'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 ballotted, 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 plum'd helmet, with a grace;
And, his three years of heroship expir'd,
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-breach,

The great proficiency he made abroad;
T'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 flow'r

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 leagu'd with man
By regal warrant, or self-join'd by bond
For int'rest-sake, or swarming into clans
Beneath one head for purposes of war,
Like flow'rs 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 endur'd.

Hence charter'd boroughs are such public plagues;
And burghers, men immaculate perhaps

In all their private functions, once combin'd,
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 thund'ring pomp,
Enchanting music and immortal wreaths,

Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught
On principle, where foppery atones

For folly, gallantry for ev'ry 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 still.

I never fram'd 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 first-born efforts of my youthful muse,
Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells

Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs.
No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd
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 fav'rite 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 danc'd for joy.

I marvell'd much that, at so ripe an age

As twice sev'n years, his beauties had then first