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 pampered pest Is made familiar, watches its 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
And beg for exile, or the pangs of death? That man should thus encroach on fellowman,
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, 441 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, blame worthy 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 460 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 ad- dress
And sweetness, without which no pleasure is
For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not? Can he love the whole
Who loves no 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 510 And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts
So 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
And sealed with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure By the unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts 550 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 filled the void so well, And made so sparkling what was dark be- fore.
But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true, Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, 560 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, Doomed it as insufficient for His praise. These therefore are occasional, and pass; Formed for the confutation of the fool, 567 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 589 Resistless, from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downwards; 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 acquiescence of his soul In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures What does he not? from lusts opposed in vain,
And self-reproaching conscience. He fore
Perversely, which of late she so condemned; With shallow shifts and old devices, worn And 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
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 640 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, Attend to their own music? Have they faith In what, with such solemnity of tone And gesture, they propound to our belief? Nay, conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice Is but an instrument on which the priest May 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 belong
To excuses in which reason has no part) Serve to compose a spirit well inclined To live on terms of amity with vice, And sin without disturbance. Often urged, (As often as, libidinous discourse Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes Of theological and grave import,) They gain at last his unreserved assent; Till hardened his heart's temper in the forge Of 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
That turns to ridicule the turgid speech And stately tone of moralists, who boast, 690 As if, like him of fabulous renown, They had indeed ability to smooth The shag of savage nature, and were each An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song. But transformation of apostate man From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And He by means in philosophic eyes Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves The wonder; humanizing what is brute 700 In the lost kind, extracting from the lips Of asps their venom, overpowering strength By weakness, and hostility by love.
Patriots have toiled, and in their coun- try's cause
Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they de
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic Muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass 710 To guard them, and to immortalize 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 blood, Well 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 shed
In feast or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who unimpeached Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, 760 Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city, planned or ere the hills Were built, the fountains opened, or the
With all his roaring multitude of waves. His freedom is the same in every State, And no condition of this changeful life, So manifold in cares, whose every day Brings its own evil with it, makes it less: 770 For he has wings that neither sickness, pain, Nor penury, can cripple or confine.
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds
His body bound, but knows not what a range
His 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 taste
His works. Admitted once to His embrace, 780
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before;
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught To read His wonders, in whose thought the world,
Fair as it is, existed ere it was.
Not for its own sake merely, but for His 800 Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise;
Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought, To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds
Its only just proprietor in Him.
The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimed
New faculties, or learns at least to employ More worthily the powers she owned before, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze Of ignorance, till then she overlooked, 809 A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute, The unambiguous footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.
Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds
With those fair ministers of light to man That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, Sweet conference; enquires what strains were they
With which heaven rang, when every star, in haste
« AnteriorContinuar » |