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William Cowper - The Task : CompleteWilliam Cowper - The Task : Complete
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Pass where we may, through city or through town, Village, or hamlet, of this merry land, Though lean and beggar’d, every twentieth pace Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel. There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, The lackey, and the groom: the craftsman there Takes 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 screams Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail’d Its wasted tones and harmony unheard: Fierce the dispute, whate’er the theme; while she, Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, Perch’d on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. In this she lays A weight of ignorance; in that, of pride; And smiles delighted with the eternal poise. Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound, The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised As 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 arts, Which some may practise with politer grace, But none with readier skill!—’tis here they learn The road that leads from competence and peace To indigence and rapine; till at last Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her encumber’d lap, and casts them out. But censure profits little: vain the attempt To advertise in verse a public pest, That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. The excise is fatten’d with the rich result Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touch’d 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 throat;— Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. Would I had fallen upon those happier days, That poets celebrate; those golden times, And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings, And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose. Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts That felt their virtues: Innocence, it seems, From courts dismiss’d, found shelter in the groves; The footsteps of Simplicity, impress’d Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing) Then were not all effaced: then speech profane And manners profligate were rarely found, Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaim’d. Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreams Sat 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 age That favour’d such a dream; in days like these Impossible, when Virtue is so scarce, That to suppose a scene where she presides, Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief. No: we are polish’d now! The rural lass, Whom once her virgin modesty and grace, Her artless manners, and her neat attire, So dignified, that she was hardly less Than the fair shepherdess of old romance, Is seen no more. The character is lost! Her head, adorn’d with lappets pinn’d aloft, And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised, And magnified beyond all human size, Indebted to some smart wig-weaver’s hand For more than half the tresses it sustains; Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form Ill propp’d upon French heels; she might be deem’d (But that the basket dangling on her arm Interprets her more truly) of a rank Too proud for dairy work, or sale of eggs. Expect her soon with footboy 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 stain Appears a spot upon a vestal’s robe, The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs Down into scenes still rural; but, alas! Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now! Time was when in the pastoral retreat The unguarded door was safe; men did not watch To invade another’s right, or guard their own. Then sleep was undisturb’d by fear, unscared By drunken howlings; and the chilling tale Of midnight murder was a wonder heard With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes. But farewell now to unsuspicious nights, And slumbers unalarm’d! Now, ere you sleep, See that your polish’d arms be primed with care, And drop the night bolt;—ruffians are abroad; And the first ‘larum of the cock’s shrill throat May prove a trumpet, summoning your ear To horrid sounds of hostile feet within. E’en daylight has its dangers; and the walk Through pathless wastes and woods, unconscious once Of other tenants than melodious birds, Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold. Lamented change! to which full many a cause Inveterate, 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 plague, That seizes first the opulent, descends To the next rank contagious, and in time Taints downward all the graduated scale Of order, from the chariot to the plough. The rich, and they that have an arm to check The licence of the lowest in degree, Desert their office; and themselves, intent On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus To all the violence of lawless hands Resign the scenes their presence might protect. Authority herself not seldom sleeps, Though resident, and witness of the wrong. The plump convivial parson often bears The magisterial sword in vain, and lays His reverence and his worship both to rest On 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 prove Less dainty than becomes his grave outside In lucrative concerns. Examine well His 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 touch’d Corruption! Whoso seeks an audit here Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish, Wildfowl or venison, and his errand speeds. But faster far, and more than all the rest, A noble cause, which none who bears a spark Of public virtue, ever wish’d removed, Works the deplored and mischievous effect. ‘Tis universal soldiership has stabb’d The heart of merit in the meaner class. Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage Of 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 all But his own simple pleasures; now and then A wrestling-match, a foot-race, or a fair; Is balloted, and trembles at the news: Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears A bible-oath to be whate’er they please, To do he knows not what. The task perform’d, 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 form’d 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 above As meal and larded locks can make him; wears His 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 drum Attends 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 lost His ignorance and harmless manners too. To swear, to game, to drink; to show at home, By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath beach, 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 flower Blown in its native bed: ‘tis there alone His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out; there only reach their proper use. But man, associated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or self-join’d by bond For interest sake, or swarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and, by compression marr’d, Contracts defilement not to be endured. Hence charter’d burghs are such public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathsome body, only fit For dissolution, hurtful to the main. Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin Against the charities of domestic life, Incorporated, seem at once to lose Their nature; and, disclaiming all regard For mercy and the common rights of man, Build factories with blood, conducting trade At the sword’s point, and dyeing the white robe Of innocent commercial Justice red. Hence too the field of glory, as the world Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array, With all its majesty of thundering pomp, Enchanting music and immortal wreaths, Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught On principle, where foppery atones For folly, gallantry for every vice. But slighted as it is, and by the great Abandon’d, and, which still I more regret, Infected with the manners and the modes It knew not once, the country wins me sill. I never framed a wish, or form’d a plan, That flatter’d me with hopes of earthly bliss, But there I laid the scene. There early stray’d My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice Had found me, or the hope of being free. My very dreams were rural; rural too The firstborn efforts of my youthful muse, Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers. No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned To Nature’s praises. Heroes and their feats Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang, The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech. Then Milton had indeed a poet’s charms: New to my taste, his Paradise surpass’d The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue To speak its excellence. I danced for joy. I marvell’d much that, at so ripe an age As twice seven years, his beauties had then first Engaged my wonder; and admiring still, And still admiring, with regret supposed The joy half lost, because not sooner found. There too, enamour’d of the life I loved, Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit Determined, and possessing it at last, With transports, such as favour’d lovers feel, I studied, prized, and wish’d that I had known Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaim’d By modern lights from an erroneous taste, I cannot but lament thy splendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. I still revere thee, courtly though retired; Though stretch’d at ease in Chertsey’s silent bowers, Not unemployed; and finding rich amends For a lost world in solitude and verse. ‘Tis born with all: the love of Nature’s works Is an ingredient in the compound man, Infused at the creation of the kind. And, though the Almighty Maker has throughout Discriminated each from each, by strokes And touches of his hand, with so much art Diversified, that two were never found Twins 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 form’d And tutor’d, 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 worth In human bosoms, quench it or abate. The villas with which London stands begirt Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer The citizen, and brace his languid frame! E’en in the stifling bosom of the town A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That soothe the rich possessor; much consoled, That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well He cultivates. These serve him with a hint That Nature lives; that sight-refreshing green Is 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 range Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed, The Frenchman’s darling? are they not all proofs That man, immured in cities, still retains His inborn inextinguishable thirst Of rural scenes, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts, the best he may, The most unfurnish’d with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds, To range the fields and treat their lungs with air, Yet feel the burning instinct: over head Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick, And water’d duly. There the pitcher stands, A fragment, and the spoutless teapot there; Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets The country, with what ardour he contrives A peep at Nature, when he can no more. Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, And contemplation, heart-consoling joys, And harmless pleasures, in the throng’d abode Of multitudes unknown! hail, rural life! Address himself who will to the pursuit Of 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 have Great talents. And God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordain’d to fill. To the deliverer of an injured land He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, a heart To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs; To monarchs dignity; to judges sense; To artists ingenuity and skill; To me an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long Found here that leisure and that ease I wish’d. Book V. The Winter Morning Walk ‘Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, 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 ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, From every herb and every spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense, In spite of gravity, and sage remark That I myself am but a fleeting shade, Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance I view the muscular proportion’d limb Transform’d to a lean shank. The shapeless pair As they design’d to mock me, at my side Take step for step; and as I near approach The cottage, walk along the plaster’d wall, Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents And coarser grass, upspearing o’er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their 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 accustom’d load, Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern’d The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve his solitary task. Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur, His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk Wide scampering, snatches up the driften snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder’d coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves 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 cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale, Where, diligent to catch the first fair gleam Of smiling day, they gossipp’d side by side, Come trooping at the housewife’s well-known call The feather’d 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 eaves, To seize the fair occasion: well they eye The scatter’d grain, and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared As oft return, a pert voracious kind. Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign’d To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at their head With well-consider’d steps, seems to resent His alter’d gait and stateliness retrench’d. How find the myriads, that in summer cheer The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, Due sustenance, or where subsist they now? Earth yields them nought: the imprison’d worm is safe Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie cover’d close; and berry-bearing thorns, That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose), Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. The long protracted rigour of the year Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes Ten 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, now Repays their labour more; and, perch’d aloft By 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 flood, Indurated and fix’d, the snowy weight Lies undissolved; while silently beneath, And unperceived, the current steals away. Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, And wantons in the pebbly gulf below: No frost can bind it there; its utmost force Can but arrest the light and smoky mist That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. And see where it has hung the embroider’d banks With 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 roof Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops That trickle down the branches, fast congeal’d, Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, And prop the pile they but adorn’d before. Here grotto within grotto safe defies The sunbeam; there, emboss’d and fretted wild, The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain The 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 strokes Performing 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 fell When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its stores To enrich thy walls: but thou didst hew the floods, And make thy marble of the glassy wave. In such a palace Aristæus found Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale Of his lost bees to her maternal ear: In such a palace Poetry might place The 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 parts Were soon conjoin’d; nor other cement ask’d Than water interfused to make them one. Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues, Illumined every side; a watery light Gleam’d through the clear transparency, that seem’d Another moon new risen, or meteor fallen From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene. So stood the brittle prodigy; though smooth And slippery the materials, yet frost-bound Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within, That royal residence might well befit, For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths Of flowers, that fear’d no enemy but warmth, Blush’d on the panels. Mirror needed none Where all was vitreous; but in order due Convivial table and commodious seat (What seem’d 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 scene Of evanescent glory, once a stream, And soon to slide into a stream again. Alas! ‘twas but a mortifying stroke Of undesign’d 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 seem’d Intrinsically precious; to the foot Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold. Great princes have great playthings. Some have play’d At hewing mountains into men, and some At 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 sought By pyramids and mausolean pomp, Short-lived themselves, to immortalize 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 would not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy, the World. When Babel was confounded, and the great Confederacy of projectors wild and vain Was split into diversity of tongues, Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, These to the upland, to the valley those, God drave asunder, and assign’d their lot To all the nations. Ample was the boon He gave them, in its distribution fair And equal; and he bade them dwell in peace. Peace was awhile their care: they plough’d, and sow’d, And reap’d their plenty without grudge or strife, But violence can never longer sleep Than human passions please. In every heart Are 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 wash’d it out; but left unquench’d The seeds of murder in the breast of man. Soon by a righteous judgment in the line Of his descending progeny was found The first artificer of death; the shrewd Contriver, who first sweated at the forge, And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel To 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 abroad In tribes and clans, and had begun to call These meadows and that range of hills his own, The tasted sweets of property begat Desire of more: and industry in some, To improve and cultivate their just demesne, Made others covet what they saw so fair. Thus war began on earth; these fought for spoil, And those in self-defence. Savage at first The onset, and irregular. At length One 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 deeds, Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare? Or who so worthy to control themselves, As he, whose prowess had subdued their foes? Thus war, affording field for the display Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, Which have their exigencies too, and call For skill in government, at length made king. King was a name too proud for man to wear With 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 within A comprehensive faculty, that grasps Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, Almost without an effort, plans too vast For their conception, which they cannot move. Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk With gazing, when they see an able man Step forth to notice; and, besotted thus, Build 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 account When most extravagant in his applause, As if exalting him they raised themselves. Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound And sober judgment, that he is but man, They demi-deify and fume him so, That in due season he forgets it too. Inflated and astrut with self-conceit, He gulps the windy diet; and, ere long, Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks The world was made in vain, if not for him. Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, born To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears, And sweating in his service, his caprice Becomes the soul that animates them all. He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, Spent in the purchase of renown for him, An easy reckoning; and they think the same. Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings Were burnish’d into heroes, and became The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp; Storks among frogs, that have but croak’d and died. Strange, that such folly, as lifts bloated man To eminence, fit only for a god, Should ever drivel out of human lips, E’en in the cradled weakness of the world! Still stranger much, that, when at length mankind Had reach’d the sinewy firmness of their youth, And could discriminate and argue well On subjects more mysterious, they were yet Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear And quake before the gods themselves had made. But above measure strange, that neither proof Of sad experience, nor examples set By some, whose patriot virtue has prevail’d, Can even now, when they are grown mature In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest! Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To reverence what is ancient, and can plead A course of long observance for its use, That even servitude, the worst of ills, Because deliver’d down from sire to son, Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing! But is it fit, or can it bear the shock Of rational discussion, that a man, Compounded and made up like other men Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust And folly in as ample measure meet, As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, Should be a despot absolute, and boast Himself the only freeman of his land? Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will, Wage war, with any or with no pretence Of provocation given, or wrong sustain’d, And force the beggarly last doit, by means That his own humour dictates, from the clutch Of poverty, that thus he may procure His thousands, weary of penurious life, A splendid opportunity to die? Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees In politic convention) put your trust In the shadow of a bramble, and, reclined In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch, Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway, Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang His thorns with streamers of continual praise? We too are friends to loyalty. We love The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, And reigns content within them: him we serve Freely 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 weak, And 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 cause, True to the death, but not to be his slaves. Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Of 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 root In 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 beloved Causeless, and daub’d with undiscerning praise, Where love is mere attachment to the throne, Not to the man who fills it as he ought. Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will Of a superior, he is never free. Who lives, and is not weary of a life Exposed to manacles, deserves them well. The state that strives for liberty, though foil’d, And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, Deserves at least applause for her attempt, And pity for her loss. But that’s a cause Not often unsuccessful: power usurp’d Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong, ‘Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts; The surest presage of the good they seek. Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more To France than all her losses and defeats, Old or of later date, by sea or land, Her house of bondage, worse than that of old Which 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 age With music, such as suits their sovereign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men! There’s not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye were fallen at last; to know That e’en our enemies, so oft employ’d In forging chains for us, themselves were free. For he who values Liberty confines His zeal for her predominance within No narrow bounds; her cause engages him Wherever pleaded. ‘Tis the cause of man. There dwell the most forlorn of human kind, Immured though unaccused, condemn’d untried, Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape! There, like the visionary emblem seen By him of Babylon, life stands a stump, And, filleted about with hoops of brass, Still lives, though all his 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 note To him whose moments all have one dull pace, Ten thousand rovers in the world at large Account it music; that it summons some To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball: The wearied hireling finds it a release From labour; and the lover, who has chid Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight— To fly for refuge from distracting thought To such amusements as ingenious woe Contrives, 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 overgorged And bloated spider, till the pamper’d pest Is made familiar, watches his approach, Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend— To wear out time in numbering to and fro The studs that thick emboss his iron door; Then downward and then upward, then aslant, And then alternate; with a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish; till the sum, exactly found In all directions, he begins again;— Oh comfortless existence! hemm’d around With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel And 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 hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps a heedless word To 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 flower Of 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, impedes Their progress in the road of science; blinds The eyesight of Discovery; and begets, In those that suffer it, a sordid mind Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man’s noble form. Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art, With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed By public exigence, till annual food Fails for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free: My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, and disposes much All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine: Thine unadulterate manners are less soft And plausible than social life requires, And thou hast need of discipline and art To give thee what politer France receives From nature’s bounty—that humane address And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse, either starved by cold reserve, Or flush’d with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl. Yet being free, I love thee: for the sake Of 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 endure Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home, Where I am free by birthright, not at all. Then what were left of roughness in the grain Of British natures, wanting its excuse That it belongs to freemen, would disgust And shock me. I should then with double pain Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime; And, if I must bewail the blessing lost, For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, I would at least bewail it under skies Milder, 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 takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Design’d by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough: For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves not part? He be a nation’s friend Who 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 sake That country, if at all, must be beloved? ‘Tis therefore sober and good men are sad For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts So loose to private duty, that no brain, Healthful and undisturb’d by factious fumes, Can dream them trusty to the general weal. Such were not they of old, whose temper’d blades Dispersed the shackles of usurp’d control, And hew’d them link from link; then Albion’s sons Were sons indeed; they felt a filial heart Beat high within them at a mother’s wrongs; And, shining each in his domestic sphere, Shone brighter still, once call’d to public view. ‘Tis therefore many, whose sequester’d lot Forbids their interference, looking on, Anticipate perforce some dire event; And, seeing the old castle of the state, That promised once more firmness, so assail’d That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, Stand motionless expectants of its fall. All has its date below; the fatal hour Was register’d in heaven ere time began. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die 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 search’d in vain, The undiscoverable secret sleeps. But there is yet a liberty, unsung By poets, and by senators unpraised, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of 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 seal’d with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanction’d sure By the unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his, And are august; but this transcends them all. His other works, the visible display Of all-creating energy and might, Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the word That, finding an interminable space Unoccupied, has fill’d 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 divine Meant it eternal, had he not himself Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, And, still designing a more glorious far, Doom’d it as insufficient for his praise. These, therefore, are occasional, and pass; Form’d for the confutation of the fool, Whose lying heart disputes against a God; That office served, they must be swept away. Not so the labours of his love: they shine In other heavens than these that we behold, And fade not. There is paradise that fears No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends Large prelibation oft to saints below. Of these the first in order, and the pledge And confident assurance of the rest, Is liberty: a flight into his arms, Ere yet mortality’s fine threads give way, A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, And full immunity from penal woe. Chains are the portion of revolted man, Stripes, and a dungeon; and his body serves The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul, Opprobrious residence he finds them all. Propense his heart to idols, he is held In silly dotage on created things, Careless of their Creator. And that low And sordid gravitation of his powers To a vile clod so draws him, with such force Resistless from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward; his ambition is to sink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. But, ere he gain the comfortless repose He seeks, and aquiescence of his soul, In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures— What does he not, from lusts opposed in vain, And self-reproaching conscience? He foresees The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, supportable. Still worse, Far worse than all the plagues, with which his sins Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages 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 loud Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst Of laughter his compunctions are sincere; And he abhors the jest by which he shines. Remorse begets reform. His master-lust Falls first before his resolute rebuke, And seems dethroned and vanquish’d. Peace ensues, But spurious and short-lived; the puny child Of self-congratulating pride, begot On fancied innocence. Again he falls, And fights again; but finds his best essay A presage ominous, portending still Its own dishonour by a worse relapse. Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foil’d So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause Perversely, which of late she so condemn’d; With shallow shifts and old devices, worn And tatter’d 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 means To gratify the hunger of his wish; And doth he reprobate, and will he damn The use of his own bounty? making first So frail a kind, and then enacting laws So 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 hire The teacher’s office, and dispense at large Their weekly dole of edifying strains,
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