd groat per diem if his patron frown.The levee swarms, as if in golden pompWere charactered on every statesman’s door,‘Battered and bankrupt fortunes mended here.’These are the charms that sully and eclipseThe charms of nature. ’Tis the cruel gripeThat lean hard-handed poverty inflicts,The hope of better things, the chance to win,The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused,That, at the sound of Winter’s hoary wing,Unpeople all our counties of such herdsOf fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, looseAnd wanton vagrants, as make London, vastAnd boundless as it is, a crowded coop.
Oh thou resort and mart of all the earth,Chequered with all complexions of mankind,And spotted with all crimes; in whom I seeMuch that I love, and more that I admire,And all that I abhor; thou freckled fairThat pleases and yet shocks me, I can laughAnd I can weep, can hope, and can despond,Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee!Ten righteous would have saved a city once,And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee—That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else,And therefore more obnoxious at this hourThan Sodom in her day had power to be,For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain.
Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge,That with its wearisome but needful lengthBestrides the wintry flood, in which the moonSees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;—He comes, the herald of a noisy world,With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,News from all nations lumbering at his back.True to his charge the close-packed load behind,Yet careless what he brings, his one concernIs to conduct it to the destined inn,And, having dropped the expected bag—pass on.He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of griefPerhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;To him indifferent whether grief or joy.Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wetWith tears that trickled down the writer’s cheeks,Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,Or nymphs responsive, equally affectHis horse and him, unconscious of them all.But oh, the important budget! ushered inWith such heart-shaking music, who can sayWhat are its tidings? have our troops awaked?Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?Is India free? and does she wear her plumedAnd jewelled turban with a smile of peace,Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,The popular harangue, the tart reply,The logic and the wisdom and the witAnd the loud laugh—I long to know them all;I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cups,That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in.Not such his evening, who with shining faceSweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezedAnd bored with elbow-points through both his sides,Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage;Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throbAnd his head thumps, to feed upon the breathOf patriots bursting with heroic rage,Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles.This folio of four pages, happy work!Which not even critics criticise, that holdsInquisitive attention while I readFast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break,What is it but a map of busy life,Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridgeThat tempts ambition. On the summit, see,The seals of office glitter in his eyes;He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels,Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,And with a dextrous jerk soon twists him downAnd wins them, but to lose them in his turn.Here rills of oily eloquence, in softMeanders, lubricate the course they take;The modest speaker is ashamed and grievedTo engross a moment’s notice, and yet begs,Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,However trivial all that he conceives.Sweet bashfulness! it claims, at least, this praise,The dearth of information and good senseThat it foretells us, always comes to pass.Cataracts of declamation thunder here,There forests of no meaning spread the pageIn which all comprehension wanders lost;While fields of pleasantry amuse us there,With merry descants on a nation’s woes.The rest appears a wilderness of strangeBut gay confusion; roses for the cheeksAnd lilies for the brows of faded age,Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets.Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,Sermons and city feasts and favourite airs,Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits,And Katterfelto with his hair on endAt his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
’Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreatTo peep at such a world; to see the stirOf the great Babel and not feel the crowd;To hear the roar she sends through all her gatesAt a safe distance, where the dying soundFalls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.Thus sitting and surveying thus at easeThe globe and its concerns, I seem advancedTo some secure and more than mortal height,That liberates and exempts me from them all.It turns submitted to my view, turns roundWith all its generations; I beholdThe tumult and am still. The sound of warHas lost its terrors ere it reaches me;Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the prideAnd avarice that makes man a wolf to man;Hear the faint echo of those brazen throatsBy which he speaks the language of his heart,And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.He travels and expatiates, as the beeFrom flower to flower so he from land to land;The manners, customs, policy of allPay contribution to the store he gleans,He sucks intelligence in every clime,And spreads the honey of his deep researchAt his return—a rich repast for me.He travels and I too. I tread his deck,Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyesDiscover countries, with a kindred heartSuffer his woes and share in his escapes;While fancy, like the finger of a clock,Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
Oh Winter, ruler of the inverted year,Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled,Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeksFringed with a beard made white with other snowsThan those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throneA sliding car indebted to no wheels,But urged by storms along its slippery way,I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold’st the sunA prisoner in the yet undawning East,Shortening his journey between morn and noon,And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,Down to the rosy west; but kindly stillCompensating his loss with added hoursOf social converse and instructive ease,And gathering at short notice in one groupThe family dispersed, and fixing thoughtNot less dispersed by daylight and its cares.I crown thee king of intimate delights,Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,And all the comforts that the lowly roofOf undisturbed retirement, and the hoursOf long uninterrupted evening know.No rattling wheels stop short before these gates;No powdered pert proficients in the artOf sounding an alarm, assault these doorsTill the street rings; no stationary steedsCough their own knell, while heedless of the soundThe silent circle fan themselves, and quake:But here the needle plies its busy task,The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower,Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,Unfolds its bosom; buds and leaves and sprigsAnd curly tendrils, gracefully disposed,Follow the nimble finger of the fair;A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blowWith most success when all besides decay.The poet’s or historian’s page, by oneMade vocal for the amusement of the rest;The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet soundsThe touch from many a trembling chord shakes out;And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct,And in the charming strife triumphant still,Beguile the night, and set a keener edgeOn female industry; the threaded steelFlies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds.The volume closed, the customary ritesOf the last meal commence: a Roman meal,Such as the mistress of the world once foundDelicious, when her patriots of high note,Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors,And under an old oak’s domestic shade,Enjoyed—spare feast!—a radish and an egg.Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,Nor such as with a frown forbids the playOf fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth;Nor do we madly, like an impious world,Who deem religion frenzy, and the GodThat made them an intruder on their joys,Start at His awful name, or deem His praiseA jarring note; themes of a graver toneExciting oft our gratitude and love,While we retrace with memory’s pointing wandThat calls the past to our exact review,The dangers we have scaped, the broken snare,The disappointed foe, deliverance foundUnlooked for, life preserved and peace restored,Fruits of omnipotent eternal love:—Oh evenings worthy of the gods! exclaimedThe Sabine bard. Oh evenings, I reply,More to be prized and coveted than yours,As more illumined and with nobler truths,That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy.
Is Winter hideous in a garb like this?Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps,The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throngTo thaw him into feeling, or the smartAnd snappish dialogue that flippant witsCall comedy, to prompt him with a smile?The self-complacent actor, when he views(Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house)The slope of faces from the floor to the roof,As if one master-spring controlled them all,Relaxed into an universal grin,Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joyHalf so refined or so sincere as ours.Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricksThat idleness has ever yet contrivedTo fill the void of an unfurnished brain,To palliate dulness and give time a shove.Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing,Unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound.But the world’s time is time in masquerade.Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledgedWith motley plumes, and, where the peacock showsHis azure eyes, is tinctured black and redWith spots quadrangular of diamond form,Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.What should be, and what was an hour-glass once,Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mastWell does the work of his destructive scythe.Thus decked he charms a world whom fashion blindsTo his true worth, most pleased when idle most,Whose only happy are their wasted hours.Even misses, at whose age their mothers woreThe back-string and the bib, assume the dressOf womanhood, sit pupils in the schoolOf card-devoted time, and night by night,Placed at some vacant corner of the board,Learn every trick, and soon play all the game.But truce with censure. Roving as I rove,Where shall I find an end, or how proceed?As he that travels far, oft turns asideTo view some rugged rock, or mouldering tower,Which seen delights him not; then coming home,Describes and prints it, that the world may knowHow far he went for what was nothing worth;So I, with brush in hand and pallet spreadWith colours mixed for a far different use,Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thingThat fancy finds in her excursive flights.
Come, Evening, once again, season of peace,Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,With matron-step slow moving, while the nightTreads on thy sweeping train; one hand employedIn letting fall the curtain of reposeOn bird and beast, the other charged for manWith sweet oblivion of the cares of day;Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems,A star or two just twinkling on thy browSuffices thee; save that the moon is thineNo less than hers, not worn indeed on highWith ostentatious pageantry, but setWith modest grandeur in thy purple zone,Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.Come, then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,Or make me so. Composure is thy gift;And whether I devote thy gentle hoursTo books, to music, or to poet’s toil,To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit,Or twining silken threads round ivory reelsWhen they command whom man was born to please,I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.
Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blazeWith lights, by clear reflection multipliedFrom many a mirror, in which he of Gath,Goliath, might have seen his giant bulkWhole without stooping, towering crest and all,My pleasures too begin. But me perhapsThe glowing hearth may satisfy a whileWith faint illumination, that upliftsThe shadow to the ceiling, there by fitsDancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.Not undelightful is an hour to meSo spent in parlour twilight; such a gloomSuits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,The mind contemplative, with some new themePregnant, or indisposed alike to all.Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powersThat never feel a stupor, know no pause,Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess.Fearless, a soul that does not always think.Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wildSoothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,Trees, churches, and strange visages expressedIn the red cinders, while with poring eyeI gazed, myself creating what I saw.Nor less amused have I quiescent watchedThe sooty films that play upon the barsPendulous, and foreboding in the viewOf superstition, prophesying still,Though still deceived, some stranger’s near approach.’Tis thus the understanding takes reposeIn indolent vacuity of thought,And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the faceConceals the mood lethargic with a maskOf deep deliberation, as the manWere tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost.Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hourAt evening, till at length the freezing blastThat sweeps the bolted shutter, summons homeThe recollected powers, and, snapping shortThe glassy threads with which the fancy weavesHer brittle toys, restores me to myself.How calm is my recess! and how the frostRaging abroad, and the rough wind, endearThe silence and the warmth enjoyed within!I saw the woods and fields at close of dayA variegated show; the meadows greenThough faded, and the lands, where lately wavedThe golden harvest, of a mellow brown,Upturned so lately by the forceful share;I saw far off the weedy fallows smileWith verdure not unprofitable, grazedBy flocks fast feeding, and selecting eachHis favourite herb; while all the leafless grovesThat skirt the horizon wore a sable hue,Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve.To-morrow brings a change, a total change,Which even now, though silently performedAnd slowly, and by most unfelt, the faceOf universal nature undergoes.Fast falls a fleecy shower; the downy flakes,Descending and with never-ceasing lapseSoftly alighting upon all below,Assimilate all objects. Earth receivesGladly the thickening mantle, and the greenAnd tender blade, that feared the chilling blast,Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.
In such a world, so thorny, and where noneFinds happiness unblighted, or if found,Without some thistly sorrow at its side,It seems the part of wisdom, and no sinAgainst the law of love, to measure lotsWith less distinguished than ourselves, that thusWe may with patience bear our moderate ills,And sympathise with others, suffering more.Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalksIn ponderous boots beside his reeking team;The wain goes heavily, impeded soreBy congregating loads adhering closeTo the clogged wheels, and, in its sluggish pace,Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,While every breath, by respiration strongForced downward, is consolidated soonUpon their jutting chests. He, formed to bearThe pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks, and teethPresented bare against the storm, plods on;One hand secures his hat, save when with bothHe brandishes his pliant length of whip,Resounding oft, and never heard in vain.Oh happy, and, in my account, deniedThat sensibility of pain with whichRefinement is endued, thrice happy thou!Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeedThe piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired;The learned finger never need exploreThy vigorous pulse, and the unhealthful East,That breathes the spleen, and searches every boneOf the infirm, is wholesome air to thee.Thy days roll on exempt from household care,Thy waggon is thy wife; and the poor beasts,That drag the dull companion to and fro,Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.Ah, treat them kindly! rude as thou appearest,Yet show that thou hast mercy, which the great,With needless hurry whirled from place to place,Humane as they would seem, not always show.
Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,Such claim compassion in a night like this,And have a friend in every feeling heart.Warmed while it lasts, by labour, all day longThey brave the season, and yet find at eve,Ill clad and fed but sparely, time to cool.The frugal housewife trembles when she lightsHer scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear,But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys;The few small embers left she nurses well.And while her infant race with outspread handsAnd crowded knees sit cowering o’er the sparks,Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed.The man feels least, as more inured than sheTo winter, and the current in his veinsMore briskly moved by his severer toil;Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs.The taper soon extinguished, which I sawDangled along at the cold finger’s endJust when the day declined, and the brown loafLodged on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauceOf sav’ry cheese, or butter costlier still,Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas,Where penury is felt the thought is chained,And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.With all this thrift they thrive not. All the careIngenious parsimony takes, but justSaves the small inventory, bed and stool,Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale.They live, and live without extorted almsFrom grudging hands, but other boast have noneTo soothe their honest pride that scorns to beg,Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love.I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair,For ye are worthy; choosing rather farA dry but independent crust, hard-earnedAnd eaten with a sigh, than to endureThe rugged frowns and insolent rebuffsOf knaves in office, partial in their workOf distribution; liberal of their aidTo clamorous importunity in rags,But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blushTo wear a tattered garb however coarse,Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth;These ask with painful shyness, and, refusedBecause deserving, silently retire.But be ye of good courage! Time itselfShall much befriend you. Time shall give increase,And all your numerous progeny, well trained,But helpless, in few years shall find their hands,And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not wantWhat, conscious of your virtues, we can spare,Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send.I mean the man, who when the distant poorNeed help, denies them nothing but his name.
But poverty with most, who whimper forthTheir long complaints, is self-inflicted woe,The effect of laziness or sottish waste.Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroadFor plunder; much solicitous how bestHe may compensate for a day of sloth,By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong,Woe to the gardener’s pale, the farmer’s hedgePlashed neatly and secured with driven stakesDeep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strengthResistless in so bad a cause, but lameTo better deeds, he bundles up the spoil—An ass’s burden,—and when laden mostAnd heaviest, light of foot steals fast away.Nor does the boarded hovel better guardThe well-stacked pile of riven logs and rootsFrom his pernicious force. Nor will he leaveUnwrenched the door, however well secured,Where chanticleer amidst his harem sleepsIn unsuspecting pomp; twitched from the perchHe gives the princely bird with all his wivesTo his voracious bag, struggling in vain,And loudly wondering at the sudden change.Nor this to feed his own. ’Twere some excuseDid pity of their sufferings warp asideHis principle, and tempt him into sinFor their support, so destitute; but theyNeglected pine at home, themselves, as moreExposed than others, with less scruple madeHis victims, robbed of their defenceless all.Cruel is all he does. ’Tis quenchless thirstOf ruinous ebriety that promptsHis every action, and imbrutes the man.Oh for a law to noose the villain’s neckWho starves his own; who persecutes the bloodHe gave them in his children’s veins, and hatesAnd wrongs the woman he has sworn to love.
Pass where we may, through city, or through town,Village or hamlet of this merry land,Though lean and beggared, every twentieth paceConducts the unguarded nose to such a whiffOf stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styesThat law has licensed, as makes temperance reel.There sit involved and lost in curling cloudsOf Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,The lackey, and the groom. The craftsman thereTakes a Lethean leave of all his toil;Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike,All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screamsPlaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailedIts wasted tones and harmony unheard;Fierce the dispute, whate’er the theme; while she,Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate,Perched on the sign-post, holds with even handHer undecisive scales. In this she laysA weight of ignorance, in that, of pride,And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.Dire is the frequent curse and its twin soundThe cheek-distending oath, not to be praisedAs ornamental, musical, polite,Like those which modern senators employ,Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame.Behold the schools in which plebeian minds,Once simple, are initiated in artsWhich some may practise with politer grace,But none with readier skill! ’Tis here they learnThe road that leads from competence and peaceTo indigence and rapine; till at lastSociety, grown weary of the load,Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out.But censure profits little. Vain the attemptTo advertise in verse a public pest,That, like the filth with which the peasant feedsHis hungry acres, stinks and is of use.The excise is fattened with the rich resultOf all this riot; and ten thousand casks,For ever dribbling out their base contents,Touched by the Midas finger of the state,Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away.Drink and be mad then; ’tis your country bids!Gloriously drunk, obey the important call,Her cause demands the assistance of your throats;—Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.
Would I had fallen upon those happier daysThat poets celebrate; those golden timesAnd those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had heartsThat felt their virtues. Innocence, it seems,From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves;The footsteps of simplicity, impressedUpon the yielding herbage (so they sing),Then were not all effaced. Then speech profaneAnd manners profligate were rarely found,Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed.Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreamsSat for the picture; and the poet’s hand,Imparting substance to an empty shade,Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.Grant it: I still must envy them an ageThat favoured such a dream, in days like theseImpossible, when virtue is so scarceThat to suppose a scene where she presidesIs tramontane, and stumbles all belief.No. We are polished now. The rural lass,Whom once her virgin modesty and grace,Her artless manners and her neat attire,So dignified, that she was hardly lessThan the fair shepherdess of old romance,Is seen no more. The character is lost.Her head adorned with lappets pinned aloftAnd ribbons streaming gay, superbly raisedAnd magnified beyond all human size,Indebted to some smart wig-weaver’s handFor more than half the tresses it sustains;Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering formIll propped upon French heels; she might be deemed(But that the basket dangling on her armInterprets her more truly) of a rankToo proud for dairy-work, or sale of eggs;Expect her soon with foot-boy at her heels,No longer blushing for her awkward load,Her train and her umbrella all her care.
The town has tinged the country; and the stainAppears a spot upon a vestal’s robe,The worse for what it soils. The fashion runsDown into scenes still rural, but alas,Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now.Time was when in the pastoral retreatThe unguarded door was safe; men did not watchTo invade another’s right, or guard their own.Then sleep was undisturbed by fear, unscaredBy drunken howlings; and the chilling taleOf midnight murder was a wonder heardWith doubtful credit, told to frighten babesBut farewell now to unsuspicious nights,And slumbers unalarmed. Now, ere you sleep,See that your polished arms be primed with care,And drop the night-bolt. Ruffians are abroad,And the first larum of the cock’s shrill throatMay prove a trumpet, summoning your earTo horrid sounds of hostile feet within.Even daylight has its dangers; and the walkThrough pathless wastes and woods, unconscious onceOf other tenants than melodious birds,Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold.Lamented change! to which full many a causeInveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires.The course of human things from good to ill,From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails.Increase of power begets increase of wealth;Wealth luxury, and luxury excess;Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plagueThat seizes first the opulent, descendsTo the next rank contagious, and in timeTaints downward all the graduated scaleOf order, from the chariot to the plough.The rich, and they that have an arm to checkThe licence of the lowest in degree,Desert their office; and themselves, intentOn pleasure, haunt the capital, and thusTo all the violence of lawless handsResign the scenes their presence might protect.Authority itself not seldom sleeps,Though resident, and witness of the wrong.The plump convivial parson often bearsThe magisterial sword in vain, and laysHis reverence and his worship both to restOn the same cushion of habitual sloth.Perhaps timidity restrains his arm,When he should strike he trembles, and sets free,Himself enslaved by terror of the band,The audacious convict whom he dares not bind.Perhaps, though by profession ghostly pure,He, too, may have his vice, and sometimes proveLess dainty than becomes his grave outsideIn lucrative concerns. Examine wellHis milk-white hand. The palm is hardly clean—But here and there an ugly smutch appears.Foh! ’twas a bribe that left it. He has touchedCorruption. Whoso seeks an audit herePropitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,Wildfowl or venison, and his errand speeds.
But faster far and more than all the restA noble cause, which none who bears a sparkOf public virtue ever wished removed,Works the deplored and mischievous effect.’Tis universal soldiership has stabbedThe heart of merit in the meaner class.Arms, through the vanity and brainless rageOf those that bear them, in whatever cause,Seem most at variance with all moral good,And incompatible with serious thought.The clown, the child of nature, without guile,Blest with an infant’s ignorance of allBut his own simple pleasures, now and thenA wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair,Is balloted, and trembles at the news.Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swearsA Bible-oath to be whate’er they please,To do he knows not what. The task performed,That instant he becomes the serjeant’s care,His pupil, and his torment, and his jest;His awkward gait, his introverted toes,Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees,Unapt to learn and formed of stubborn stuff,He yet by slow degrees puts off himself,Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well.He stands erect, his slouch becomes a walk,He steps right onward, martial in his air,His form and movement; is as smart aboveAs meal and larded locks can make him: wearsHis hat or his plumed helmet with a grace,And, his three years of heroship expired,Returns indignant to the slighted plough.He hates the field in which no fife or drumAttends him, drives his cattle to a march,And sighs for the smart comrades he has left.’Twere well if his exterior change were all—But with his clumsy port the wretch has lostHis ignorance and harmless manners too.To swear, to game, to drink, to show at homeBy lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach,The great proficiency he made abroad,To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends,To break some maiden’s and his mother’s heart,To be a pest where he was useful once,Are his sole aim, and all his glory now!Man in society is like a flowerBlown in its native bed. ’Tis there aloneHis faculties expanded in full bloomShine out, there only reach their proper use.But man associated and leagued with manBy regal warrant, or self-joined by bondFor interest sake, or swarming into clansBeneath one head for purposes of war,Like flowers selected from the rest, and boundAnd bundled close to fill some crowded vase,Fades rapidly, and by compression marredContracts defilement not to be endured.Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues,And burghers, men immaculate perhapsIn all their private functions, once combined,Become a loathsome body, only fitFor dissolution, hurtful to the main.Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sinAgainst the charities of domestic life,Incorporated, seem at once to loseTheir nature, and, disclaiming all regardFor mercy and the common rights of man,Build factories with blood, conducting tradeAt the sword’s point, and dyeing the white robeOf innocent commercial justice red.Hence too the field of glory, as the worldMisdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,With all the majesty of thundering pomp,Enchanting music and immortal wreaths,Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taughtOn principle, where foppery atonesFor folly, gallantry for every vice.