But slighted as it is, and by the greatAbandoned, and, which still I more regret,Infected with the manners and the modesIt knew not once, the country wins me still.I never framed a wish or formed a planThat flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss,But there I laid the scene. There early strayedMy fancy, ere yet liberty of choiceHad found me, or the hope of being free.My very dreams were rural, rural tooThe first-born efforts of my youthful muse,Sportive, and jingling her poetic bellsEre yet her ear was mistress of their powers.No bard could please me but whose lyre was tunedTo Nature’s praises. Heroes and their featsFatigued me, never weary of the pipeOf Tityrus, assembling as he sangThe rustic throng beneath his favourite beech.Then Milton had indeed a poet’s charms:New to my taste, his Paradise surpassedThe struggling efforts of my boyish tongueTo speak its excellence; I danced for joy.I marvelled much that, at so ripe an ageAs twice seven years, his beauties had then firstEngaged my wonder, and admiring still,And still admiring, with regret supposedThe joy half lost because not sooner found.Thee, too, enamoured of the life I loved,Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuitDetermined, and possessing it at lastWith transports such as favoured lovers feel,I studied, prized, and wished that I had known,Ingenious Cowley: and though now, reclaimedBy modern lights from an erroneous taste,I cannot but lament thy splendid witEntangled in the cobwebs of the schools.I still revere thee, courtly though retired,Though stretched at ease in Chertsey’s silent bowers,Not unemployed, and finding rich amendsFor a lost world in solitude and verse.’Tis born with all. The love of Nature’s worksIs an ingredient in the compound, man,Infused at the creation of the kind.And though the Almighty Maker has throughoutDiscriminated each from each, by strokesAnd touches of His hand, with so much artDiversified, that two were never foundTwins at all points—yet this obtains in all,That all discern a beauty in His works,And all can taste them: minds that have been formedAnd tutored, with a relish more exact,But none without some relish, none unmoved.It is a flame that dies not even there,Where nothing feeds it. Neither business, crowds,Nor habits of luxurious city life,Whatever else they smother of true worthIn human bosoms, quench it or abate.The villas, with which London stands begirtLike a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air,The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheerThe citizen, and brace his languid frame!Even in the stifling bosom of the town,A garden in which nothing thrives, has charmsThat soothe the rich possessor; much consoledThat here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the wellHe cultivates. These serve him with a hintThat Nature lives; that sight-refreshing greenIs still the livery she delights to wear,Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole.What are the casements lined with creeping herbs,The prouder sashes fronted with a rangeOf orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,The Frenchman’s darling? are they not all proofsThat man, immured in cities, still retainsHis inborn inextinguishable thirstOf rural scenes, compensating his lossBy supplemental shifts, the best he may?The most unfurnished with the means of life,And they that never pass their brick-wall boundsTo range the fields, and treat their lungs with air,Yet feel the burning instinct: over-headSuspend their crazy boxes planted thickAnd watered duly. There the pitcher standsA fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there;Sad witnesses how close-pent man regretsThe country, with what ardour he contrivesA peep at nature, when he can no more.
Hail, therefore, patroness of health and easeAnd contemplation, heart-consoling joysAnd harmless pleasures, in the thronged abodeOf multitudes unknown, hail rural life!Address himself who will to the pursuitOf honours, or emolument, or fame,I shall not add myself to such a chase,Thwart his attempts, or envy his success.Some must be great. Great offices will haveGreat talents. And God gives to every manThe virtue, temper, understanding, taste,That lifts him into life, and lets him fallJust in the niche he was ordained to fill.To the deliverer of an injured landHe gives a tongue to enlarge upon, a heartTo feel, and courage to redress her wrongs;To monarchs dignity, to judges sense;To artists ingenuity and skill;To me an unambitious mind, contentIn the low vale of life, that early feltA wish for ease and leisure, and ere longFound here that leisure and that ease I wished.
’Tismorning; and the sun, with ruddy orbAscending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,That crowd away before the driving wind,More ardent as the disk emerges more,Resemble most some city in a blaze,Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting raySlides ineffectual down the snowy vale,And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue,From every herb and every spiry bladeStretches a length of shadow o’er the field,Mine, spindling into longitude immense,In spite of gravity, and sage remarkThat I myself am but a fleeting shade,Provokes me to a smile. With eye askanceI view the muscular proportioned limbTransformed to a lean shank; the shapeless pair,As they designed to mock me, at my sideTake step for step, and, as I near approachThe cottage, walk along the plastered wall,Preposterous sight, the legs without the man.The verdure of the plain lies buried deepBeneath the dazzling deluge, and the bentsAnd coarser grass upspearing o’er the rest,Of late unsightly and unseen, now shineConspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad,And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.The cattle mourn in corners, where the fenceScreens them, and seem, half petrified, to sleepIn unrecumbent sadness. There they waitTheir wonted fodder, not, like hungering man,Fretful if unsupplied, but silent, meek,And patient of the slow-paced swain’s delay.He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oftHis broad keen knife into the solid mass:Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,With such undeviating and even forceHe severs it away: no needless care,Lest storms should overset the leaning pileDeciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcernedThe cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axeAnd drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,From morn to eve his solitary task.Shaggy and lean and shrewd, with pointed earsAnd tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,His dog attends him. Close behind his heelNow creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk,Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snowWith ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;Then shakes his powdered coat and barks for joy.Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churlMoves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,But now and then, with pressure of his thumb,To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,That fumes beneath his nose; the trailing cloudStreams far behind him, scenting all the air.Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale,Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleamOf smiling day, they gossiped side by side,Come trooping at the housewife’s well-known callThe feathered tribes domestic; half on wing,And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge.The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eavesTo seize the fair occasion; well they eyeThe scattered grain, and, thievishly resolvedTo escape the impending famine, often scaredAs oft return, a pert, voracious kind.Clean riddance quickly made, one only careRemains to each, the search of sunny nook,Or shed impervious to the blast. ResignedTo sad necessity the cock foregoesHis wonted strut, and, wading at their headWith well-considered steps, seems to resentHis altered gait, and stateliness retrenched.How find the myriads, that in summer cheerThe hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?Earth yields them naught: the imprisoned worm is safeBeneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbsLie covered close, and berry-bearing thornsThat feed the thrush (whatever some suppose),Afford the smaller minstrel no supply.The long-protracted rigour of the yearThins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holesTen thousand seek an unmolested end,As instinct prompts, self-buried ere they die.The very rooks and daws forsake the fields,Where neither grub nor root nor earth-nut nowRepays their labour more; and perched aloftBy the way-side, or stalking in the path,Lean pensioners upon the traveller’s track,Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them,Of voided pulse, or half-digested grain.The streams are lost amid the splendid blank,O’erwhelming all distinction. On the floodIndurated and fixed the snowy weightLies undissolved, while silently beneathAnd unperceived the current steals away;Not so where, scornful of a check, it leapsThe mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,And wantons in the pebbly gulf below.No frost can bind it there. Its utmost forceCan but arrest the light and smoky mistThat in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.And see where it has hung the embroidered banksWith forms so various, that no powers of art,The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene!Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high(Fantastic misarrangement) on the roofLarge growth of what may seem the sparkling treesAnd shrubs of fairy land. The crystal dropsThat trickle down the branches, fast congealed,Shoot into pillars of pellucid lengthAnd prop the pile they but adorned before.Here grotto within grotto safe defiesThe sunbeam. There imbossed and fretted wild,The growing wonder takes a thousand shapesCapricious, in which fancy seeks in vainThe likeness of some object seen before.Thus nature works as if to mock at art,And in defiance of her rival powers;By these fortuitous and random strokesPerforming such inimitable feats,As she with all her rules can never reach.Less worthy of applause though more admired,Because a novelty, the work of man,Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,The wonder of the North. No forest fellWhen thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its storesTo enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,And make thy marble of the glassy wave.In such a palace Aristaeus foundCyrene, when he bore the plaintive taleOf his lost bees to her maternal ear.In such a palace poetry might placeThe armoury of winter, where his troops,The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet,Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,And snow that often blinds the traveller’s course,And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.Silently as a dream the fabric rose.No sound of hammer or of saw was there.Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted partsWere soon conjoined, nor other cement askedThan water interfused to make them one.Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues,Illumined every side. A watery lightGleamed through the clear transparency, that seemedAnother moon new-risen, or meteor fallenFrom heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene.So stood the brittle prodigy, though smoothAnd slippery the materials, yet frost-boundFirm as a rock. Nor wanted aught withinThat royal residence might well befit,For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreathsOf flowers, that feared no enemy but warmth,Blushed on the panels. Mirror needed noneWhere all was vitreous, but in order dueConvivial table and commodious seat(What seemed at least commodious seat) were there,Sofa and couch and high-built throne august.The same lubricity was found in all,And all was moist to the warm touch; a sceneOf evanescent glory, once a stream,And soon to slide into a stream again.Alas, ’twas but a mortifying strokeOf undesigned severity, that glanced(Made by a monarch) on her own estate,On human grandeur and the courts of kings’Twas transient in its nature, as in show’Twas durable; as worthless, as it seemedIntrinsically precious; to the footTreacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.
Great princes have great playthings. Some have playedAt hewing mountains into men, and someAt building human wonders mountain high.Some have amused the dull sad years of life(Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad)With schemes of monumental fame, and soughtBy pyramids and mausoleum pomp,Short-lived themselves, to immortalise their bones.Some seek diversion in the tented field,And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.But war’s a game which, were their subjects wise,Kings should not play at. Nations would do wellTo extort their truncheons from the puny handsOf heroes whose infirm and baby mindsAre gratified with mischief, and who spoil,Because men suffer it, their toy the world.
When Babel was confounded, and the greatConfederacy of projectors wild and vainWas split into diversity of tongues,Then, as a shepherd separates his flock,These to the upland, to the valley those,God drave asunder and assigned their lotTo all the nations. Ample was the boonHe gave them, in its distribution fairAnd equal, and he bade them dwell in peace.Peace was a while their care. They ploughed and sowed,And reaped their plenty without grudge or strife,But violence can never longer sleepThan human passions please. In every heartAre sown the sparks that kindle fiery war,Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.Cain had already shed a brother’s blood:The Deluge washed it out; but left unquenchedThe seeds of murder in the breast of man.Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the lineOf his descending progeny was foundThe first artificer of death; the shrewdContriver who first sweated at the forge,And forced the blunt and yet unblooded steelTo a keen edge, and made it bright for war.Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times,The sword and falchion their inventor claim,And the first smith was the first murderer’s son.His art survived the waters; and ere long,When man was multiplied and spread abroadIn tribes and clans, and had begun to callThese meadows and that range of hills his own,The tasted sweets of property begatDesire of more; and industry in someTo improve and cultivate their just demesne,Made others covet what they saw so fair.Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil,And those in self-defence. Savage at firstThe onset, and irregular. At lengthOne eminent above the rest, for strength,For stratagem, or courage, or for all,Was chosen leader. Him they served in war,And him in peace for sake of warlike deedsReverenced no less. Who could with him compare?Or who so worthy to control themselvesAs he, whose prowess had subdued their foes?Thus war, affording field for the displayOf virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace,Which have their exigencies too, and callFor skill in government, at length made king.King was a name too proud for man to wearWith modesty and meekness, and the crown,So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.It is the abject property of most,That being parcel of the common mass,And destitute of means to raise themselves,They sink and settle lower than they need.They know not what it is to feel withinA comprehensive faculty, that graspsGreat purposes with ease, that turns and wields,Almost without an effort, plans too vastFor their conception, which they cannot move.Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunkWith gazing, when they see an able manStep forth to notice; and besotted thusBuild him a pedestal and say—Stand there,And be our admiration and our praise.They roll themselves before him in the dust,Then most deserving in their own accountWhen most extravagant in his applause,As if exalting him they raised themselves.Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their soundAnd sober judgment that he is but man,They demi-deify and fume him soThat in due season he forgets it too.Inflated and astrut with self-conceitHe gulps the windy diet, and ere long,Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinksThe world was made in vain if not for him.Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, bornTo bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,And sweating in his service. His capriceBecomes the soul that animates them all.He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,Spent in the purchase of renown for himAn easy reckoning, and they think the same.Thus kings were first invented, and thus kingsWere burnished into heroes, and becameThe arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and died.Strange that such folly, as lifts bloated manTo eminence fit only for a god,Should ever drivel out of human lips,Even in the cradled weakness of the world!Still stranger much, that when at length mankindHad reached the sinewy firmness of their youth,And could discriminate and argue wellOn subjects more mysterious, they were yetBabes in the cause of freedom, and should fearAnd quake before the gods themselves had made.But above measure strange, that neither proofOf sad experience, nor examples setBy some whose patriot virtue has prevailed,Can even now, when they are grown matureIn wisdom, and with philosophic deepsFamiliar, serve to emancipate the rest!Such dupes are men to custom, and so proneTo reverence what is ancient, and can pleadA course of long observance for its use,That even servitude, the worst of ills,Because delivered down from sire to son,Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.But is it fit, or can it bear the shockOf rational discussion, that a man,Compounded and made up like other menOf elements tumultuous, in whom lustAnd folly in as ample measure meet,As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,Should be a despot absolute, and boastHimself the only freeman of his land?Should when he pleases, and on whom he will,Wage war, with any or with no pretenceOf provocation given, or wrong sustained,And force the beggarly last doit, by meansThat his own humour dictates, from the clutchOf poverty, that thus he may procureHis thousands, weary of penurious life,A splendid opportunity to die?Say ye, who (with less prudence than of oldJotham ascribed to his assembled treesIn politic convention) put your trustI’ th’ shadow of a bramble, and reclineIn fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch,Rejoice in him and celebrate his sway,Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springsYour self-denying zeal that holds it goodTo stroke the prickly grievance, and to hangHis thorns with streamers of continual praise?We too are friends to loyalty; we loveThe king who loves the law, respects his bounds.And reigns content within them; him we serveFreely and with delight, who leaves us free;But recollecting still that he is man,We trust him not too far. King though he be,And king in England, too, he may be weakAnd vain enough to be ambitious still,May exercise amiss his proper powers,Or covet more than freemen choose to grant:Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours,To administer, to guard, to adorn the state,But not to warp or change it. We are his,To serve him nobly in the common causeTrue to the death, but not to be his slaves.Mark now the difference, ye that boast your loveOf kings, between your loyalty and ours.We love the man; the paltry pageant you:We the chief patron of the commonwealth;You the regardless author of its woes:We, for the sake of liberty, a king;You chains and bondage for a tyrant’s sake.
Our love is principle, and has its rootIn reason, is judicious, manly, free;Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod,And licks the foot that treads it in the dust.Were kingship as true treasure as it seems,Sterling, and worthy of a wise man’s wish,I would not be a king to be belovedCauseless, and daubed with undiscerning praise,Where love is more attachment to the throne,Not to the man who fills it as he ought.
Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at willOf a superior, he is never free.Who lives, and is not weary of a lifeExposed to manacles, deserves them well.The state that strives for liberty, though foiledAnd forced to abandon what she bravely sought,Deserves at least applause for her attempt,And pity for her loss. But that’s a causeNot often unsuccessful; power usurpedIs weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong,’Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.But slaves that once conceive the glowing thoughtOf freedom, in that hope itself possessAll that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,The scorn of danger, and united hearts,The surest presage of the good they seek.[127]Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious moreTo France than all her losses and defeats,Old or of later date, by sea or land,Her house of bondage worse than that of oldWhich God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastille!Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts,Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,That monarchs have supplied from age to ageWith music such as suits their sovereign ears,The sighs and groans of miserable men!There’s not an English heart that would not leapTo hear that ye were fallen at last, to knowThat even our enemies, so oft employedIn forging chains for us, themselves were free.For he that values liberty, confinesHis zeal for her predominance withinNo narrow bounds; her cause engages himWherever pleaded. ’Tis the cause of man.There dwell the most forlorn of humankind,Immured though unaccused, condemned untried,Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape.There, like the visionary emblem seenBy him of Babylon, life stands a stump,And filleted about with hoops of brass,Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone.To count the hour bell and expect no change;And ever as the sullen sound is heard,Still to reflect that though a joyless noteTo him whose moments all have one dull pace,Ten thousand rovers in the world at largeAccount it music; that it summons someTo theatre, or jocund feast, or ball;The wearied hireling finds it a releaseFrom labour, and the lover, that has chidIts long delay, feels every welcome strokeUpon his heart-strings trembling with delight;—To fly for refuge from distracting thoughtTo such amusements as ingenious woeContrives, hard-shifting and without her tools;—To read engraven on the mouldy walls,In staggering types, his predecessor’s tale,A sad memorial, and subjoin his own;—To turn purveyor to an overgorgedAnd bloated spider, till the pampered pestIs made familiar, watches his approach,Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend;—To wear out time in numbering to and froThe studs that thick emboss his iron door,Then downward and then upward, then aslantAnd then alternate, with a sickly hopeBy dint of change to give his tasteless taskSome relish, till the sum, exactly foundIn all directions, he begins again:—Oh comfortless existence! hemmed aroundWith woes, which who that suffers would not kneelAnd beg for exile, or the pangs of death?That man should thus encroach on fellow-man,Abridge him of his just and native rights,Eradicate him, tear him from his holdUpon the endearments of domestic lifeAnd social, nip his fruitfulness and use,And doom him for perhaps a heedless wordTo barrenness and solitude and tears,Moves indignation; makes the name of king(Of king whom such prerogative can please)As dreadful as the Manichean god,Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
’Tis liberty alone that gives the flowerOf fleeting life its lustre and perfume,And we are weeds without it. All constraint,Except what wisdom lays on evil men,Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedesTheir progress in the road of science; blindsThe eyesight of discovery, and begets,In those that suffer it, a sordid mindBestial, a meagre intellect, unfitTo be the tenant of man’s noble form.Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezedBy public exigence, till annual foodFails for the craving hunger of the state,Thee I account still happy, and the chiefAmong the nations, seeing thou art free,My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,Replete with vapours, and disposes muchAll hearts to sadness, and none more than mine;Thine unadulterate manners are less softAnd plausible than social life requires.And thou hast need of discipline and artTo give thee what politer France receivesFrom Nature’s bounty—that humane addressAnd sweetness, without which no pleasure isIn converse, either starved by cold reserve,Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl;Yet, being free, I love thee; for the sakeOf that one feature, can be well content,Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,To seek no sublunary rest beside.But once enslaved, farewell! I could endureChains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,Where I am free by birthright, not at all.Then what were left of roughness in the grainOf British natures, wanting its excuseThat it belongs to freemen, would disgustAnd shock me. I should then with double painFeel all the rigour of thy fickle clime;And, if I must bewail the blessing lostFor which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled,I would at least bewail it under skiesMilder, among a people less austere,In scenes which, having never known me free,Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.Do I forebode impossible events,And tremble at vain dreams? Heaven grant I may,But the age of virtuous politics is past,And we are deep in that of cold pretence.Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,And we too wise to trust them. He that takesDeep in his soft credulity the stampDesigned by loud declaimers on the partOf liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,Incurs derision for his easy faithAnd lack of knowledge, and with cause enough.For when was public virtue to be found,Where private was not? Can he love the wholeWho loves no part? he be a nation’s friendWho is, in truth, the friend of no man there?Can he be strenuous in his country’s cause,Who slights the charities for whose dear sakeThat country, if at all, must be beloved?—’Tis therefore sober and good men are sadFor England’s glory, seeing it wax paleAnd sickly, while her champions wear their heartsSo loose to private duty, that no brain,Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes,Can dream them trusty to the general weal.Such were not they of old whose tempered bladesDispersed the shackles of usurped control,And hewed them link from link. Then Albion’s sonsWere sons indeed. They felt a filial heartBeat high within them at a mother’s wrongs,And shining each in his domestic sphere,Shone brighter still once called to public view.’Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lotForbids their interference, looking on,Anticipate perforce some dire event;And seeing the old castle of the state,That promised once more firmness, so assailedThat all its tempest-beaten turrets shake,Stand motionless expectants of its fall.All has its date below. The fatal hourWas registered in heaven ere time began.We turn to dust, and all our mightiest worksDie too. The deep foundations that we lay,Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.We build with what we deem eternal rock;A distant age asks where the fabric stood;And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain,The undiscoverable secret sleeps.
But there is yet a liberty unsungBy poets, and by senators unpraised,Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powerOf earth and hell confederate take away;A liberty, which persecution, fraud,Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind,Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more:’Tis liberty of heart, derived from heaven,Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind,And sealed with the same token. It is heldBy charter, and that charter sanctioned sureBy the unimpeachable and awful oathAnd promise of a God. His other giftsAll bear the royal stamp that speaks them His,And are august, but this transcends them all.His other works, this visible displayOf all-creating energy and might,Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the WordThat, finding an interminable spaceUnoccupied, has filled the void so well,And made so sparkling what was dark before.But these are not His glory. Man, ’tis true,Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene,Might well suppose the Artificer DivineMeant it eternal, had He not HimselfPronounced it transient, glorious as it is,And still designing a more glorious far,Doomed it, as insufficient for His praise.These, therefore, are occasional, and pass;Formed for the confutation of the foolWhose lying heart disputes against a God;That office served, they must be swept away.Not so the labours of His love; they shineIn other heavens than these that we behold,And fade not. There is Paradise that fearsNo forfeiture, and of its fruits He sendsLarge prelibation oft to saints below.Of these the first in order, and the pledgeAnd confident assurance of the rest,Is liberty; a flight into His armsEre yet mortality’s fine threads give way,A clear escape from tyrannising lust,And fill immunity from penal woe.
Chains are the portion of revolted man,Stripes and a dungeon; and his body servesThe triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,Opprobrious residence, he finds them all.Propense his heart to idols, he is heldIn silly dotage on created thingsCareless of their Creator. And that lowAnd sordid gravitation of his powersTo a vile clod, so draws him with such forceResistless from the centre he should seek,That he at last forgets it. All his hopesTend downward, his ambition is to sink,To reach a depth profounder still, and stillProfounder, in the fathomless abyssOf folly, plunging in pursuit of death.But ere he gain the comfortless reposeHe seeks, and acquiescence of his soul,In heaven renouncing exile, he enduresWhat does he not? from lusts opposed in vain,And self-reproaching conscience. He foreseesThe fatal issue to his health, fame, peace,Fortune, and dignity; the loss of allThat can ennoble man, and make frail life,Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,Far worse than all the plagues with which his sinsInfect his happiest moments, he forebodesAges of hopeless misery; future death,And death still future; not a hasty stroke,Like that which sends him to the dusty grave,But unrepealable enduring death.Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:What none can prove a forgery, may be true;What none but bad men wish exploded, must.That scruple checks him. Riot is not loudNor drunk enough to drown it. In the midstOf laughter his compunctions are sincere,And he abhors the jest by which he shines.Remorse begets reform. His master-lustFalls first before his resolute rebuke,And seems dethroned and vanquished. Peace ensues,But spurious and short-lived, the puny childOf self-congratulating Pride, begotOn fancied Innocence. Again he falls,And fights again; but finds his best essay,A presage ominous, portending stillIts own dishonour by a worse relapse,Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foiledSo oft, and wearied in the vain attempt,Scoffs at her own performance. Reason nowTakes part with appetite, and pleads the cause,Perversely, which of late she so condemned;With shallow shifts and old devices, wornAnd tattered in the service of debauch,Covering his shame from his offended sight.
“Hath God indeed given appetites to man,And stored the earth so plenteously with meansTo gratify the hunger of His wish,And doth He reprobate and will He damnThe use of His own bounty? making firstSo frail a kind, and then enacting lawsSo strict, that less than perfect must despair?Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth,Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man.Do they themselves, who undertake for hireThe teacher’s office, and dispense at largeTheir weekly dole of edifying strains,Attend to their own music? have they faithIn what, with such solemnity of toneAnd gesture, they propound to our belief?Nay—conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voiceIs but an instrument on which the priestMay play what tune he pleases. In the deed,The unequivocal authentic deed,We find sound argument, we read the heart.”
Such reasonings (if that name must needs belongTo excuses in which reason has no part)Serve to compose a spirit well inclinedTo live on terms of amity with vice,And sin without disturbance. Often urged(As often as, libidinous discourseExhausted, he resorts to solemn themesOf theological and grave import),They gain at last his unreserved assent,Till, hardened his heart’s temper in the forgeOf lust and on the anvil of despair,He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves,Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;Vain tampering has but fostered his disease,’Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death.Haste now, philosopher, and set him free.Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hearOf rectitude and fitness: moral truthHow lovely, and the moral sense how sure,Consulted and obeyed, to guide his stepsDirectly to theFIRST AND ONLY FAIR.Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powersOf rant and rhapsody in virtue’s praise,Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,And with poetic trappings grace thy proseTill it outmantle all the pride of verse.—Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brassSmitten in vain! such music cannot charmThe eclipse that intercepts truth’s heavenly beam,And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul.The still small voice is wanted. He must speak,Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect,Who calls for things that are not, and they come.
Grace makes the slave a freeman. ’Tis a changeThat turns to ridicule the turgid speechAnd stately tone of moralists, who boast,As if, like him of fabulous renown,They had indeed ability to smoothThe shag of savage nature, and were eachAn Orpheus and omnipotent in song.But transformation of apostate manFrom fool to wise, from earthly to divine,Is work for Him that made him. He alone,And He, by means in philosophic eyesTrivial and worthy of disdain, achievesThe wonder; humanising what is bruteIn the lost kind, extracting from the lipsOf asps their venom, overpowering strengthBy weakness, and hostility by love.
Patriots have toiled, and in their country’s causeBled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve,Receive proud recompense. We give in chargeTheir names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse,Proud of the treasure, marches with it downTo latest times; and sculpture, in her turn,Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass,To guard them, and to immortalise her trust.But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,To those who, posted at the shrine of truth,Have fallen in her defence. A patriot’s bloodWell spent in such a strife may earn indeed,And for a time ensure to his loved land,The sweets of liberty and equal laws;But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,And win it with more pain. Their blood is shedIn confirmation of the noblest claim,Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,To walk with God, to be divinely free,To soar, and to anticipate the skies!Yet few remember them. They lived unknown,Till persecution dragged them into fameAnd chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew—No marble tells us whither. With their namesNo bard embalms and sanctifies his song,And history, so warm on meaner themes,Is cold on this. She execrates indeedThe tyranny that doomed them to the fire,But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,And all are slaves beside. There’s not a chainThat hellish foes confederate for his harmCan wind around him, but he casts it offWith as much ease as Samson his green withes.He looks abroad into the varied fieldOf Nature, and, though poor perhaps comparedWith those whose mansions glitter in his sight,Calls the delightful scenery all his own.His are the mountains, and the valleys his,And the resplendent river’s. His to enjoyWith a propriety that none can feel,But who, with filial confidence inspired,Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,And smiling say—My Father made them all!Are they not his by a peculiar right,And by an emphasis of interest his,Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mindWith worthy thoughts of that unwearied loveThat planned, and built, and still upholds a worldSo clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?Yes—ye may fill your garners, ye that reapThe loaded soil, and ye may waste much goodIn senseless riot; but ye will not findIn feast or in the chase, in song or dance,A liberty like his, who, unimpeachedOf usurpation, and to no man’s wrong,Appropriates nature as his Father’s work,And has a richer use of yours, than you.He is indeed a freeman. Free by birthOf no mean city, planned or e’er the hillsWere built, the fountains opened, or the seaWith all his roaring multitude of waves.His freedom is the same in every state;And no condition of this changeful lifeSo manifold in cares, whose every dayBrings its own evil with it, makes it less.For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,Nor penury, can cripple or confine.No nook so narrow but he spreads them thereWith ease, and is at large. The oppressor holdsHis body bound, but knows not what a rangeHis spirit takes, unconscious of a chain;And that to bind him is a vain attempt,Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells.
Acquaint thyself with God if thou wouldst tasteHis works. Admitted once to His embrace,Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before;Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart,Made pure, shall relish, with divine delightTill then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone,And eyes intent upon the scanty herbIt yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,Ruminate, heedless of the scene outspreadBeneath, beyond, and stretching far awayFrom inland regions to the distant main.Man views it and admires, but rests contentWith what he views. The landscape has his praise,But not its Author. Unconcerned who formedThe paradise he sees, he finds it such,And such well pleased to find it, asks no more.Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven,And in the school of sacred wisdom taughtTo read His wonders, in whose thought the world,Fair as it is, existed ere it was.Nor for its own sake merely, but for HisMuch more who fashioned it, he gives it praise;Praise that from earth resulting as it oughtTo earth’s acknowledged Sovereign, finds at onceIts only just proprietor in Him.The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimedNew faculties or learns at least to employMore worthily the powers she owned before;Discerns in all things what, with stupid gazeOf ignorance, till then she overlooked,A ray of heavenly light gilding all formsTerrestrial, in the vast and the minuteThe unambiguous footsteps of the GodWho gives its lustre to an insect’s wingAnd wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.Much conversant with heaven, she often holdsWith those fair ministers of light to manThat fill the skies nightly with silent pompSweet conference; inquires what strains were theyWith which heaven rang, when every star, in hasteTo gratulate the new-created earth,Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of GodShouted for joy.—“Tell me, ye shining hostsThat navigate a sea that knows no storms,Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,If from your elevation, whence ye viewDistinctly scenes invisible to manAnd systems of whose birth no tidings yetHave reached this nether world, ye spy a raceFavoured as ours, transgressors from the wombAnd hasting to a grave, yet doomed to riseAnd to possess a brighter heaven than yours?As one who, long detained on foreign shores,Pants to return, and when he sees afarHis country’s weather-bleached and battered rocks,From the green wave emerging, darts an eyeRadiant with joy towards the happy land;So I with animated hopes behold,And many an aching wish, your beamy fires,That show like beacons in the blue abyss,Ordained to guide the embodied spirit homeFrom toilsome life to never-ending rest.Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desiresThat give assurance of their own success,And that, infused from heaven, must thither tend.”
So reads he Nature whom the lamp of truthIlluminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word!Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lostWith intellect bemazed in endless doubt,But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built,With means that were not till by Thee employed,Worlds that had never been, hadst Thou in strengthBeen less, or less benevolent than strong.They are Thy witnesses, who speak Thy powerAnd goodness infinite, but speak in earsThat hear not, or receive not their report.In vain Thy creatures testify of TheeTill Thou proclaim Thyself. Theirs is indeedA teaching voice; but ’tis the praise of ThineThat whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn,And with the boon gives talents for its use.Till Thou art heard, imaginations vainPossess the heart, and fables, false as hell,Yet deemed oracular, lure down to deathThe uninformed and heedless souls of men.We give to chance, blind chance, ourselves as blind,The glory of Thy work, which yet appearsPerfect and unimpeachable of blame,Challenging human scrutiny, and provedThen skilful most when most severely judged.But chance is not; or is not where Thou reign’st:Thy providence forbids that fickle power(If power she be that works but to confound)To mix her wild vagaries with Thy laws.Yet thus we dote, refusing, while we can,Instruction, and inventing to ourselvesGods such as guilt makes welcome—gods that sleep,Or disregard our follies, or that sitAmused spectators of this bustling stage.Thee we reject, unable to abideThy purity, till pure as Thou art pure,Made such by Thee, we love Thee for that causeFor which we shunned and hated Thee before.Then we are free: then liberty, like day,Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heavenFires all the faculties with glorious joy.A voice is heard that mortal ears hear notTill Thou hast touched them; ’tis the voice of song,A loud Hosanna sent from all Thy works,Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,And adds his rapture to the general praise.In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wideHer veil opaque, discloses with a smileThe Author of her beauties, who, retiredBehind His own creation, works unseenBy the impure, and hears His power denied.Thou art the source and centre of all minds,Their only point of rest, eternal Word!From Thee departing, they are lost and roveAt random, without honour, hope, or peace.From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,His high endeavour, and his glad success,His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.But, oh, Thou Bounteous Giver of all good,Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown!Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor,And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
Thereis in souls a sympathy with sounds,And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleasedWith melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;Some chord in unison with what we hearIs touched within us, and the heart replies.How soft the music of those village bellsFalling at intervals upon the earIn cadence sweet, now dying all away,Now pealing loud again, and louder still,Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on.With easy force it opens all the cellsWhere memory slept. Wherever I have heardA kindred melody, the scene recurs,And with it all its pleasures and its pains.Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,That in a few short moments I retrace(As in a map the voyager his course)The windings of my way through many years.Short as in retrospect the journey seems,It seemed not always short; the rugged path,And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.Yet feeling present evils, while the pastFaintly impress the mind, or not at all,How readily we wish time spent revoked,That we might try the ground again, where once(Through inexperience as we now perceive)We missed that happiness we might have found.Some friend is gone, perhaps his son’s best friendA father, whose authority, in showWhen most severe, and mustering all its force,Was but the graver countenance of love;Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,And utter now and then an awful voice,But had a blessing in its darkest frown,Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.We loved, but not enough, the gentle handThat reared us. At a thoughtless age alluredBy every gilded folly, we renouncedHis sheltering side, and wilfully forewentThat converse which we now in vain regret.How gladly would the man recall to lifeThe boy’s neglected sire! a mother too,That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,Might he demand them at the gates of death.Sorrow has since they went subdued and tamedThe playful humour; he could now endure(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)And feel a parent’s presence no restraint.But not to understand a treasure’s worthTill time has stolen away the slighted good,Is cause of half the poverty we feel,And makes the world the wilderness it is.The few that pray at all, pray oft amiss,And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold,Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.
The night was winter in his roughest mood,The morning sharp and clear; but now at noonUpon the southern side of the slant hills,And where the woods fence off the northern blast,The season smiles, resigning all its rage,And has the warmth of May. The vault is blueWithout a cloud, and white without a speckThe dazzling splendour of the scene below.Again the harmony comes o’er the vale,And through the trees I view the embattled towerWhence all the music. I again perceiveThe soothing influence of the wafted strains,And settle in soft musings, as I treadThe walk still verdant under oaks and elms,Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.The roof, though movable through all its length,As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,And, intercepting in their silent fallThe frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.No noise is here, or none that hinders thought:The redbreast warbles still, but is contentWith slender notes and more than half suppressed.Pleased with his solitude, and flitting lightFrom spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakesFrom many a twig the pendant drops of ice,That tinkle in the withered leaves below.Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,Charms more than silence. Meditation hereMay think down hours to moments. Here the heartMay give an useful lesson to the head,And learning wiser grow without his books.Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwellsIn heads replete with thoughts of other men;Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,The mere materials with which wisdom builds,Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much,Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.Books are not seldom talismans and spellsBy which the magic art of shrewder witsHolds an unthinking multitude enthralled.Some to the fascination of a nameSurrender judgment hoodwinked. Some the styleInfatuates, and, through labyrinths and wildsOf error, leads them by a tune entranced.While sloth seduces more, too weak to bearThe insupportable fatigue of thought,And swallowing therefore without pause or choiceThe total grist unsifted, husks and all.But trees, and rivulets whose rapid courseDefies the check of winter, haunts of deer,And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,And lanes, in which the primrose ere her timePeeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,Not shy as in the world, and to be wonBy slow solicitation, seize at onceThe roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
What prodigies can power divine performMore grand than it produces year by year,And all in sight of inattentive man?Familiar with the effect we slight the cause,And in the constancy of Nature’s course,The regular return of genial months,And renovation of a faded world,See nought to wonder at. Should God again,As once in Gibeon, interrupt the raceOf the undeviating and punctual sun,How would the world admire! but speaks it lessAn agency divine, to make him knowHis moment when to sink and when to riseAge after age, than to arrest his course?All we behold is miracle: but, seenSo duly, all is miracle in vain.Where now the vital energy that moved,While summer was, the pure and subtle lymphThrough the imperceptible meandering veinsOf leaf and flower? It sleeps: and the icy touchOf unprolific winter has impressedA cold stagnation on the intestine tide.But let the months go round, a few short months,And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,Barren as lances, among which the windMakes wintry music, sighing as it goes,Shall put their graceful foliage on again,And more aspiring and with ampler spreadShall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.Then, each in its peculiar honours clad,Shall publish even to the distant eyeIts family and tribe. Laburnum richIn streaming gold; syringa ivory pure;The scented and the scentless rose; this redAnd of a humbler growth, the other tall,And throwing up into the darkest gloomOf neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew,Her silver globes, light as the foamy surfThat the wind severs from the broken wave;The lilac various in array, now white,Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now setWith purple spikes pyramidal, as ifStudious of ornament, yet unresolvedWhich hue she most approved, she chose them all;Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan,But well compensating their sickly looksWith never-cloying odours, early and late;Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarmOf flowers like flies, clothing her slender rods,That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,Though leafless, well attired, and thick besetWith blushing wreaths investing every spray;Althæa with the purple eye; the broom,Yellow and bright as bullion unalloyedHer blossoms; and luxuriant above allThe jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leafMakes more conspicuous, and illumines moreThe bright profusion of her scattered stars.—These have been, and these shall be in their day,And all this uniform uncoloured sceneShall be dismantled of its fleecy load,And flush into variety again.From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,Is Nature’s progress when she lectures manIn heavenly truth; evincing, as she makesThe grand transition, that there lives and worksA soul in all things, and that soul is God.The beauties of the wilderness are His,That make so gay the solitary placeWhere no eye sees them. And the fairer formsThat cultivation glories in, are His.He sets the bright procession on its way,And marshals all the order of the year.He marks the bounds which Winter may not pass,And blunts his pointed fury. In its case,Russet and rude, folds up the tender germUninjured, with inimitable art,And, ere one flowery season fades and dies,Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
Some say that in the origin of things,When all creation started into birth,The infant elements received a lawFrom which they swerve not since; that under forceOf that controlling ordinance they move,And need not His immediate hand, who firstPrescribed their course, to regulate it now.Thus dream they, and contrive to save a GodThe encumbrance of His own concerns, and spareThe great Artificer of all that movesThe stress of a continual act, the painOf unremitted vigilance and care,As too laborious and severe a task.So man the moth is not afraid, it seems,To span Omnipotence, and measure mightThat knows no measure, by the scanty ruleAnd standard of his own, that is to-day,And is not ere to-morrow’s sun go down.But how should matter occupy a chargeDull as it is, and satisfy a lawSo vast in its demands, unless impelledTo ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,And under pressure of some conscious cause?The Lord of all, Himself through all diffusedSustains and is the life of all that lives.Nature is but a name for an effectWhose cause is God. He feeds the secret fireBy which the mighty process is maintained,Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sightSlow-circling ages are as transient days;Whose work is without labour, whose designsNo flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts,And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,With self-taught rites and under various namesFemale and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,And Flora and Vertumnus; peopling earthWith tutelary goddesses and godsThat were not, and commending as they wouldTo each some province, garden, field, or grove.But all are under One. One spirit—HisWho bore the platted thorns with bleeding brows—Rules universal nature. Not a flowerBut shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain,Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspiresTheir balmy odours and imparts their hues,And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.Happy who walks with Him! whom, what he findsOf flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,Or what he views of beautiful or grandIn nature, from the broad majestic oakTo the green blade that twinkles in the sun,Prompts with remembrance of a present God.His presence, who made all so fair, perceived,Makes all still fairer. As with Him no sceneIs dreary, so with Him all seasons please.Though winter had been none had man been true,And earth be punished for its tenant’s sake,Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky,So soon succeeding such an angry night,And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream,Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.
Who then, that has a mind well strung and tunedTo contemplation, and within his reachA scene so friendly to his favourite task,Would waste attention at the chequered board,His host of wooden warriors to and froMarching and counter-marching, with an eyeAs fixt as marble, with a forehead ridgedAnd furrowed into storms, and with a handTrembling, as if eternity were hungIn balance on his conduct of a pin?Nor envies he aught more their idle sport,Who pant with application misappliedTo trivial toys, and, pushing ivory ballsAcross the velvet level, feel a joyAkin to rapture, when the bauble findsIts destined goal of difficult access.Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noonTo Miss, the Mercer’s plague, from shop to shopWandering, and littering with unfolded silksThe polished counter, and approving none,Or promising with smiles to call again.Nor him, who, by his vanity seduced,And soothed into a dream that he discernsThe difference of a Guido from a daub,Frequents the crowded auction. Stationed thereAs duly as the Langford of the show,With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,And tongue accomplished in the fulsome cantAnd pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease,Oft as the price-deciding hammer fallsHe notes it in his book, then raps his box,Swears ’tis a bargain, rails at his hard fateThat he has let it pass—but never bids.
Here unmolested, through whatever signThe sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist,Nor freezing sky, nor sultry, checking me,Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.Even in the spring and play-time of the yearThat calls the unwonted villager abroadWith all her little ones, a sportive train,To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,And prank their hair with daisies, or to pickA cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmedSits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspendsHis long love-ditty for my near approach.Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elmThat age or injury has hollowed deep,Where on his bed of wool and matted leavesHe has outslept the winter, ventures forthTo frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush,And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,And anger insignificantly fierce.
The heart is hard in nature, and unfitFor human fellowship, as being voidOf sympathy, and therefore dead alikeTo love and friendship both, that is not pleasedWith sight of animals enjoying life,Nor feels their happiness augment his own.The bounding fawn that darts across the gladeWhen none pursues, through mere delight of heart,And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet,That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heelsStarts to the voluntary race again;The very kine that gambol at high noon,The total herd receiving first from one,That leads the dance, a summons to be gay,Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouthTheir efforts, yet resolved with one consentTo give such act and utterance as they mayTo ecstasy too big to be suppressed—These, and a thousand images of bliss,With which kind nature graces every sceneWhere cruel man defeats not her design,Impart to the benevolent, who wishAll that are capable of pleasure pleased,A far superior happiness to theirs,The comfort of a reasonable joy.
Man scarce had risen, obedient to His callWho formed him from the dust, his future grave,When he was crowned as never king was since.God set His diadem upon his head,And angel choirs attended. Wondering stoodThe new-made monarch, while before him passed,All happy and all perfect in their kind,The creatures, summoned from their various hauntsTo see their sovereign, and confess his sway.Vast was his empire, absolute his power,Or bounded only by a law whose force’Twas his sublimest privilege to feelAnd own, the law of universal love.He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy.No cruel purpose lurked within his heart,And no distrust of his intent in theirs.So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,Where kindness on his part who ruled the wholeBegat a tranquil confidence in all,And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear.But sin marred all; and the revolt of man,That source of evils not exhausted yet,Was punished with revolt of his from him.Garden of God, how terrible the changeThy groves and lawns then witnessed! every heart,Each animal of every name, conceivedA jealousy and an instinctive fear,And, conscious of some danger, either fledPrecipitate the loathed abode of man,Or growled defiance in such angry sort,As taught him too to tremble in his turn.Thus harmony and family accordWere driven from Paradise; and in that hourThe seeds of cruelty, that since have swelledTo such gigantic and enormous growth,Were sown in human nature’s fruitful soil.Hence date the persecution and the painThat man inflicts on all inferior kinds,Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,Or his base gluttony, are causes goodAnd just in his account, why bird and beastShould suffer torture, and the streams be dyedWith blood of their inhabitants impaled.Earth groans beneath the burden of a warWaged with defenceless innocence, while he,Not satisfied to prey on all around,Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangsNeedless, and first torments ere he devours.Now happiest they that occupy the scenesThe most remote from his abhorred resort,Whom once as delegate of God on earthThey feared, and as His perfect image loved.The wilderness is theirs with all its caves,Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plainsUnvisited by man. There they are free,And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled,Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play.Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrudeWithin the confines of their wild domain;The lion tells him, “I am monarch here;”And if he spares him, spares him on the termsOf royal mercy, and through generous scornTo rend a victim trembling at his foot.In measure, as by force of instinct drawn,Or by necessity constrained, they liveDependent upon man, those in his fields,These at his crib, and some beneath his roof;They prove too often at how dear a rateHe sells protection. Witness, at his footThe spaniel dying for some venial fault,Under dissection of the knotted scourge;Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yellsDriven to the slaughter, goaded as he runsTo madness, while the savage at his heelsLaughs at the frantic sufferer’s fury spentUpon the guiltless passenger o’erthrown.He too is witness, noblest of the trainThat wait on man, the flight-performing horse:With unsuspecting readiness he takesHis murderer on his back, and, pushed all day,With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life,To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.So little mercy shows who needs so much!Does law, so jealous in the cause of man,Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.He lives, and o’er his brimming beaker boasts(As if barbarity were high desert)The inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praiseOf the poor brute, seems wisely to supposeThe honours of his matchless horse his own.But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth,Is registered in heaven, and these, no doubt,Have each their record, with a curse annexed.Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,But God will never. When He charged the JewTo assist his foe’s down-fallen beast to rise,And when the bush-exploring boy that seizedThe young, to let the parent bird go free,Proved He not plainly that His meaner worksAre yet His care, and have an interest all,All, in the universal Father’s love?On Noah, and in him on all mankind,The charter was conferred by which we holdThe flesh of animals in fee, and claim,O’er all we feed on, power of life and death.But read the instrument, and mark it well;The oppression of a tyrannous controlCan find no warrant there. Feed then, and yieldThanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute.
The Governor of all, Himself to allSo bountiful, in whose attentive earThe unfledged raven and the lion’s whelpPlead not in vain for pity on the pangsOf hunger unassuaged, has interposed,Not seldom, His avenging arm, to smiteThe injurious trampler upon nature’s law,That claims forbearance even for a brute.He hates the hardness of a Balaam’s heart,And, prophet as he was, he might not strikeThe blameless animal, without rebuke,On which he rode. Her opportune offenceSaved him, or the unrelenting seer had died.He sees that human equity is slackTo interfere, though in so just a cause,And makes the task His own; inspiring dumbAnd helpless victims with a sense so keenOf injury, with such knowledge of their strength,And such sagacity to take revenge,That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man.An ancient, not a legendary tale,By one of sound intelligence rehearsed,(If such, who plead for Providence may seemIn modern eyes) shall make the doctrine clear.
Where England, stretched towards the setting sun,Narrow and long, o’erlooks the western wave,Dwelt young Misagathus; a scorner heOf God and goodness, atheist in ostent,Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce.He journeyed, and his chance was, as he went,To join a traveller of far different note—Evander, famed for piety, for yearsDeserving honour, but for wisdom more.Fame had not left the venerable manA stranger to the manners of the youth,Whose face, too, was familiar to his view.Their way was on the margin of the land,O’er the green summit of the rocks whose baseBeats back the roaring surge, scarce heard so high.The charity that warmed his heart was movedAt sight of the man-monster. With a smileGentle and affable, and full of grace,As fearful of offending whom he wishedMuch to persuade, he plied his ear with truthsNot harshly thundered forth or rudely pressed,But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet.“And dost thou dream,” the impenetrable manExclaimed, “that me the lullabies of age,And fantasies of dotards such as thou,Can cheat, or move a moment’s fear in me?Mark now the proof I give thee, that the braveNeed no such aids as superstition lendsTo steel their hearts against the dread of death.”He spoke, and to the precipice at handPushed with a madman’s fury. Fancy shrinks,And the blood thrills and curdles at the thoughtOf such a gulf as he designed his grave.But though the felon on his back could dareThe dreadful leap, more rational, his steedDeclined the death, and wheeling swiftly round,Or ere his hoof had pressed the crumbling verge,Baffled his rider, saved against his will.The frenzy of the brain may be redressedBy medicine well applied, but without graceThe heart’s insanity admits no cure.Enraged the more by what might have reformedHis horrible intent, again he soughtDestruction, with a zeal to be destroyed,With sounding whip and rowels dyed in blood.But still in vain. The Providence that meantA longer date to the far nobler beast,Spared yet again the ignobler for his sake.And now, his prowess proved, and his sincere,Incurable obduracy evinced,His rage grew cool; and, pleased perhaps to have earnedSo cheaply the renown of that attempt,With looks of some complacence he resumedHis road, deriding much the blank amazeOf good Evander, still where he was leftFixed motionless, and petrified with dread.So on they fared; discourse on other themesEnsuing, seemed to obliterate the past,And tamer far for so much fury shown(As is the course of rash and fiery men)The rude companion smiled as if transformed.But ’twas a transient calm. A storm was near,An unsuspected storm. His hour was come.The impious challenger of power divineWas now to learn that Heaven, though slow to wrath,Is never with impunity defied.His horse, as he had caught his master’s mood,Snorting, and starting into sudden rage,Unbidden, and not now to be controlled,Rushed to the cliff, and having reached it, stood.At once the shock unseated him; he flewSheer o’er the craggy barrier, and, immersedDeep in the flood, found, when he sought it not,The death he had deserved, and died alone.So God wrought double justice; made the foolThe victim of his own tremendous choice,And taught a brute the way to safe revenge.
I would not enter on my list of friends(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,Yet wanting sensibility) the manWho needlessly sets foot upon a worm.An inadvertent step may crush the snailThat crawls at evening in the public path;But he that has humanity, forewarned,Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudesA visitor unwelcome into scenesSacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,The chamber, or refectory, may die.A necessary act incurs no blame.Not so when, held within their proper boundsAnd guiltless of offence, they range the air,Or take their pastime in the spacious field.There they are privileged; and he that huntsOr harms them there is guilty of a wrong,Disturbs the economy of Nature’s realm,Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.The sum is this: if man’s convenience, health,Or safety interfere, his rights and claimsAre paramount, and must extinguish theirs.Else they are all—the meanest things that are—As free to live and to enjoy that life,As God was free to form them at the first,Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sonsTo love it too. The spring-time of our yearsIs soon dishonoured and defiled in mostBy budding ills, that ask a prudent handTo check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots,If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth,Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.Mercy to him that shows it, is the ruleAnd righteous limitation of its act,By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man;And he that shows none, being ripe in years,And conscious of the outrage he commits,Shall seek it and not find it in his turn.
Distinguished much by reason, and still moreBy our capacity of grace divine,From creatures that exist but for our sake,Which having served us, perish, we are heldAccountable, and God, some future day,Will reckon with us roundly for the abuseOf what He deems no mean or trivial trust.Superior as we are, they yet dependNot more on human help, than we on theirs.Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were givenIn aid of our defects. In some are foundSuch teachable and apprehensive parts,That man’s attainments in his own concerns,Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs,Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.Some show that nice sagacity of smell,And read with such discernment, in the portAnd figure of the man, his secret aim,That oft we owe our safety to a skillWe could not teach, and must despair to learn.But learn we might, if not too proud to stoopTo quadruped instructors, many a goodAnd useful quality, and virtue too,Rarely exemplified among ourselves;Attachment never to be weaned, or changedBy any change of fortune, proof alikeAgainst unkindness, absence, and neglect;Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threatCan move or warp; and gratitude for smallAnd trivial favours, lasting as the life,And glistening even in the dying eye.
Man praises man. Desert in arts or armsWins public honour; and ten thousand sitPatiently present at a sacred song,Commemoration-mad; content to hear(Oh wonderful effect of music’s power!)Messiah’s eulogy, for Handel’s sake.But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve—(For was it less? What heathen would have daredTo strip Jove’s statue of his oaken wreathAnd hang it up in honour of a man?)Much less might serve, when all that we designIs but to gratify an itching ear,And give the day to a musician’s praise.Remember Handel! who, that was not bornDeaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,Or can, the more than Homer of his age?Yes—we remember him; and, while we praiseA talent so divine, remember tooThat His most holy Book from whom it cameWas never meant, was never used beforeTo buckram out the memory of a man.But hush!—the muse perhaps is too severe,And with a gravity beyond the sizeAnd measure of the offence, rebukes a deedLess impious than absurd, and owing moreTo want of judgment than to wrong design.So in the chapel of old Ely House,When wandering Charles, who meant to be the third,Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,And eke did rear right merrily, two staves,Sung to the praise and glory of King George.—Man praises man; and Garrick’s memory next,When time has somewhat mellowed it, and madeThe idol of our worship while he livedThe god of our idolatry once more,Shall have its altar; and the world shall goIn pilgrimage to bow before his shrine.The theatre, too small, shall suffocateIts squeezed contents, and more than it admitsShall sigh at their exclusion, and returnUngratified. For there some noble lordShall stuff his shoulders with King Richard’s bunch,Or wrap himself in Hamlet’s inky cloak,And strut, and storm, and straddle, stamp, and stare,To show the world how Garrick did not act,For Garrick was a worshipper himself;He drew the liturgy, and framed the ritesAnd solemn ceremonial of the day,And called the world to worship on the banksOf Avon famed in song. Ah! pleasant proofThat piety has still in human heartsSome place, a spark or two not yet extinct.The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths,The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance,The mulberry-tree was hymned with dulcet airs,And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry-treeSupplied such relics as devotion holdsStill sacred, and preserves with pious care.So ’twas a hallowed time: decorum reigned,And mirth without offence. No few returnedDoubtless much edified, and all refreshed.—Man praises man. The rabble all alive,From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes,Swarm in the streets. The statesman of the day,A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes;Some shout him, and some hang upon his carTo gaze in his eyes and bless him. Maidens waveTheir kerchiefs, and old women weep for joyWhile others not so satisfied unhorseThe gilded equipage, and, turning looseHis steeds, usurp a place they well deserve.Why? what has charmed them? Hath he saved the state?No. Doth he purpose its salvation? No.Enchanting novelty, that moon at fullThat finds out every crevice of the headThat is not sound and perfect, hath in theirsWrought this disturbance. But the wane is near,And his own cattle must suffice him soon.Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise,And dedicate a tribute, in its useAnd just direction sacred, to a thingDoomed to the dust, or lodged already there.Encomium in old time was poet’s work;But, poets having lavishly long sinceExhausted all materials of the art,The task now falls into the public hand;And I, contented with a humble theme,Have poured my stream of panegyric downThe vale of Nature, where it creeps and windsAmong her lovely works, with a secureAnd unambitious course, reflecting clearIf not the virtues yet the worth of brutes.And I am recompensed, and deem the toilOf poetry not lost, if verse of mineMay stand between an animal and woe,And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge.