On A Fart - Let In The House Of Commons

Reader, I was born, and cried;
I crack'd, I smelt, and so I died.
Like Julius Caesar's was my death,
Who in the senate lost his breath.
Much alike entomb'd does lie
The noble Romulus and I:
And when I died, like Flora fair,
I left the commonwealth my heir.

Protogenes And Apelles

When poets wrote and painters drew
As Nature pointed out the view,
Ere Gothic forms were known in Greece
To spoil the well-proportion'd piece;
And in our verse ere Monkish rhymes
Had jangled their fantastic chimes;
Ere on the flowery lands of Rhodes
Those knights had fix'd their dull abodes,
Who knew not much to paint or write,
Nor cared to pray, nor dared to fight;
Protogenes, historians note,
Lived there, a burgess, scot and lot;
And as old Pliny's writings show
Apelles did the same at Co.
Agreed these points of time and place,
Proceed we in the present case.

Piqued by Protogenes's fame,
From Co to Rhodes Apelles came
To see a rival and a friend,
Prepared to censure or commend;
Here to absolve, and there object,
As art with candour might direct.
He sails, he lands, he comes, he rings;
His servants follow with the things:
Appears the governante of the house,
For such in Greece were much in use;
If young or handsome, yea or no,
Concerns not me or thee to know.

Does Squire Protogenes live here?
Yes Sir, says he, with gracious air,
And curtesy low, but just call'd out
By lords peculiarly devout,
Who came on purpose, Sir, to borrow
Our Venus for the feast to-morrow
To grace the church: 'tis Venus day;
I hope Sir you intend to stay
To see our Venus: 'tis the piece
The most renown'd throughout all Greece
So like th' original they say;
But I have no great skill that way.
But, Sir, at six ('tis now past three)
Dromo must make my master's tea:
At six, Sir, if you please to come,
You'll find my master, Sir, at home.

Tea, says a critic, big with laughter,
Was found some twenty years ages after.
Authors, before they write, should read,
'Tis very true; but we'll proceed.
And, Sir, at present would you please
To leave your name - Fair maiden, yes.
Reach me that board. No sooner spoke
But done. With one judicious stroke
On the plain ground Appelles drew
A circle regularly true.
And will you please, Sweet-heart, said he,
To show your master this from me?
By it he presently will know
How painters write their names at Co.

He gave the pannel to the maid.
Smiling and curtesying, Sir, she said,
I shall not fail to tell my master:
And, Sir, for fear of all disaster
I'll keep it my own self : Safe bind,
Says the old proverb and safe find.
So, Sir, as sure as a key or lock -
Your servant, Sir, - at six o'clock.

Again at six Apelles came,
Found the same prating civil dame.
Sir, that my master has been here
Will by the board itself appear:
If from the perfect line be found
He has presumed to swell the round,
Or colours on the draught to lay,
'Tis thus, (he order'd me to say)
Thus write the painters of this isle;
Let those of Co remark the style.

She said; and to his hand restored
The rival pledge, the missive board.
Upon the happy line were laid
Such obvious light and easy shade,
That Paris' apple stood confest,
Or Leda's egg, or Cloe's breast.

Apelles view'd the finish'd piece;
And live, said he, the arts of Greece!
Howe'er Protogenes and I
May in our rival talents vie;
Howe'er our works may have exprest
Who truest drew or colour'd best,
When he beheld my flowing line
He found at least I could design;
And from his artful round I grant
That he with perfect skill can paint.

The dullest genius cannot fail
To find the moral of my tale;
That the distinguish'd part of men,
With compass, pencil, sword, or pen,
Should in life's visit leave their name
In characters which may proclaim
That they with ardour strove to raise
At once their arts and country's praise;
And in their working took great care
That all was full, and round, and fair.

Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her,
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker,

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses,
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!)

From some real care but more fancied vexation,
From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion,
Here lies after all the best wench in the nation.

From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone,
Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan,
'Twas all one to her by what name she was known.

For the idiom of words very little she heeded,
Provided the matter she drove at succeeded,
She took and gave languages just as she needed.

So for kitchen and market, for bargain and sale,
She paid English or Dutch or French down on the nail,
But in telling a story she sometimes did fail;

Then begging excuse as she happen'd to stammer,
With respect to her betters but none to her grammar,
Her blush helped her out and her jargon became her.

Her habit and mien she endeavor'd to frame
To the different gout of the place where she came;
Her outside still chang'd, but her inside the same:

At the Hague in her slippers and hair as the mode is,
At Paris all falbalow'd fine as a goddess,
And at censuring London in smock sleeves and bodice.

She order'd affairs that few people could tell
In what part about her that mixture did dwell
Of Frow, or Mistress, or Mademoiselle.

For her surname and race let the herald's e'en answer;
Her own proper worth was enough to advance her,
And he who liked her, little value her grandsire.

But from what house so ever her lineage may come
I wish my own Jinny but out of her tomb,
Tho' all her relations were there in her room.

Of such terrible beauty she never could boast
As with absolute sway o'er all hearts rules the roast
When J___ bawls out to the chair for a toast;

But of good household features her person was made,
Nor by faction cried up nor of censure afraid,
And her beauty was rather for use than parade.

Her blood so well mix't and flesh so well pasted
That, tho' her youth faded, her comeliness lasted;
The blue was wore off, but the plum was well tasted.

Less smooth than her skin and less white than her breast
Was this polished stone beneath which she lies pressed:
Stop, reader, and sigh while thou thinkst on the rest.

With a just trim of virtue her soul was endued,
Not affectedly pious nor secretly lewd
She cut even between the coquette and the prude.

Her will with her duty so equally stood
That, seldom oppos'd, she was commonly good,
And did pretty well, doing just what she would.

Declining all power she found means to persuade,
Was then most regarded when most she obey'd,
The mistress in truth when she seem'd but the maid.

Such care of her own proper actions she took
That on other folk's lives she had not time to look,
So censure and praise were struck out of her book.

Her thought still confin'd to its own little sphere,
She minded not who did excel or did err
But just as the matter related to her.

Then too when her private tribunal was rear'd
Her mercy so mix'd with her judgment appear'd
That her foes were condemn'd and her friends always clear'd.

Her religion so well with her learning did suit
That in practice sincere, and in controverse mute,
She showed she knew better to live than dispute.

Some parts of the Bible by heart she recited,
And much in historical chapters delighted,
But in points about Faith she was something short sighted;

So notions and modes she refer'd to the schools,
And in matters of conscience adher'd to two rules,
To advise with no bigots, and jest with no fools.

And scrupling but little, enough she believ'd,
By charity ample small sins she retriev'd,
And when she had new clothes she always receiv'd.

Thus still whilst her morning unseen fled away
In ord'ring the linen and making the tea
That scarce could have time for the psalms of the day;

And while after dinner the night came so soon
That half she propos'd very seldom was done;
With twenty God bless me's, how this day is gone! --

While she read and accounted and paid and abated,
Eat and drank, play'd and work'd, laugh'd and cried, lov'd and hated,
As answer'd the end of her being created:

In the midst of her age came a cruel disease
Which neither her juleps nor receipts could appease;
So down dropp'd her clay -- may her Soul be at peace!

Retire from this sepulchre all the profane,
You that love for debauch, or that marry for gain,
Retire lest ye trouble the Manes of J___.

But thou that know'st love above int'rest or lust,
Strew the myrle and rose on this once belov'd dust,
And shed one pious tear upon Jinny the Just.

Tread soft on her grave, and do right to her honor,
Let neither rude hand nor ill tongue light upon her,
Do all the small favors that now can be done her.

And when what thou lik'd shall return to her clay,
For so I'm persuaded she must do one day
-- Whatever fantastic John Asgill may say --

When as I have done now, thou shalt set up a stone
For something however distinguished or known,
May some pious friend the misfortune bemoan,
And make thy concern by reflexion his own.

Down-Hall. A Ballad.

Tune. - 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.'


I sing not old Jason who travell'd through Greece
To kiss the fair maids and possess the rich fleece,
Nor sing I AEneas, who, led by his mother,
Got rid of one wife and went far for another.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Nor him who through Asia and Europe did roam,
Ulysses by name, who ne'er cared to go home,
But rather desired to see cities and men
Than return to his farms and converse with old Pen.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Hang Homer and Virgil; their meaning to seek,
A man must have poked into Latin and Greek;
Those who love their own tongue we have reason to hope,
Have read them translated by Dryden and Pope.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But I sing of exploits that have lately been done
By two British heroes call'd Matthew and John,
And how they rid friendly from fine London town,
Fair Essex to see, and a place they call Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now ere they went out, you may rightly suppose
How much they discoursed both in prudence and prose:
For before this great journey was thoroughly concerted,
Full often they met, and as often they parted.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And thus Matthew said, look you here my friend John,
I fairly have travell'd years thirty and one,
And though I still carried my Sovereign's warrants,
I only have gone upon other folks errands.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And now in this journey of life I would have
A place where to bait 'twixt the court and the grave,
Where joyful to live, not unwilling to die -
Gadzooks, I had just a place in my eye.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


There are gardens so stately, and arbours so thick,
A portal of stone, and a fabric of brick;
The matter next week shall be all in your power;
But the money, Gadzooks, must be paid in an hour.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


For things in this world must by law be made certain;
We both must repair unto Oliver Martin,
For he is a lawyer of worthy renown,
I'll bring you to see he must fix you at Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Quoth Matthew, I know that from Berwick to Dover
You've sold all our premises over and over;
And now if your buyers and sellers agree
You may throw all our acres into the South-sea.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But a word to the purpose; to-morrow, dear friend,
We'll sea what to-night you so highly commend,
And if with a garden and house I am bless'd,
Let the devil and Coningsby go with the rest.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then answer'd Squire Morley, pray get a calash,
That in summer may burn, in winter may splash;
I love dirt and dust; and 'tis always my pleasure
To take with me much of the soil that I measure.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But Matthew thought better, for Matthew thought right,
And hired a chariot so trim and so tight,
That extremes both of winter and summer might pass,
For one window was canvas, the other was glass.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Draw up, quoth friend Matthew; pull down, quoth friend John,
We shall be both hotter and colder anon:
Thus talking and scolding they forward did speed,
And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Into an old inn did this equipage roll,
At a town they call Hodsdon, the sign of the Bull,
Near a nymph with an urn, that divides the highway,
And into a puddle throws mother of tea.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Come here, my sweet landlady, pray, how d'ye do?
Where is Cicily so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue?
And where is the widow that dwelt here below?
And the ostler that sung about eight years ago?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And where is your sister, so mild and so dear?
Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear.
By my troth, she replies, you grow younger I think;
And pray, Sir, what wine does the gentleman drink?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Why now let me die, Sir, or live upon trust,
If I know to which question to answer you first:
Why things since I saw you most strangely have varied?
The ostler is hang'd, and the widow is married.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse,
And Cicily went off with a gentleman's purse;
And as to my sister, so mild and so dear,
She has lain in the churchyard full many a year.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Well, peace to her ashes; what signifies grief?
She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef;
Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish,
For tough were her pullets and tender her fish.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


For that matter, Sir, be ye 'squire, knight, or lord,
I'll give you whate'er a good inn can afford:
I should look on myself as unhappily sped
Did I yield a sister or living or dead.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Of mutton a delicate neck and a breast,
Shall swim in the water in which they were dress'd;
And because you great folks are with rarities taken,
Addle-eggs shall be next course, tost up with rank bacon.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then supper was served, and the sheets they were laid,
And Morley most lovingly whisper'd the maid.
The maid! was she handsome? why, truly so so;
But what Morley whisper'd we never shall know,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then up rose these heroes as brisk as the sun,
And their horses, like his, were prepared to run:
Now when in the morning Matt ask'd for the score,
John kindly had paid it the evening before.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Their breakfast so warm, to be sure they did eat,
A custom in travellers mighty discreet:
And thus with great friendship and glee they went on
To find out the place you shall hear of anon,

Called Down, Down, hey derry down.


But what did they talk of from morning till noon?
Why, of spots in the sun, and the man in the moon;
Of the Czar's gentle temper, the stocks in the city,
The wise men of Greece, and the secret Committee.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


So to Harlow they came; and hey, where are you all?
Show us into the parlour, and mind when I call:
Why, your maids have no motion, your men have no life:
Well Master, I hear you have buried your wife,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Come this very instant, take care to provide
Tea, sugar, and toast, and a hoarse and a guide.
Are the Harrisons here, both the old and the young?
And where stands fair Down, the delight of my song.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O 'squire, to the grief of my heart I may say
I have buried two wives since you travell'd this way;
And the Harrisons both may be presently here;
And Down stands, I think, where it stood the last year.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then Joan brought the tea-pot, and Caleb the toast,
And the wine was frothed out by the hand of mine host;
But we clear'd our extempore banquet so fast,
That the Harrisons both were forgot in the haste.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now hey or Down-Hall; for the guide he was got;
The chariot was mounted, the horses did trot;
The guide he did bring us a dozen miles round;
But, oh! all in vain, for no Down could be found.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O thou Popish guide, thou hast led us astray,
Says he, How the devil should I know the way?
I never yet travell'd this road in my life;
But Down lies on the left I was told by my wife.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Thy wife, answer'd Matthew, when she went abroad,
Ne'er told thee of half the by-ways she had trod;
Perhaps she met friends, and brought pence to thy house,
But thou shalt go home without ever a sous.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


What is this thing, Morley, and how can you mean it?
We have lost our estate here before we have seen it;
Have patience, soft Morley in anger replied;
To find out our way let us send off our guide.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O here I spy Down: cast your eye to the west,
Where a windmill so stately stands plainly confess'd.
On the west! replied Matthew, no windmill I find;
As well thou may'st tell me I see the west wind.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now pardon me, Morley, the windmill I spy,
But faithful Achates, no house is there nigh:
Look again, says mild Morley, Gadzooks, you are blind;
The mill stands before and the house lies behind,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O now a low ruin'd white shed I discern,
Untiled and unglazed, I believe 'tis a barn.
A barn! why you have rave; 'tis a house for a 'squire,
A justice of peace, or a knight of our shire.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


A house should be built or with brick or with stone,
Why, 'tis plaster and lath, and I think that's all one;
And such as it is it has stood with great fame,
Been called a Hall, and has given its name,
To Down, Down, hey derry down.

O Morley, O Morley, if that be a hall,
The same with a building will suddenly fall -
With your friend Jemmy Gibbs about buildings agree,
My business is land, and it matters not me.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


I wish you could tell what a deuce your head ails;
I show'd you Down-Hall, did you look for Versailles?
Then take house and farm as John Ballet will let ye,
For better for worse, as I took my dame Betty.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And now, Sir, a word to the wise is enough;
You'll make very little of all your old stuff;
And to build at your age, by my troth, you grow simple,
Are you young and rich, like the master of Wimple?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


If you have these whims of apartments and gardens,
From twice fifty acres you'll ne'er see five farthings;
And in your's I shall find the true gentleman's fate,
Ere you finish your house you'll have spent your estate.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now let us touch thumb, and be friends ere we part,
Here, John, is my thumb, and here, Mat, is heart;
To Halstead I speed, and you go back to town;
Thus ends the first part of the ballad of Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.

The Turtle And Sparrow. An Elegiac Tale

Behind an unfrequented glade,
Where yew and myrtle mix their shade,
A widow Turtle pensive sat,
And wept her murder'd lover's fate.
The Sparrow chanced that way to walk,
(A bird that loves to chirp and talk)
Be sure he did the Turtle greet,
She answer'd him as she thought meet.
Sparrows and Turtles, by the bye,
Can think as well as you or I;
But how they did their thoughts express
The margin shows by T. and S.

T. My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
Alas! I weep Columbo dead:
Come, all ye winged Lovers, come,
Drop pinks and daisies on his tomb;
Sing, Philomel, his funeral verse,
Ye pious Redbreasts deck his hearse;
Fair Swans, extend your dying throats,
Columbo's death requires your notes;
For him, my friend, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

Stretch'd on the bier Columbo lies,
Pale are his cheeks, and closed his eyes;
Those eyes, where beauty smiling lay,
Those eyes, where Love was used to play;
Ah! cruel Fate, alas how soon
That beauty and those joys are flown!

Columbo is no more: ye floods,
Bear the sad sound to distant woods;
The sound let echo's voice restore,
And say, Columbo is no more.
Ye floods, ye woods, ye echoes, moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

The Dryads all forsook the wood,
And mournful Naiads round me stood,
The tripping Fawns and Fairies came,
All conscious of our mutual flame,
To sigh for him, with me to moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

Venus disdain'd not to appear,
To lend my grief a friendly ear;
But what avails her kindness now?
She ne'er shall hear my second vow:
The Loves that round their mother flow
Did in her face her sorrows view;
Their drooping wings they pensive hung,
Their arrows broke, their bows unstrung;
They heard attentive what I said,
And wept, with me, Columbo dead:
For him I sigh, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

'Tis ours to weep, great Venus said,
'Tis Jove's alone to be obey'd:
Nor birds nor goddesses can move
The just behests of fatal Jove;
I saw thy mate with sad regret,
And cursed the fowler's cruel net:
Ah! dear Columbo, how he fell,
Whom Turturella loved so well!
I saw him bleeding on the ground,
The sight tore up my ancient wound:
And whilst you wept, alas! I cried,
Columbo and Adonis died.

Weep, all ye streams, ye mountains, groan;
I mourn Columbo, dead and gone;
Still let my tender grief complain,
Nor day nor night that grief restrain;
I said, and Venus still replied,
Columbo and Adonis died.

S. Poor Turturella, hard thy case,
And just thy tears, alas, alas!
T. And hast thou loved, and canst thou hear
With piteous heart a lover's care!
Come, then, with me thy sorrows join,
And ease my woes by telling thine;
For thou, poor bird, perhaps may'st moan
Some Passerelia, dead and gone.

S. Dame turtle, this runs soft in rhyme,
But neither suits the place nor time;
The fowler's hand, whose cruel care
For dear Columbo set the snare,
The snare again for thee may set;
Two birds may perish in one net:
Thou shouldst avoid this cruel field,
And sorrow should to prudence yield.
'Tis sad to die -

T. ---- It may be so;
'Tis sadder yet to live in wo.
S. When widows use their canting strain
They seem resolved to wed again.
T. When widowers would this truth disprove,
They never tasted real love.
S. Love is soft joy and gentle strife,
His efforts all depend on life:
When he has thrown two golden darts,
And struck the lovers' mutual hearts,
Of his black shafts let death send one,
Alas! the pleasing game is done:
Ill is the poor survivor sped,
A corpse feels mighty cold in bed,
Venus said right, Nor tears can move
Nor plaints revoke the will of Jove.

All must obey the general doom,
Down from Alcides to Tom Thumb.
Grim Pluto will not be withstood
By force or craft. Tall Robinhood,
As well as little John, is dead.
(You see how deeply I am read)
With Fate's lean tipstaff non can dodge,
He'll find you out where'er you lodge.
Ajax, to shun his general power,
In vain absconded in a flower.
An idle scene Tythonus acted,
When to a grasshopper contracted;
Death struck them in those shapes again,
As once he did when they were men.

For reptiles perish, plants decay;
Flesh is but grass, grass turns to hay,
And hay is dung, and dung to clay.

Thus heads extremely nice discover
That folks may die some ten times over;
But oft by too refined a touch
To prove things plain they prove too much,
Whate'er Pythagoras may say,
(For each you know will have his way)
With great submission I pronounce
That people die no more than once:
But once is sure, and death is common
To bird and man, including woman:
From the spread eagle to the wren,
Alas! no mortal fowl knows when.
All that wear feathers, first or last,
Must one day perch on Charon's mast;
Must lie beneath the cypress shade,
Where Strada's nightingale was laid.
Those fowl who seem alive to sit,
Assembled by Dan Chaucer's wit,
In prose have slept three hundred years,
Exempt from worldly hopes and fears,
And, laid in state upon their hearse,
Are truly but embalm'd in verse.
As sure as Lesbia's Sparrow I,
Thou sure as Prior's Dove, must die,
And ne'er again from Lethe's streams
Return to Adda or to Thames.

T. I therefore weep Columbo dead,
My hopes bereaved, my pleasures fled;
I therefore must for ever moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

S. Columbo never sees your tears,
Your cries Columbo never hears;
A wall of brass and one of lead
Divide the living from the dead:
Repell'd by this the gather'd rain
Of tears beats back to earth again;
In t'other the collected sound
Of groans, when once received, is drown'd.
'Tis therefore vain one hour to grieve
What time itself can ne'er retrieve.
By nature soft, I know a dove
Can never live without her love;
Then quit this flame, and light another,
Dame, I advise you like a brother.

T. What, I do make a second choice!
In other nuptials to rejoice!
S. Why not, my bird! -
T. --- No, Sparrow, no;
Let me indulge my pleasing wo:
Thus sighing, cooing, ease my pain,
But never wish nor love again:
Distress'd for ever let me moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

S. Our winged friends through all the grove
Contemn thy mad excess of love:
I tell thee, Dame, the other day,
I met a parrot and a jay,
Who mock'd thee in their mimic tone,
And wept Columbo, dead and hone.

T. Whate'er thy jay or parrot said,
My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
And I for ever must deplore
Columbo, dead and gone. - S.
Encore!

For shame, forsake this Byon-style;
We'll talk an hour and walk a mile.
Does it with sense or health agree
To sit thus moping on a tree?
To throw away a widow's life,
When you again may be a wife?
Come on, I'll tell you my amours;
Who knows but they may influence yours?
Example draws when precept falls,
And sermons are less read than tales.

T. Sparrow, I take thee for my friend;
As such will hear thee: I descend;
Hop on and talk; but, honest bird,
Take care that no immodest word
May venture to offend my ear.

S. Too saint-like Turtle, never fear;
By method things are best discuss'd,
Begin we then with wife the first:
A handsome, senseless, awkward, fool,
Who would not yield, and could not rule,
Her actions did her charms disgrace,
And still her tongue talk'd of her face;
Count me the leaves of yonder tree,
So many different wills had she,
And, like the leaves, as chance inclined,
Those wills were changed with every wind:
She courted the
beau-monde
to-night,

L'assemblee
her supreme delight;
The next she sat immured, unseen,
And in full health enjoy'd the spleen;
She censured that, she alter'd this,
And with great care set all amiss;
She now could chide, now laugh, now cry,
Now sing, now pout, all God knows why:
Short was her reign, she cough'd and died.
Proceed we to my second bride.
Well-born she was, genteelly bred,
And buxom both at board and bed;
Glad to oblige, and pleased to please,
And, as Tom Southern wisely says,
No other fault had she in life,
But only that she was my wife.
O widow Turtle! every she,
(So nature's pleasure does decree)
Appears a goddess till enjoy'd;
But birds, and men, and gods, are cloy'd.
Was Hercules one woman's man,
Or Jove for ever Laeda's swan?
Ah! Madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon.
Variety alone gives joy;
The sweetest meats the soonest cloy.
What sparrow, dame, what dove alive,
Though Venus should the chariot drive,
But would accuse the harness' weight,
If always coupled to one mate,
And often wish the fetter broke?
'Tis freedom but to change the yoke.

T. Impious wish to wed again
Ere death dissolved the former chain!
S. Spare your remark, and hear the rest.
She brought me sons, but Jove be bless'd
She died in childbed on the nest.
Well, rest her bones, quoth I, she's gone;
But must I therefore lie alone?
What, am I to her memory tied?
Must I not live because she died?
And thus I logically said,
('Tis good to have a reasoning head)
Is this my wife?
Probatur
not;
For death dissolved the marriage knot;
She was,
concedo
, during my life;
But is a piece of clay a wife?
Again, if not a wife, do ye see,
Why them, no kin at all to me;
And he who general tears can shed
For folks that happen to be dead
May e'en with equal justice mourn
For those who never yet were born.

T. Those points, indeed, you quaintly prove,
But logic is no friend to love.
S. My children then were just pen-feather'd;
Some little corn for them I gather'd,
And sent them to my spouse's mother,
So left that brood to get another;
And as old Harry whilom said,
Reflecting on Anne Boleyn dead,
Cocksbones, I now again do stand
The jolliest bachelor i' th' land.

T. Ah me! my joys, my hopes are fled;
My first, my only love is dead;
With endless grief let me bemoan
Columbo's loss --------
S. ----- Let me go on.
As yet my fortune was but narrow;
I woo'd my cousin, Philly Sparrow,
O' th' elder house of Chirping-End,
From whence the younger branch descend.
Well seated in a field of pease
She lived, extremely at her ease;
But when the honey-moon was past,
The following nights were soon o'ercast;
She kept her own, could plead the law,
And quarrel for a barley-straw:
Both, you may judge, became less kind,
As more we knew each other's mind.
She soon grew sullen, I hard-hearted;
We scolded, hated, fought, and parted.
To London, blessed town, I went;
She boarded at a farm in Kent:
A magpie from the country fled,
And kindly told me she was dead:
I pruned my feathers, cock'd my tail,
And set my heart again to sale.

My fourth, a mere coquette, or such
I thought her, nor avails it much
If true or false; our troubles spring
More from the fancy than the thing.
Two staring horns, I often said,
But ill become a sparrow's head;
But then to set that balance even
Your cuckold sparrow goes to heaven.
The thing you fear, suppose it done,
If you enquire you make it known;
Whilst at the root your horns are sore,
The more you scratch they ache the more.
But turn the tables and reflect,
All may not be that you suspect:
By the mind's eye the horns we mean,
Are only in ideas seen;
'Tis from the inside of the head
Their branches shoot, their antlers spread;
Fruitful suspicions often bear 'em,
You feel them from the time you fear 'em;
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! that echo'd word
Offends the ear of Vulgar bird;
But those of finer taste have found
There's nothing in't beside the sound.
Preferment always waits on horns,
And household peace the gift adorns:
This way or that let factions tend,
The spark is still the cuckold's friend:
This way or that let madam roam,
Well pleased and quiet she comes home.
Now weigh the pleasure with the pain,
The
plus
and
minus
, loss and gain,
And what La Fontaine laughing says
Is serious truth in such a case:
'Who slights the evil finds it least:
And who does nothing does the best.'
I never strove to rule the roast,
She ne'er refused to pledge my toast:
In visits if we chanced to meet,
I seem'd obliging, she discreet:
We neither much caress'd nor strove,
But good dissembling past for love.

T. Whate'er of light our eye may know,
'Tis only light itself can show;
Whate'er of love our heart can feel,
'Tis mutual love alone can tell.

S. My pretty amorous foolish bird,
A moment's patience. In one word,
The three kind sisters broke the chain;
She died, I mourn'd, and woo'd again.

T. Let me with juster grief deplore
My dear Columbo, now no more;
Let me with constant tears bewail ----
S. Your sorrow does but spoil my tale.
My fifth she proved a jealous wife,
Lord shield us all from such a life;
'Twas doubt, complaint, reply, chit-chat,
'Twas this to-day, to-morrow that.
Sometimes, forsooth, upon the brook
I kept a miss; an honest rook
Told it a snipe, who told a steer,
Who told it those who told it her.

One day a linnet and a lark
Had met me strolling in the dark;
The next a woodcock and an owl,
Quick-sighted, grave, and sober fowl,
Would on their corporal oath alledge
I kiss'd a hen behind the hedge.
Well, madam Turtle, to be brief,
(Repeating but renews our grief)
As once she watch'd me from a rail,
Poor soul! her footing chanced to fail,
And down she fell and broke her hip;
The fever came, and then the pip:
Dead did the only cure apply;
She was at quiet, so was I.

T. Could Love unmoved these changes view?
His sorrows as his joys are true.
S. My dearest Dove, one wise man says,
Alluding to our present case,
'We're here to-day and gone to-morrow;'
Then what avails superfluous sorrow?
Another, full as wise as he,
Adds, 'that a married man may see
Two happy hours;' and which are they?
The first and last, perhaps you'll say:
'Tis true, when blithe she goes to bed,
And when she peaceably lies dead:
'Women 'twixt sheets are best,' 'tis said,
Be they of Holland or of lead.

Now cured of Hymen's hopes and fears,
And sliding down the vale of years,
I hoped to fix my future rest,
And took a widow to my nest.
Ah! Turtle! had she been like thee,
Sober yet gentle, wise yet free;
But she was peevish, noisy, bold,
A witch ingrafted on a scold.
Jove in Pandora's box confined
A hundred ills to vex mankind;
To vex one bird in her bandore
He hid at least a hundred more,
And soon as time that veil withdrew
The plagues o'er all the parish flew;
Her stock of borrow'd tears grew dry,
And native tempests arm'd her eye;
Black clouds around her forehead hung,
And thunder rattled on her tongue.
We, young or old, or cock or hen,
All live in AEolus's den;
The nearest her the more accursed,
Ill-fared her friends, her husband worst;
But Jove amidst his anger spares,
Remarks our faults, but hears our prayers.
In short she died. Why then she's dead,
Quoth I, and once again I'll wed.
Would Heaven this mourning year were past
One may have better luck at last.
Matters at worst are sure to mend;
The devil's wife was but a fiend.

T. Thy tale has raised a Turtle's spleen;
Uxorious inmate, bird obscene,
Dar'st thou defile these sacred groves,
The silent seats of faithful loves?
Begone; with flagging wings sit down
On some old penthouse near the town;
In brewers' stables peck thy grain,
Then wash it down with puddled rain,
And hear thy dirty offspring squall
From bottles on a suburb-wall.
Where thou hast been, return again,
Vile bird! thou hast conversed with men:
Notions like these from men are given,
Those vilest creatures under heaven.

To cities and to courts repair,
Flattery and falsehood flourish there;
There all thy wretched arts employ
Where riches triumph over joy,
Where passions do with interest barter,
And Hymen holds by Mammon's charter;
Where truth by point of law is parried,
And knaves and prudes are six times married.


Application.

O Dearest daughter of two dearest friends,
To thee my Muse this little Tale commends.
Loving and loved, regard thy future mate,
Long love his person, though deplore his fate;
Seem young when old in thy dear husband's arms,
For constant virtue has immortal charms;
And when I lie low sepulchred in earth,
And the glad year returns thy day of birth,
Vouchsafe to say, Ere I could write or spell,
The bard who from my cradle wish'd me well
Told me I should the prating Sparrow blame,
And bid me imitate the Turtle's flame.

Alma; Or, The Progress Of The Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto I.

Matthew met Richard, when or where
From story is not mighty clear:
Of many knotty points they spoke,
And pro and con by turns they took:
Rats half the manuscript have ate;
Dire hunger! which we still regret;
O! may they ne'er again digest
The horrors of so sad a feast;
Yet less our grief, if what remains,
Dear Jacob, by thy care and pains
Shall be to future times convey'd:
It thus begins:

** Here Matthew said,
Alma in verse, in prose, the mind,
By Aristotle's pen defined,
Throughout the body squat or tall,
Is
bona fide
, all in all;
And yet, slapdash, is all again
In every sinew, nerve, and vein;
Runs here and there, like Hamlet's ghost,
While every where she rules the roast.

This system, Richard, we are told
The men of Oxford firmly hold:
The Cambridge wits, you know, deny
With
ispe dixit
to comply:
They say (for in good truth they speak
With small respect of that old Greek)
That, putting all his words together,
'Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.

Alma, they strenuously maintain,
Sits cock-horse on her throne, the brain,
And from that seat of thought dispenses,
Her sovereign pleasure to the senses.
Two optic nerves, they say, she ties,
Like spectacle across the eyes,
By which the spirits bring her word
Whene'er the balls are fix'd or stirr'd;
How quick at Park and play they strike;
The duke they court; the toast they like;
And at St. James's turn their grace
From former friends, now out of place.

Without these aids, to be more serious,
Her power they hold had been precarious;
The eyes might have conspired her ruin,
And she not known what they were doing.
Foolish it had been and unkind
That they should see and she be blind.

Wise Nature, likewise, they suppose,
Has drawn two conduits down our nose:
Could Alma else with judgement tell
When cabbage stinks or roses smell?
Or who would ask for her opinion
Between an oyster and an onion?
For from most bodies, Dick, you know,
Some little bits ask leave to flow,
And as through these canals they roll,
Bring up a sample of the whole;
Like footmen running before coaches,
To tell the inn what lord approaches.

By nerves about our palate placed,
She likewise judges of the taste;
Else (dismal thought!) our warlike men
Might drink thick Port for fine Champaign,
And our ill-judging wives and daughters,
Mistake small-beer for citron-waters.

Hence, too, that she might better hear,
She sets a drum at either ear,
And loud or gentle, harsh or sweet,
Are but the alarums which they beat.

Last, to enjoy her sense of feeling,
(A thing she much delights to deal in)
A thousand little nerves she sends
Quite to our toes and fingers' ends,
And these, in gratitude, again
Return their spirits to the brain,
In which their figure being printed,
(As just before I think I hinted)
Alma inform'd can try the case,
As she had been upon the place.

Thus while the judge gives different journeys
To country counsel and attorneys,
He on the bench in quiet sits,
Deciding as they bring the writs.
The Pope thus prays and sleeps at Rome,
And very seldom stirs from home,
Yet sending forth his holy spies,
And having heard what they advise,
He rules the church's bless'd dominions,
And sets men's faith by his opinions.

The scholars of the Stagyrite,
Who for the old opinion fight,
Would make their modern friends confess
The difference but from more or less:
The Mind, say they, while you sustain
To hold her station in the brain,
You grant, at least, she is extended,

Ergo
, the whole dispute is ended:
For till to-morrow should you plead,
From form and structure of the head,
The Mind as visibly is seen
Extended through the whole machine.
Why should all honour then be ta'en
From lower parts to load the brain,
When other limbs we plainly see
Each in his way as brisk as he?
For music, grant the head receives it,
It is the artist's hand that gives it:
And though the skull may wear the laurel,
The soldier's arm sustains the quarrel.
Besides, the nostrils, ears, and eyes,
Are not his parts, but his allies:
E'en what you here the tongue proclaim,
Comes
ab origine
from them.
What could the head perform alone
If all their friendly aids were gone?
A foolish figure we must make,
Do nothing else but sleep and ake.

Nor matters it that you can show
How to the head the spirits go;
Those spirits started from some goal
Before they through the veins could roll;
Nor we should hold them much to blame
If they went back before they came.

If, therefore, as we must suppose,
They came from fingers and from toes,
Or toes or fingers, in this case,
Of numskull's self should take the place;
Disputing fair you grant this much,
That all sensation is but touch.
Dip but your toes into cold water,
Their correspondent teeth will chatter;
And strike the bottom of your feet,
You set your head into a heat.
The bully beat, and happy lover,
Confess that feeling lies all over.

Not here, Lucretius dares to teach
(As all our youth may learn from Creech)
That eyes were made, but could not view,
Nor bands embrace, not feet pursue,
But heedless Nature did produce
The members first, and then the use:
What each must act was yet unknown,
Till all is moved by Chance alone.

A man first builds a country-seat,
Then finds the walls not good to eat.
Another plants, and wondering, sees
Nor books nor medals on his trees.
Yet poet and philosopher
Was he who durst such whims aver.
Bless'd for his sake be human reason,
That came at all, though late, in season.

But no man sure e'er left his house,
And saddled Ball, with thoughts so wild
To bring a midwife to his spouse
Before he knew she was with child:
And no man ever reapt his corn,
Or from the oven drew his bread,
Ere hinds and bakers yet were born,
That taught them both to sow and knead.
Before they're ask'd can maids refuse?
Can - Pray, says Dick, hold in your Muse,
While you Pindaric truths rehearse,
She hobbles in alternate verse.
Verse! Matt. replied; is that my care?
Go on, quoth Richard, soft and fair.

This looks, friend Dick, as Nature had
But exercised the salesman's trade;
As if she haply had sat down
And cut out clothes for all the Town,
Then sent them out to Monmouth street
To try what persons they would fit;
But every free and licensed tailor
Would in this thesis find a failure.
Should whims like these his head perplex,
How could he work for either sex!
His clothes as atoms might prevail,
Might fit a pismire or a whale.
No, no: he views with studious pleasure
Your shape before he takes your measure
For real Kate he made the bodice,
And not for an ideal goddess.
No error near his shopboard lurk'd;
He knew the folks for whom he work'd:
Still to their size he aim'd his skill,
Else pray thee who would pay his bill?

Next, Dick, if Chance herself should vary,
Observe how matter would miscarry:
Across your eyes, Friend, place your shoes,
Your spectacles upon your toes,
Then you and Memmius shall agree
How nicely men would walk or see.

But wisdom, peevish, and cross-gain'd
Must be opposed to be sustain'd;
And still your knowledge will increase,
As your make other people's less.
In arms and science 'tis the same;
Our rival's hurts create our fame.
At Faubert's, if disputes arise
Among the champions for the prize,
To prove who gave the fairer butt,
John shows the chalk on Robert's coat.
So for the honour of your book,
It tells where other folks mistook,
And as their notions you confound,
Those you invent get farther ground.

The commentators on old Ari-
Stotle ('tis urged) in judgement vary:
They to their own conceits have brought
The image of his general thought,
Just as the melancholic eye
Sees fleets and armies in the sky,
And to the poor apprentice ear
The bells sound Whittington Lord Mayor.
The conjurer thus explains his scheme;
Thus spirits walk and prophets dream;
North Britons thus have second sight,
And Germans free from gunshot fight.

Theodoret and Origen,
And fifty other learned men,
Attest that if their comments find
The traces of their master's mind,
Alma can ne'er decay nor die:
This flatly th' other sect deny,
Simplicius, Theophrast, Durand,
Great names, but hard in verse to stand
They wonder men should have mistook
The tenets of their master's book,
And hold that Alma yields her breath,
O'ercome by age and seized by death.
Now which were wise, and which were fools?
Poor Alma sits between two stools;
The more she reads the more perplex'd,
The comment ruining the text:
Now fears, now hopes her doubtful fate.
But, Richard, let her look to that -
Whilst we our own affairs pursue.

These different systems old or new,
A man with half an eye may see
Were only form'd to disagree.
Now to bring things to fair conclusion,
And save much Christian ink's effusion,
Let me propose a healing scheme,
And sail along the middle stream;
For, Dick, if we could reconcile
Old Aristotle with Gassendus,
How many would admire our toil,
And yet how few would comprehend us?

Here, Richard, let my scheme commence:
Oh! may my words be lost in sense,
While pleased Thalia deigns to write
The slips and bounds of Alma's flight.

My simple system shall suppose
That Alma enters at the toes;
That then she mounts, by just degrees,
Up to the ancles, legs, and knees:
Next as the sap of life does rise,
She lends her vigour to the thighs:
And, all these under regions past,
She nestles somewhere near the waist;
Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter,
As we shall show at large hereafter:
Mature, if not improved by time,
Up to the heart she loves to climb:
From thence, compell'd by craft and age,
She makes the head her latest stage.

From the feet upward to the head,
Pithy, and short, says Dick, proceed.

Dick, this is not an idle notion;
Observe the progress of the motion:
First, I demonstratively prove
That feet were only made to move,
And legs desire to come and go,
For they have nothing else to do.

Hence, long before the child can crawl,
He learns to kick, and wince, and sprawl,
To hinder which, your midwife knows
To bind those parts extremely close,
Lest Alma, newly enter'd in,
And stunn'd at her own christ'ning's din,
Fearful of future grief and pain,
Should silently sneak out again.
Full piteous seems young Alma's case,
As in a luckless gamester's place,
She would not play, yet must not pass.

Again, as she grows something stronger,
And master's feet are swath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or shows his
loco
-motive tricks,
These first assaults fat Kate repays him,
When halt-asleep she overlays him.

Now mark, dear Richard, from the age
That children tread this worldly stage,
Broomstaff or poker they bestride,
And round the parlour love to ride,
Till thoughtful father's pious care
Provides his brood, next Smithfield fair,
With supplemental hobby-horses,
And happy be their infant courses!

Hence for some years they ne'er stand still;
Their legs you see direct their will;
From opening morn till setting sun
Around the fields and woods they run,
They frisk, and dance, and leap, and play,
Nor heed what Friend or Snape can say.

To her next stage as Alma flies,
And likes, as I have said, the thighs,
With sympathetic power she warms
Their good allies and friends the arms;
White Betty dances on the green,
And Susan is at stoolball seen:
While John for ninepins does declare,
And Roger loves to pitch the bar,
Both legs and arms spontaneous move,
Which was the thing I meant to prove.

Another motion now she makes:
O need I name the seat she takes?
His thought quite changes the stripling finds;
The sport and race no more he minds;
Neglected Tray and Pointer lie,
And covies unmolested fly:
Sudden the jocund plain he leaves,
And for the nymph in secret grieves:
In dying accents he complains
Of cruel fires and raging pains.
The nymph, too, longs to be alone,
Leaves all the swains and sighs for one:
The nymph is warm'd with young desire,
And feels, and dies to quench his fire.
They meet each evening in the grove;
Their parley but augments their love:
So to the priest their case they tell;
He toes the knot, and all goes well.

But, O my Muse, just distance keep,
Thou art a maid, and must not peep.
In nine months time the bodice loose,
And petticoats too short, disclose
That at this age the active mind
About the waist lies most confined,
And that young life, and quickening sense
Spring from his influence darted thence:
So from the middle of the world
The sun's prolific rays are hurl'd;
'Tis from that seat he darts those beams
Which quicken earth with genial flames.

Dick, who thus long had passive sat,
Here stroked his chin and cock'd his hat,
Then slapp'd his hand upon the board,
And thus the youth put in his word.
Love's advocates, sweet Sir, would find him
A higher place than you assign'd him.
Love's advocates, Dick, who are those? -
The poets, you may well suppose.
I'm sorry, Sir, you have discarded
The men with whom till now you herded.
Prosemen alone, for private ends,
I thought forsook their ancient friends,

In cor stillavit,
cries Lucretius,
If he may be allow'd to teach us.
The selfsame thing soft Ovid says,
(A proper judge in such a case.)
Horace his phrase is
torret jecur,

And happy was that curious speaker.
Here Virgil too has placed this passion;
What signifies too long quotation?
In ode and epic plain the case is,
That Love holds one of these two places.

Dick, without passion or reflection,
I'll straight demolish this objection.

First, poets, all the world agrees,
Write half to profit half to please;
Matter and figure they produce,
For garnish this, and that for use;
And, in the structure of their feasts,
They seek to feed and please their guests:
But one may baulk this good intent,
And take things otherwise than meant.
Thus, if you dine with my Lord Mayor,
Roast beef and venison is your fare,
Thence you proceed to swan and bustard,
And persevere in tart and custard:
But tulip-leaves and lemon-peel
Help only to adorn the meal,
And painted flags, superb and neat,
Proclaim you welcome to the treat.
The man of sense his meat devours,
But only smells the peel and flowers;
And he must be an idle dreamer
Who leaves the pie and gnaws the streamer.

That Cupid goes with bow and arrows,
And Venus keeps her coach and sparrows,
Is all but emblem, to acquaint one
The son is sharp, the mother wanton.
Such images have sometimes shown
A mystic sense, but oftener none;
For who conceives what bards devise,
That heaven is placed in Celia's eyes?
Or where's the sense, direct and moral,
That teeth are pearl, or lips are coral?

Your Horace owns he various writ,
As wild or sober maggots bit;
And where too much the poet ranted,
The sage philosopher recanted.
His grave Epistles may disprove
The wanton Odes he made to love.

Lucretius keeps a mighty pother
With Cupid and his fancied mother;
Calls her great Queen of earth and air,
Declares that winds and seas obey her.
And, while her honour he rehearses,
Implores her to inspire his verses.

Yet, free from this poetic madness,
Next page he says, in sober sadness,
That she and all her fellow-gods
Sit idling in their high abodes,
Regardless of this world below,
Our health or hanging, weal or wo,
Nor once disturb their heavenly spirits
With Scapin's cheats, or Caesar's merits.

Nor e'er can Latin poets prove
Where lies the real seat of Love.

Jecur
they burn, and
cor
they pierce,
As either best supplies their verse;
And if folks ask the reason for't,
Say one was long the other short.
Thus I presume the British Muse
In prose our property is greater,
Why should it then be less in metre?
If Cupid throws a single dart,
We make him wound the lover's heart
But if he takes his bow and quiver,
'Tis sure he must transfix the liver:
For rhyme with reason may dispense,
And sound has right to govern sense.

But let your friends in verse suppose,
What ne'er shall be allow'd in prose,
Anatomists can make it clear
The liver minds his own affair,
Kindly supplies our public uses,
And parts and strains the vital juices,
Still lays some useful bile aside
To tinge the chyle's insipid tide,
Else we should want both gibe and satire,
And all be burst with pure good-nature:
Now gall is bitter with a witness,
And love is all delight and sweetness:
My logic then has lost its aim
If sweet and bitter be the same:
And he methinks is no great scholar
Who can mistake is desire for choler.

The like may of the heart be said;
Courage and terror there are bred.
All those whose hearts are loose and low
Start if they hear but the tattoo;
And mighty physical their fear is,
Their heart, descending to their breeches,
Must give their stomach cruel twitches:
But heroes who o'ercome or die
Have their hearts hung extremely high,
The string of which, in battle's heat,
Against their very corslets beat,
Keep time with their own trumpet's measure,
And yield them most excessive pleasure.

Now, if 'tis chiefly in the heart
That courage does itself exert,
That this is eke the throne of Love.
Would nature make one place the seat
Of fond desire and fell debate?
Must people only take delight in
Those hours when they are tired with fighting?
And has no man but who has kill'd
A father, right to get a child?
These notions, then, I think but idle,
And love shall still possess the middle.

This truth more plainly to discover,
Suppose your hero were a lover;
Though he before had gall and rage,
Which death or conquest must assuage,
He grows dispirited and low,
He hates the fight and shuns the foe.

In scornful sloth Achilles slept,
And for his wench, like Tallboy, wept,
Nor would return to war and slaughter,
Till they brought back the parson's daughter.

Antonius fled from Actium's coast,
Augustus pressing Asia lost.
His sails by Cupid's hand unfurl'd,
To keep the fair he gave the world.
Edward our Fourth, revered and crown'd,
Vigorous in youth, in arms renown'd,
While England's voice and Warwick's care
Design'd him Gallia's beauteous heir,
Changed peace and power for rage and wars,
Only to dry one widow's tears.

France's Fourth Henry we may see
A servant to the fair d'Estree;
When quitting Coutras' prosperous field,
And Fortune taught at length to yield,
He, from his guards and midnight tent,
Disguis'd, o'er hills and valleys went,
To wanton with the sprightly dame,
And in his pleasure lost his fame.

Bold is the critic who dares prove
These heroes were no friends to love;
And bolder he who dares aver
That they were enemies to war;
Yet when their thought should, now or never,
Have raise their heart or fired their liver,
Fond Alma to those parts was gone
Which Love more justly calls his own.

Examples I could cite you more,
But he contented with these four;
For when one's proofs are aptly chosen,
Four are as valid as four dozen.
One came from Greece, and one from Rome
The other two grew nearer home,
For some in ancient books delight,
Others prefer what moderns write;
Now I should be extremely loath
Not to be thought expert in both.

Alma; Or, The Progress Of The Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto Ii.

But shall we take the Muse abroad,
To drop her idly on the road,
And leave our subject in the middle,
As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle?
Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede and where pursue:
His noble negligence teach
What others' toils despair to reach.
He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope.
If, after some distinguished leap,
He drops his pole, and seems to slip,
Straight gathering all his active strength,
He rises higher half his length:
With wonder you approve his sleight,
And owe your pleasure to your fright:
But like poor Andrew I advance,
False mimic of my master's dance;
Around the chord a while I sprawl,
And thence, though low, in earnest fall.

My preface tells you I digress'd;
He's half absolved who has confess'd.

I like, quoth Dick, your simile,
And in return take two from me.
As masters in the
clare-obscure

With various light your eyes allure,
A flaming yellow here they spread,
Draw off in blue, or change in red;
Yet from these colours oddly mix'd
Your sight upon the whole is fix'd:
Or as, again, your courtly dames
(Whose clothes returning birthday claims)
By arts improve the stuffs they vary,
And things are best as most contrary;
The gown with stiff embroidery shining,
Looks charming with a slighter lining;
Look out, if Indian figure stain,
The in-side must be rich and plain:
So you, great authors, have thought fit
To make digression temper wit:
You calm them with a milder air:
To break their points you turn their force,
And furbelow the plain discourse.

Richard, quoth Matt, these words of thine
Speak something sly and something fine;
But I shall e'en resume my theme,
However thou may'st praise or blame.

As people marry now and settle,
Fierce Love abates his usual mettle;
Worldly desires and household cares
Disturb the godhead's soft affairs:
So now, as health or temper changes,
In larger compass Alma ranges,
This day below, the next above,
As light or solid whimsies move.
So merchant has his house in Town,
And country seat near Bansted Down;
From one he dates his foreign letters,
Sends out his goods and duns his debtors:
In th' other, at his hours of leisure,
He smokes his pipe, and takes his pleasure.

And now your matrimonial Cupid,
Lash'd on by Time, grows tired and stupid:
For story and experience tell us
That man grows cold and woman jealous.
Both would their solid ends secure;
He sighs for freedom she for power:
His wishes tend abroad to roam,
And hers to domineer at home.
Thus passion flags by slow degrees,
And ruffled more delighted legs,
The busy mind does seldom go
To those once charming seats below;
For well-bred feints and future wars,
(When he last autumn lay a-dying)
Was but to gain him to appoint her
By codicil a larger jointure:
The woman finds it all a trick
That he could swoon when she was sick,
And knows that in that grief he reckon'd
One black-eyed Susan for his second.

Thus having strove some tedious years
With feign'd desires and real fears,
And tired with answers and replies
Of John affirms, and Martha lies,
Leaving this endless altercation,
The mind affects a higher station.

Poltis, that generous king of Thrace,
I think was in this very case.
All Asia now was by the ears,
And gods beat up for volunteers
To Greece and Troy, while Poltis sate
In quiet, governing his state.
And whence, said the pacific king,
Does all this noise and discord spring?
Why, Paris took Atrides' wife -
With ease I could compose this strife:
The injured hero should not lose,
Nor the young lover want, a spouse.
But Helen changed her first condition
Without her husband's just permission.
What from the dame can Paris hope?
She may as well from him elope.
Again, How can her old good man
With honour take her back again?
From hence I logically gather
The woman cannot live with either.
Now I have two right honest wives,
For whose possession no man strives:
One to Atrides I will send,
And t'other to my Trojan friend.
Each prince shall thus with honour have
What both so warmly seem to crave;
The wrath of gods and men shall cease,
And Poltis live and die in peace.

Dick, if this story pleaseth thee,
Pray thank Dan Pope, who told it me.

Howe'er swift Alma's flight may vary,
(Take this by way of corollary)
Some limbs she finds the very same
In place, and dignity, and name:
These dwell at such convenient distance,
That each may give his friend assistance.
Thus he who runs or dances, begs
The equal vigour of two legs;
So much to both does Alma trust
She ne'er regards which goes the first.
Teague could make neither of them stay,
For whilst one hand exalts the blow,
And on the earth extends the foe,
Th' other would take it wondrous ill
If in your pocket he lay still.
And when you shoot and shut one eye,
To lend the other friendly aid,
Or wink as coward, and afraid.
No, Sir; whilst he withdraws his flame,
His comrade takes the surer aim.
One moment if his beams recede,
As soon as e'er the bird is dead,
Opening again, he lays his claim
To half the profit, half the fame,
And helps to pocket up the game.
'Tis thus one tradesman slips away
To give his partner fairer play.

Some limbs again, in bulk or stature
Unlike, and not a-kin by Nature,
In concert act, like modern friends,
Because one serves the other's ends.
The arm thus waits upon the heart,
So quick to take the bully's part,
That one, though warm, decides more slow
Than th' other executes the blow:
A stander-by may chance to have it
Ere Hack himself perceives he gave it.

The amorous eyes thus always go
A strolling for their friends below;
For long before the squire and dame
Have
tete a tete
relieved their flame,
Ere visits yet are brought about,
They eye by sympathy looks out,
Knows Florimel, and longs to meet her,
And if he sees is sure to greet her,
Though at sash-window, on the stairs,
At court, nay, (authors say) at prayers -

The funeral of some valiant knight
May give this thing its proper light.
View his two gauntlets; these declare
That both his hands were used to war;
And from his two gilt spurs 'tis learn'd
His feet were equally concern'd:
But have you not with thought beheld
The sword hang dangling o'er his shield?
Which shows the breast that plate was used to
Had an ally right arm to trust to;
And by the peep holes in his crest,
Is it not virtually confess'd
That there his eye took distant aim,
And glances respect to that bright dame,
In whose delight his hope was center'd,
And for whose glove his life he ventured?

Objections to my general system
May rise, perhaps, and I have miss'd them;
But I can call to my assistance
Proximity (mark that!) and distance;
Can prove that all things, on occasion,
Love union, and desire adhesion!
That Alma merely is a scale,
And motives, like the weights prevail.
If neither side turn down or up,
With loss or gain, with fear or hope,
The balance always would hang even,
Like Mahomet's tomb, 'twixt earth and heaven.

This, Richard, is a curious case:
Suppose your eyes sent equal rays
Upon two distant pots of ale,
Not knowing which was mild or stale;
In this sad state your doubtful choice
Would never have the casting voice;
Which best nor worst you could not think,
And die you must for want of drink,
Unless some chance inclines your sight,
Setting one pot in fairer light;
Then you prefer or A or B,
As lines and angles best agree;
Your sense resolved impels your will;
She guides your hand - So drink your fill.

Have you not seen a baker's maid
Between two equal panniers sway'd?
Her tallies useless lie and idle
If placed exactly in the middle;
But forced from this unactive state
By virtue of some casual weight,
On either side you hear them clatter,
And judge of right and left hand matter.

Now, Richard, this coercive force
Without your choice must take its course.
Great kings to wars are pointed forth
Like loaded needles to the North,
And thou and I, by power unseen,
Are barely passive and suck'd in
To Henault's vaults or Celia's chamber,
As straw and paper are by amber.
If we sit down to play or set,
(Suppose at Ombre or Basset)
Let people call us cheats or fools,
Our cards and we are equal tools,
We sure in vain the cards condemn;
Ourselves both cut and shuffled them:
In vain on Fortune's aid rely;
She only is a stander-by.
Poor men! poor papers! we and they
Do some impulsive force obey,
Are but play'd with - do not play.
But space and matter we should blame;
They palm'd the trick that lost the game.

Thus to save further contradiction
Against what you may think but fiction,
I for attraction, Dick, declare,
Deny it those bold men that dare.
As well your mention as your thought
Is all by hidden impulse wrought:
Even saying that you think or walk,
How like a country squire you talk?

Mark then; - Where fancy or desire
Collects the beams of vital fire,
Into that limb fair Alma slides
And there
pro tempore
resides:
She dwells in Nicholini's tongue,
When Pyrrhus chants the heavenly song;
When Pedro does the lute command,
She guides the cunning artist's hand;
Through Macer's gullet she runs down,
When the vile glutton dines alone;
And, void of modesty and thought,
She follows Bibo's endless draught,
Through the soft sex again she ranges,
As youth, caprice, or fashion, changes:
Fair Alma, careless and serene,
In Fanny's sprightly eyes is seen.
While they diffuse their infant beams,
Themselves not conscious of their flames.
Again, fair Alma sits confess'd
On Florimel's experter breast,
When she the rising sigh constrains,
And by concealing speaks her pains.
In Cynthia's neck fair Alma glows,
When the vain thing her jewels shows;
When Jenny's stays are newly laced
Fair Alma plays about her waist;
And when the swelling hoop sustains
The rich brocade, fair Alma deigns
Into that lower space to enter,
Of the large round herself the center.

Again; that single limb or feature
(Such is the cogent force of Nature)
Which most did Alma's passion move,
In the first object of her love,
For ever will be found confess'd,
And printed on the amorous breast.

O Abelard! ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth;
But well I weet thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song,
Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieve!,
With kind concern and skill has weaved
A silken web, and ne'er shall fade
Its colours gently: as he laid
The mantle o'er thy sad distress,
And Venus shall the texture bless.
He o'er the weeping nun has drawn
Such artful folds of sacred lawn,
That Love, with equal grief and pride,
Shall see the crime he strives to hide,
And softly drawing back the veil,
The god shall to his votaries tell
Each conscious tear, each blushing grace,
That deck'd dear Eloisa's face.

Happy the poet, bless'd the lays,
Which Buckingham has deign'd to praise.

Next, Dick, as youth and habit sways,
A hundred gambols Alma plays.
If, whilst a boy, Jack run from school,
Fond of his hunting-horn and pole,
Though gout and age his speed detain,
Old John halloos his hounds again:
By his fireside he starts the hare,
And turns her in his wicker chair.
His feet, however lame, you find,
Have got the better of his mind.

If, while the Mind was in her leg,
The dance affected nimble Peg,
Old Madge bewitch'd, at sixty-one
Calls for Green Sleeves and Jumping Joan.
In public mask or private ball,
From Lincoln's-inn to Goldsmith's-Hall,
All Christmas long away she trudges,
Trips it was 'prentices and judges;
In vain her children urge her stay,
And age or palsy bar the way:
But if those images prevail,
Which whilom did affect the tail,
She still reviews the ancient scene,
Forgets the forty years between;
Awkwardly gay, and oddly merry,
Her scarf pale pink, her headknot cherry,
O'erheated with ideal rage,
She cheats her son to wed her page.

If Alma, whilst the man was young,
Slipp'd up too soon into his tongue,
Pleased with his own fantastic skill,
He lets that weapon ne'er lie still;
On any point if you dispute,
Depend upon it he'll confute:
Change sides, and you increase your pain,
For he'll confute you back again:
For one may speak with Tully's tongue,
Yet all the while be in the wrong;
And 'tis remarkable that they
talk most who have the least to say.
Your dainty speakers have the curse
To plead bad causes down to worse;
As dames who native beauty want,
Still uglier look the more they paint.

Again: if in the female sex
Alma should on this member fix,
(A cruel and a desperate case,
From which Heaven shield my lovely lass!)
For ever more all care is vain
That would bring Alma down again.
As in habitual gout or stone,
The only thing that can be done
Is to correct your drink and diet,
And keep the inward foe in quiet;
So if, for any sins of ours,
Or our forefathers, higher powers,
Severe, though just, afflict our life,
With that prime ill, a talking wife,
Till death shall bring the kind relief,
We must be patient or be deaf.

You know a certain lady, Dick,
Who saw me when I last was sick;
She kindly talk'd, at least three hours,
Of plastic forms and mental powers;
Described our pre-existing station,
Before this vile terrene creation;
And, lest I should be wearied, Madam,
To cut things short, came down to Adam;
From whence, as fast as she was able,
She drowns the world, and builds up Babel:
Through Syria, Persia, Greece, she goes,
And takes the Romans in the close.

But we'll descant on general Nature;
This is a system, not a satire.

Turn we this globe, and let us see
How different nations disagree,
In what we wear, or eat, and drink;
Nay, Dick, perhaps in what we think.
In water as you smell and taste
The soils through which it rose and past,
In Alma's manners you may read
The place where she was born and bred.

One people from their swaddling-bands
Released their infants' feet and hands:
Here Alma to these limbs was brought
And Sparta's offspring kick'd and fought.

Another taught their babes to talk
Ere they could yet in go-carts walk:
There Alma settled in the tongue,
And orators from Athens sprung.

Observe but in these neighbouring lands
The different use of mouth and hands:
As men reposed their various hopes,
In battles these, and those in tropes.

In Britain's isles, as Heylin notes,
The ladies trip in petticoats,
Which, for the honour of their nation,
They quit but on some great occasion,
Men there in breeches clad you view;
They claim that garment as their due.
In Turkey the reverse appears;
Long coats the haughty husband wears,
And greets his wife with angry speeches,
If she be seen without her breeches.

In our fantastic climes the fair
With cleanly powder dry their hair,
And round their lovely breast and head
Fresh flowers their mingled odours shed:
Your nicer Hottentots think meet
With guts and tripe to deck their feet;
With downcast looks on Totta's legs
The ogling youth most humbly begs
She would not from his hopes remove
At once his breakfast and his love;
And if the skittish nymph should fly,
He in a double sense must die.

We simple toasters take delight
To see our women's teeth look white,
And every saucy ill-bred fellow
Sneers at a mouth profoundly yellow
In China none hold women sweet,
Except their snags are black as jet:
King Chihu put nine queens to death,
Convict on statute, ivory teeth.

At Tonquin, if a prince should die,
(As Jesuits write, who never lie)
The wife, and counsellor, and priest,
Who served him most, and loved him best,
Prepare and light his funeral fire,
And cheerful on the pile expire.
In Europe 'twould be hard to find
In each degree on half so kind.

Now turn we to the farthest East,
And there observe the gentry drest.
Prince Giolo and his royal sisters,
Scarr'd with ten thousand comely blisters,
The marks remaining on the skin,
To tell the quality within:
Distinguish'd flashes deck the great,
As each excels in birth or state;
His oylet-holes are more and ampler:
The king's own body was a sampler.
Happy the climate where the beau
Wears the same suit for use and show;
And at a small expense your wife,
If once well pink'd, is cloath'd for life.

Westward again, the Indian fair
Is nicely smear'd with fat of bear:
Before you see you smell your toast,
And sweetest she who stinks the most.
The finest sparks and cleanest beaux
Drip from the shoulders to the toes.
How sleek their skins, their joints how easy!
There slovens only are not greasy.

I mention'd different ways of breeding;
Begin we in our children's reading,
To master John the English maid
A hornbrook gives of gingerbread,
And that the child may learn the better,
As he can name he eats the letter;
Proceeding thus with vast delight,
He spells and gnaws from left to right.
But show a Hebrew's hopeful son
Where we suppose the book begun,
The child would thank you for your kindness,
And read quite backward from our
finis
;
Devour he learning ne'er so fast,
Great A would be reserved the last.
An equal instance of this matter
Is in the manners of a daughter.
In Europe if a harmless maid,
By Nature and by Love betray'd,
Should ere a wife become a nurse,
Her friends would look on her the worse.
In China, Dampier's Travels tell ye,
(Look in his index for Pagelli)
Soon as the British ships unmoor,
And jolly long-boats row to shore,
Down come the nobles of the land,
Each brings his daughter in his hand,
Beseeching the mysterious tar
To make her but one hour his care:
The tender mother stands affrighted,
Les her dear daughter should be slighted,
And poor Miss Yaya dreads the shame
Of going back the maid she came.

Observe how custom, Dick, compels
The lady that in Europe dwells:
After her tea she slips away,
And what to do one need not say.
Now see how great Pomonque's queen
Behaved herself amongst the men;
Pleased with her punch, the gallant soul
First drank, then water'd in the bowl,
And sprinkled in the captain's face
The marks of her peculiar grace. -

To close this point we need not roam
For instances so far from home.
What parts gay France from sober Spain?
A little rising rocky chain.
Of men born south or north o' the hill,
Those seldom move, these ne'er stand still.
Dick, you love maps, and may perceive
Rome not far distant from Geneve.
If the good Pope remains at home,
He's the first prince in Christendom.
Choose then, good Pope, at home to stay,
Nor westward, curious, take thy way:
Thy way, unhappy, shouldst thou take
From Tiber's bank to Leman lake,
Thou art an aged priest no more,
But a young flaring painted bunny:
Thy sex is lost, thy town is gone;
No longer Rome, but Babylon.
That some few leagues should make this change,
To men unlearn'd seems mighty strange.

But need we, friend, insist on this?
Since, in the very Cantons Swiss,
All your philosophers agree,
And prove it plain, that one may be
A heretic or true believer,
On this or t'other side the rive.

Here, with an artful smile, quoth Dick -
Your proofs come mighty full and thick -

The bard, on this extensive chapter,
Wound up into poetic rapture,
Continued: Richard, cast your eye
By night upon a winter sky;
Cast it by day-light on the strand,
Which compasses fair Albion's land;
If you can count the stars that glow
Above, or sands that lie below,
Into these common places look,
Which from great authors I have took,
And count the proofs I have collected,
To have my writings well protected:
These I lay by for time of need,
And thou may'st at thy leisure read:
For standing every critic's rage,
I safely will, to future age
My system as a gift bequeath,
Victorious over spite and death.

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book Iii.

The Argument


Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.


Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.

Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courses of the blood ordain;
Who, as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth dost flourish, and with age shalt fail,
Till, mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fliest, dissolved in air and lost in death.

Or, if thy great existence would aspire
To causes more sublime, of heavenly fire
Wert thou a spark struck off, a separate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay,
With it condemn'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve its frailties, and its pains to feel,
To teach it good and ill, disgrace or fame,
Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame,
To guide its actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, sage,
As fits the various course of human age,
Till, as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mouldering walls,
Hovers awhile upon the sad remains,
Which now the pile or sepulchre contains,
And thence, with liberty unbounded, flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breast,
Which for thy sake from passions'l divest
For these, thou say'st, raise all the stormy strife,
Which hinder thy repose, and trouble life;
Be the fair level of thy actions laid
As temperance wills and prudence may persuade
By thy affections undisturb'd and clear,
Guided to what may great or good appear,
And try if life be worth the liver's care.

Amass'd in man, there justly is beheld
What through th whole creation has excell'd,
The angel's forecast and intelligence:
Say, from these glorious seeds what harvest flows?
Recount our blessings, and compare our woes:
In its true light let clearest reason see
The man dragg'd out to act, and forced to be;
Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees,
To be exposed or rear'd as she may please,
Feel her neglect, and pine from her disease:
His tender eye by too direct a ray
Wounded, and flying from unpractised day;
His heart assaulted by invading air,
And beating fervent to the vital war;
To his young sense how various forms appear,
That strike this wonder, and excite his fear;
By his distortions he reveals his pains;
He by his tears and by his sighs complains,
Till time and use assist the infant wretch,
By broken words, and rudiments of speech,
His wants in plainer characters to show,
And paint more perfect figures of his wo,
Condemn'd to sacrifice his childish years
To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears;
To pass the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crowded stage;
To lasting toils exposed, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to secret snares;
To malice which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dangerous love of seeming friends:
His deeds examined by the people's will.
Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill;
Or, sadly censured in their cursed debate,
Who, in the scorner's or the judge's seat
Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate:
Or would he rather leave this frantic scene,
And trees and beasts prefer to courts and men,
In the remotest wood and lonely grot
Certain to meet that worst of evils, thought,
Different ideas to his memory brought,
Some intricate, as are the pathless woods,
Impetuous some, as the descending floods;
With anxious doubts, with raging passions torn,
No sweet companion near with whom to mourn,
He hears the echoing rock return his sighs,
And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, through what path soe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love;
Vex'd with the present moment's heavy gloom,
Why seek we brightness from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken, like a sick man's sleep,
Our troubled thoughts to distant prospects leap,
Desirous still what flies us to o'ertake;
For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But looking back we see the dreadful train
Of woes, anew, which, were we to sustain,
We should refuse to tread the path again:
Still adding grief, still counting from the first,
Judging the latest evil still the worst,
And sadly finding each progressive hour
Heighten their number and augment their power,
Till by one countless sum of woes oppress'd,
Hoary with cares, and ignorant of rest,
We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,
Compell'd our common impotence to mourn:
Thus, through the round of age, to childhood we return;
Reflecting find, that naked, from the womb
We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb
Naked again we must to-morrow lie,
Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pass we the ills which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fall'n or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The sheepfold scatter'd, and the shepherd slain;
The frequent errors of the pathless wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dangerous flood;
The noisome pestilence, that in open war
Terrible, marches through the mid-way air,
And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mist, and fatal wings its flight;
The billowing snow, and violence of the shower,
That from the hills disperse their dreadful store,
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;
The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, sad guest,
Canker or locust, hurtful to infest
The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want distinguishes the year.

Pass we the slow disease, and subtile pain
Which our weak frame is destined to sustain;
The cruel stone with congregated war,
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulse, and continued strife
Weakening the wasted seeds of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The sad experience of decay and age,
Herself the sorest ill, while death and ease,
Oft and in vain invoked, or to appease
Or end the grief, with hasty wings recede
From the vex'd patient and the sickly bed.

Nought shall it profit that the charming fair,
Angelic, softest work of Heaven, draws near
To the cold shaking paralytic hand,
Senseless of Beauty's touch, or Love's command,
No longer apt or able to fulfil
The dictates of its feeble master's will.
Nought shall the psaltery and the harp avail,
The pleasing song, or well-repeated tale,
When the quick spirits their warm march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbraced the ear.

The verdant rising of the flowery hill,
The vale enamell'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the shelly shore,
Beautiful objects, shall delight no more,
When the lax'd sinews of the weaken'd eye
Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain;
But to the aged blind shall ne'er return
Grateful vicissitude; he still must mourn,
The sun, and moon, and every starry light,
Eclipsed to him, and lost in everlasting night.

Behold where Age's wretched victim lies;
See his head trembling, and his half-closed eyes;
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves;
To broken sleeps his remnant sense he gives,
And only by his pains awaking finds he lives.

Loosed by devouring Time, the silver cord
Dissever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board
The crystal urn, when broken, is thrown by,
And apter utensils their place supply.
These things and thou must share one equal lot;
Die and be lost, corrupt and be forgot;
While still another and another race
Shall now supply and now give up the place.
From earth all came, to earth must all return,
Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

But the terror of these ills suppress'd,
And view we man with health and vigour bless'd.
Home he returns with the declining sun,
His destined task of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the ascending ray,
Again his travail for his bread to pay,
And find the ill sufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with honour shun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying son;
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow sees,
And doubly feels his want in their increase:
The next day, and the next, he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to just desert refused,
The trust betray'd, the nuptial bed abused:
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful issue of misconstrued laws:
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,
And violent will of the wrong-doing great;
The venom'd tongue, injurious to his fame,
Which nor can wisdom shun nor fair advice reclaim.

Esteem we these, my friend, event and chance,
Produced as atoms form their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their essence may we draw
From destined order and eternal law?
Again, my Muse, the cruel doubt repeat?
Spring they, I say, from accident or fate?
Yet such we find they are, as can control
The servile actions of our wavering soul;
Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

O fatal search! in which the labouring mind,
Still press'd with weight of wo, still hopes to find
A shadow of delight, a dream of peace,
From years of pain one moment of release;
Hoping, at least, she may herself deceive,
Against experience willing to believe,
Desirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve,

Happy the mortal man who now at last
Has through this doleful vale of misery pass'd,
Who to his destined stage has carried on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes:
He happier yet, who privileged by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death:
But, O! beyond description happiest he
Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea;
Exempt, must never force the teeming womb,
Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn!
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

'Yet in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear;
Are not these general maxims too severe?
Say, cannot power secure its owner's bliss?
Are victors bless'd with fame, or kings with ease?'

I tell thee, life is but one common care,
And man was born to suffer and to fear.

'But is no rank, no station, no degree,
From this contagious taint of sorrow free?'

None, mortal, none: yet in a bolder strain
Let me this melancholy truth maintain:
But hence, ye worldly and profane, retire,
For I adapt my voice and raise my lyre
To notions not by vulgar ear received;
Yet still must covet life, and be deceived;
Your very fear of death shall make you try
To catch the shade of immortality,
Wishing on earth to linger, and to save
Part of its prey from the devouring grave;
To those who may survive ye to bequeath
Something entire, in spite of time and death;
A fancied kind of being to retrieve,
And in a book, or from a building live.
False hope! vain labour! let some ages fly,
The dome shall moulder, and the volume die.
Wretches, still taught! still will ye think it strange
That all the parts of this great fabric change.
Quit their high station and primeval frame,
And lose their shape, their essence and their name?

Reduce the song; our hopes, our joys, are vain;
Our lot is sorrow, and our portion pain.

What pause from wo, what hopes of comfort bring
The name of wise or great, of judge or king?
What is a king? a man condemn'd to bear
The public burden of the nation's care;
Now crown'd, some angry faction to appease,
Now falls a victim to the people's ease;
From the first blooming of his ill-taught youth
Nourish'd flattery, and estranged from truth:
At home surrounded by a servile crowd,
Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud;
Abroad begirt with men, and swords and spears,
His very state acknowledging his fears;
Marching amidst a thousand guards, he shows
His secret terror of a thousand foes;
In war, however prudent, great, or brave,
To blind events and fickle chance a slave;
Seeking to settle what for ever flies,
Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.

But he returns with conquest on his brow,
Brings up the triumph, and absolves the vow:
The captive generals to his car are tied;
The joyful citizens, tumultuous tide,
Echoing his glory, gratify his pride.
What is this triumph? madness, shouts, and noise,
One great collection of the people's voice.
The wretches he brings back, in chains relate
What may to-morrow be the victor's fate.
The spoils and trophies borne before him show
National loss and epidemic wo,
Various distress which he and his may know.
Does he not mourn the valiant thousands slain,
The heroes, once the glory of the plain,
Left in the conflict of the fatal day,
Or the wolf's portion, or the vulture's prey?
Does he not weep the laurel which he wears,
Wet with the soldiers' blood and widows tears?

See where he comes, the darting of the war!
See millions crowding round the gilded car!
In the vast joys of this ecstatic hour,
And full fruition of successful power,
One moment and one thought might let him scan
The various turns of life, and fickle state of man.
Are the dire images of sad distrust,
And popular change, obscured amid the dust
That rises from the victor's rapid wheel?
Can the loud clarion or shrill life repel
The inward cries of Care? can Nature's voice,
Plaintive, be drown'd, or lessen'd in the noise,
Though shouts, as thunder loud, afflict the air,
Stun the birds, now released, and shake the ivory chair?

Yon crowd, (he might reflect) yon joyful crowd,
Pleased with my honours, in my praise loud,
(Should fleeting victory to the vanquish'd go,
Should she depress my arms and raise the foe)
Would for that foe with equal ardour wait,
At the high palace or the crowded gate,
With restless rage would pull my statues down,
And cast the brass anew to his renown.

O impotent desire of worldly sway!
That I who make the triumph of to-day,
May of to-morrow's pomp one part appear,
Ghastly with wounds, and lifeless on the bier!
Then, (vileness of mankind!) then of all these
Whom my dilated eye with labour sees,
Would one, alas! repeat me good or great,
Wash my pale body, or bewail my fate?
Or, march'd I chain'd behind the hostile car,
The victor's pastime, and the sport of war,
Would one, would one his pitying sorrow lend,
Or be so poor to own he was my friend?

Avails it then, O Reason, to be wise?
To see this cruel scene with quicker eyes?
To know with more distinction to complain,
And have superior sense in feeling pain?

Let us resolve, that roll with strictest eye,
Where safe from time distinguish'd actions lie,
And judge if greatness be exempt from pain,
Or pleasure ever may with power remain.
Adam, great type, for whom the world was made,
The fairest blessing to his arms convey'd,
A charming wife; and air, and sea, and land,
And all that move therein, to his command
Render'd obedient: say, my pensive Muse,
What did these golden promises produce?
Scarce tasting life he was of joy bereaved;
One day I think in Paradise he lived,
Destined the next his journey to pursue
Where wounding thorns and cursed thistles grew.
Ere yet he earns his bread, adown his brow,
Inclined to earth, his labouring sweat must flow;
His limbs must ache, with daily toils oppress'd,
Ere long-wish'd night brings necessary rest:
Still viewing with regret his darling Eve,
He for her follies and his own must grieve.
Bewailing still afresh their hapless choice,
His ear oft frighted with the imaged voice,
Of Heaven when first it thundere'd, oft his view,
Aghast, as when the infant lightning flew,
And the stern cherub stopp'd the fatal road,
Arm'd with the flames of an avenging God,
His younger son on the polluted ground,
First fruit of death, lies plaintive of a wound
Given by a brother's hand; his eldest birth
Flies, mark'd by Heaven, a fugitive o'er earth:
Yet why these sorrows heap'd upon the sire,
Becomes nor man nor angel to inquire.

Each age sinn'd on, and guild advanced with time;
The son still added to the father's crime;
Till God arose, and, great in anger, said,
Lo! it repenteth me that man was made.
And from your deep abyss, ye waters, rise!
The frighted angels heard th' Almighty Lord,
And o'er the earth from wrathful vials pour'd
Tempests and storm, obedient to his word.
Meantime his providence to Noah gave
The guard of all that he design'd to save:
Exempt from general doom the patriarch stood,
Contemn'd the waves, and triumph'd o'er the flood.

The winds fall silent and the waves decrease;
The dove brings quiet, and the clive peace;
Yet still his heart does inward sorrow feel,
Which faith alone forbids him to reveal.
If on the backward world his views are cast,
'Tis death diffused, and universal waste.
Present, (sad prospect!) can he ought descry
But (what affects his melancholy eye)
The beauties of the ancient fabric lost,
In chains of craggy hill, or lengths of dreary coast?
While to high heaven his pious breathings turn'd,
Weeping he hoped, and sacrificing mourn'd;
When of God's image only eight he found
Snatch'd from the watery grave, and saved from nations drown'd;
And of three sons, the future hopes of earth,
The seed whence empires must receive their birth,
One he foresees excluded heavenly grace,
And mark'd with curses fatal to his race.

Abraham, potent prince, the friend of God,
Of human ills must bear the destined load,
By blood and battles must his power maintain,
And slay the monarchs ere he rules the plain;
Must deal just portions of a servile life
To a proud handmaid and a peevish wife;
Must with the mother leave the weeping son,
In want to wander and in wilds to groan;
Must take his other child, his age's hope,
To trembling Moriah's melancholy top,
Order'd to drench his knife in filial blood,
Destroy his heir, or disobey his God.

Moses beheld that God; but how beheld
The Deity, in radiant beams conceal'd,
And clouded in a deep abyss of light!
While present too severe for human sight,
Nor staying longer than one swift-wing'd night
The following days, and months, and years, decreed
To fierce encounter, and to toilsome deed:
His youth with wants and hardships must engage,
Plots and rebellions must disturb his age:
Some Corah still arose, some rebel slave,
Prompter to sink the state than he to save,
And Israel did his rage so far provoke,
That what the Godhead wrote the prophet broke.
His voice scarce heard, his dictates scarce believed,
In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, he lived,
And died obedient to severest law,
Forbid to tread the Promised land he saw.

My father's life was one long line of care,
A scene of danger and a state of war.
The bear's rough gripe and foaming lion's rage,
By various turns his threaten'd youth must fear
Goliath's lifted sword and Saul's emitted spear.
Forlorn he must, and persecuted, fly,
Climb the steep mountain, in the cavern lie,
And often ask, and be refused to die.

For ever from his manly toils are known
The weight of power and anguish of a crown.
What tongue can speak the restless monarch's woes,
When God and Nathan were declared his foes?
When every object his offence reviled,
The husband murder'd and the wife defiled,
The parent's sins impress'd upon the dying child!
What heart can think the grief which he sustain',d
When the King's crime brought vengeance on the land,
And the inexorable prophet's voice
Give famine, plague, or war, and bid him fix his choice?

He died; and, oh! may no reflection shed
Its poisonous venom on the royal dead:
Yet the unwilling truth must be express'd
Which long has labour'd in this pensive breast;
Dying he added to my weight of care;
He made me to his crimes undoubted heir;
Left his unfinish'd murder to his son,
And Joab's blood entail'd on Judah's crown.

Young as I was, I hasted to fulfil
The cruel dictates of my parent's will:
Of his fair deeds a distant view I took,
But turn'd the tube upon his faults to look;
Forgot his youth spent in his country's cause,
His care of right, his reverence to the laws,
But could with joy his years of folly trace,
Broken and old in Bathsheba's embrace
Could follow him where'er he stray'd from good,
And cite his sad example, whilst I trod
Paths open to deceit, and track'd with blood.
With smiles I could betray, with temper kill;
Soon in a brother could a rival view,
Watch all his acts, and all his ways pursue:
In vain for life he to the altar fled;
Ambition and Revenge have certain speed.
Even there, my soul, even there he should have fell,
But that my interest did my rage conceal:
Doubling my crime I promise and deceive,
Purpose to slay, whilst swearing to forgive.
Treaties, persuasions, sighs, and tears, are vain
With a mean lie cursed vengeance I sustain.
Join fraud to force, and policy to power,
Till of the destined fugitive secure,
In solemn state to parricide I rise,
And, as God lives, this day my brother dies.

Be witness to my tears, celestial Muse!
In vain I would forget, in vain excuse,
Fraternal blood by my direction spilt;
In vain on Joab's head transfer the guilt:
The deed was acted by the subject's hand,
The sword was pointed by the King's command:
Mine was the murder; it was mine alone;
Years of contrition must the crime atone:
Nor can my guilty soul expect relief
But from a long sincerity of grief.

With an imperfect hand and trembling heart,
Her love of truth superior to her art,
Already the reflecting Muse has traced
The mournful figures of my actions past,
The pensive goddess has already taught
How vain is hope, and how vexatious thought;
From growing childhood to declining age,
How tedious every step, how gloomy every stage,
This course of vanity almost complete,
Tired in the field of life, I hope retreat
In the still shades of death; for dread, and pain,
And grief, will find their shafts elanced in vain,
And their points broke, retorted from the head,
Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.

Yet tell me, frighted reason! what is death?
Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath?
The utmost limit of a narrow span,
And end of motion, which with life began?
As smoke that rises from the kindling fires
Is seen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rising winds are lost,
Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost,
So vanishes our state, so pass our days,
So life but opens now, and now decays;
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,
To live is scarce distinguish'd from to die.

Cure of the miser's wish and coward's fear,
Death only shows us what we knew was near,
With courage therefore view the pointed hour,
Dread not Death's anger, but expect his power,
Nor Nature's law with fruitless sorrow mourn,
But die, O mortal man! for thou wast born.

Cautious through doubt, by want of courage wise,
To such advice the reasoner still replies.

Yet measuring all the long continued space,
Every successive day's repeated race,
Since Time first started from his pristine goal,
Till he had reach'd that hour wherein my soul
Join'd to my body swell'd the womb, I was
(At least I think so) nothing; must I pass
Again to nothing when this vital breath
Ceasing, consigns me o'er to rest and death?
Must the whole man, amazing thought! return
To the cold marble or contracted urn?
And never shall those particles agree
That were in life this individual he?
But sever'd, must they join the general mass,
Through other forms and shapes ordain'd to pass,
Nor thought nor image kept of what he was?
Does the great word that gave him sense ordain
That life shall never wake that sense again?
And will no power his sinking spirits save
From the dark caves of death, and chambers of the grave?

Each evening I behold the setting sun
With downward speed into the ocean run;
Yet the same light (pass but some fleeting hours)
Exerts his vigour and renews his powers;
Starts the bright race again: his constant flame
Rises and sets, returning still the same.
I mark the various fury of the winds;
These neither seasons guide nor order binds;
They now dilate, and now contract their force;
Various their speed, but endless is their course,
From his first fountain and beginning ooze,
Down to the sea each brook and torrent flows;
Though sundry drops or leave or swell the stream,
The whole still runs, with equal pace the same;
Still other waves supply the rising urns,
And the eternal flood no want of water mourns.

Why then must man obey the sad decree,
Which subjects neither sun, nor wind, nor sea?

A flower that does with opening morn arise,
And flourishing the day at evening dies;
A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er
The ocean's brow, and sinking on the shore;
A fire, whose flames through crackling stubbles fly;
A meteor shooting from the summer sky;
A bowl adown the bending mountain roll'd;
A bubble breaking, and a fable told;
A noontide shadow, and a midnight dream,
Are emblems which with semblance apt proclaim
Our earthly course; but, O my Soul! so fast
Must life run off, and death for ever last!

This dark opinion sure is too confined,
Else whence this hope and terror of the mind?
Does something still, and somewhere, yet remain,
Reward or punishment, delight or pain?
Say, shall our relics second birth receive?
Sleep we to wake, and only die to live?
When the sad wife has closed her husband's eyes,
And pierced the echoing vault with doleful cries,
Lies the pale corpse not yet entirely dead,
The spirit only from the body fled,
The grosser part of heat and motion void,
To be by fire, or worm, or time, destroy'd;
The soul, immortal substance, to remain
Conscious of joy and capable of pain?
And if her acts have been directed well,
While with her friendly clay she deign'd to dwell,
Shall she with safety reach her pristine seat,
Find her rest endless, and her bliss complete?
And while the buried man we idly mourn,
Do angels joy to see his better half return?
But if she has deform'd this earthly life
With murderous rapine and seditious strife,
Amazed, repulsed, and by those angels driven
From the ethereal seat and blissful heaven,
In everlasting darkness must she lie,
Still more unhappy that she cannot die?
Amid two seas, on one small point of land,
Wearied, uncertain, and amazed, we stand;
On either side our thoughts incessant turn,
Forward we dread, and looking back we mourn,
Losing the present in this dubious haste,
And lost ourselves betwixt the future and the past.

These cruel doubts contending in my breast,
My reason staggering and my hopes oppress'd,
Once more I said, once more I will inquire,
What is this little, agile, pervious fire,
This flattering motion which we call the Mind,
How does she act? and where is she confined?
Have we the power to give her as we please?
Whence then those evils that obstruct our ease?
We happiness pursue: we fly from pain;
Yet the pursuit and yet the flight is vain;
And while poor Nature labours to be bless'd,
By day with pleasure, and by night with rest,
Some stronger power eludes our sickly will,
Dashes our rising hope with certain ill,
And makes us, with reflective trouble, see
That all is destined which we fancy free.

That power superior then which rules our mind,
Is his decree by human prayer inclined?
Will he for sacrifice our sorrows ease!
And can our tears reverse his firm decrees?
Then let religion aid where reason fails,
Throw loads of incense in to turn the scales,
And let the silent sanctuary show,
What from the babbling schools we may not know,
How man may shun or bear his destined part of wo.

What shall amend, or what absolve our fate?
Anxious we hover in a mediate state
Betwixt infinity and nothing; bounds,
Or boundless terms, whose doubtful sense confounds:
Unequal thought, whilst all we apprehend
Is, that our hopes must rise, our sorrows end,
As our Creator deigns to be our friend.

I said, - and instant bade the priests prepare
The ritual sacrifice and solemn prayer.
Select from vulgar herds, with garlands gay,
A hundred bulls ascend the sacred way:
The artful youth proceed to form the choir,
They breathe the flute, or strike the vocal wire.
The maids in comely order next advance,
They beat the timbrel and instruct the dance:
Follows the chosen tribe, from Levi sprung,
Chanting by just return the holy song.
Along the choir in solemn state they pass'd,
- The anxious King came last.
The sacred hymn perform'd, my promised vow
I paid, and, bowing at the altar low.

Father of heaven! I said, and Judge of earth!
Whose word call'd out this universe to birth,
By whose kind power and influencing care
The various creatures move, and live, and are;
But ceasing once that care, withdrawn that power,
They move (alas!) and live, and are no more;
Omniscient Master, omnipresent King,
To thee, to thee my last distress I bring.

Thou that canst still the raging of the seas,
Chain up the winds, and bid the tempests cease,
Redeem my shipwreck'd soul from raging gusts
Of cruel passion and deceitful lusts;
From storms of rage and dangerous rocks of pride,
Let thy strong hand this little vessel guide,
(It was thy hand that made it) through the tide
Impetuous of this life, let thy command
Direct my course, and bring me safe to land.

If, while this wearied flesh draws fleeting breath,
Not satisfied with life, afraid of death,
It haply be thy will that I should know
Glimpse of delight, or pause from anxious wo,
From now, from instant now, great Sire! dispel
The clouds that press my soul; from now reveal
A gracious beam of light; from now inspire
My tongue to sing, my hand to touch the lyre;
My open'd thought to joyous prospects raise,
And for thy mercy let me sing thy praise:
Or, if thy will ordains, I still shall wait
Some new hereafter and a future state,
Permit me strength my weight of wo to bear,
And raise my mind superior to my care.
Let me, howe'er unable to explain
The secret lab'rinths of thy ways to man,
With humble zeal confess thy awful power,
Still weeping hope, and wondering, still adore:
So in my conquest be thy might declared,
And for thy justice be thy name revered.

My prayer scarce ended, a stupendous gloom
Darkens the air; loud thunder shakes the dome:
To the beginning miracle succeed
An awful silence and religious dread.
Sudden breaks forth a more than common day,
The sacred wood, which on the alter lay
Untouch'd, unlighted glows -
Ambrosial odour, such as never flows
From Arab's gum or the Sabaean rose,
Does round the air evolving scents diffuse:
The holy ground is wet with heavenly dews:
Celestial music (such Jessides' lyre,
Such Miriam's timbrel would in vain require)
Strikes to my thought through admiring ear,
With ecstasy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear:
And, lo! what sees my ravish'd eye? what feels
My wondering soul? an opening cloud reveals
A heavenly form embodied and array'd
With robes of light, I heard; the angel said,

Cease, Man, of women born, to hope relief
From daily trouble and continued grief.
Thy hope of joy deliver to the wind:
Suppress thy passions, and prepare thy mind.
Free and familiar with misfortune grow;
Be used to sorrow, and inured to wo.
By weakening toil and hoary age o'ercome,
See thy decrease, and hasting to thy tomb.
Leave to thy children tumult, strife, and war,
Portions of toil, and legacies of care:
Send the successive ills through ages down,
And let each weeping father tell his son
That, deeper struck, and more distinctly grieved,
He must augment the sorrows he received.

The child to whose success thy hope is bound,
Ere thou art scarce interr'd or he is crown'd,
To lust of arbitrary sway inclined,
(That cursed poison to the prince's mind!)
Shall from thy dictates and his duty rove,
And lose his great defence, his people's love:
Ill counsell'd, vanquish'd, fugitive, disgraced,
Shall mourn the fame of Jacob's strength effaced:
Shall sigh the King diminish'd, and the crown
With lessen'd rays descending to his son:
Shall see the wreaths his grandsire knew to reap
By active toil and military sweat,
Rining incline their sickly leaves, and shed
Their falling honours from his giddy head:
By arms or prayer unable to assuage
Domestic horror and intestine rage,
Shall from the victor and the vanquish'd fear,
From Israel's arrow and from Judah's spear:
Shall cast his wearied limbs on Jordan's flood,
By brothers' arms disturb'd, and stain'd with kindred blood.

Hence labouring years shall weep their destined race,
Charged with ill omens, sully'd with disgrace;
Time, by necessity compell'd, shall go
Through scenes of war, and epochas of wo:
The empire lessen',d in a parted stream
Shall lose its course -
Indulge thy tears; the Heathen shall blaspheme;
Judah shall fall, oppress'd by grief and shame,
And men shall from her ruins know her fame.

New Egypts yet and second bonds remain,
A harsher Pharaoh, and a heavier chain.
Again, obedient to a dire command,
Thy captive sons shall leave the promised land;
Their name more low, their servitude more vile,
Shall on Euphrates' bank renew the grief of Nile.

These pointed spires that wound the ambient sky,
Inglorious change shall in destruction lie
Low, levell'd with the dust, their heights unknown,
Or measured by their ruin. Yonder throne,
For lasting glory built, design'd the seat
Of kings for ever bless'd, for ever great,
Removed by the invader's barbarous hand,
Shall grace his triumph in a foreign land:
The tyrant shall demand yon' sacred load
Of gold and vessels set apart to God,
Then by bile hands to common use debased,
Shall send them flowing round his drunken feast,
With sacrilegious taunt and impious jest.

Twice fourteen ages shall their way complete,
Empires by various turns shall rise and set,
While thy abandon'd tribes shall only know
A different master and a change of wo;
With downcast eyelids, and with looks aghast,
Shall dread the future or bewail the past.
Afflicted Israel shall sit weeping down,
Fast by the streams where Babel's waters run,
Their harps upon the neighbouring willows hung,
Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue,
Nor cheerful dance their feet; with toil oppress'd,
Their wearied limbs aspiring but to rest.
In the reflective stream the sighing bride,
Viewing her charms impair'd, abash'd shall hide
Her pensive head, and in her languid face
The bridegroom shall foresee his sickly race,
While ponderous fetters vex their close embrace
With irksome anguish then your priests shall mourn
Their long neglected feasts despair'd return,
And sad oblivion of their solemn days:
Thenceforth their voices they shall only raise,
Louder to weep. By day your frighted seers
Shall call for fountains to express their tears,
And wish their eyes were floods: by night, from dreams
Of opening gulfs, black storms, and raging flames,
Starting amazed, shall to the people show
Emblems of heavenly wrath, and mystic types of wo.

The captives, as their tyrant shall require
That they should breathe the song and touch the lyre,
Shall say, Can Jacob's servile race rejoice,
Untuned the music, and disused the voice?
What can we play, (they shall discourse) how sing
In foreign lands, and to a barbarous king?
We and our fathers, from our childhood bred
To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread
The arbitrary lash, to bend, to grieve,
(Outcast of mortal race) can we conceive
Image of ought delightful, soft, or gay?
Alas! when we have toil the longsome day,
The fullest bliss our hearts aspire to know,
Is but some interval from active wo;
In broken rest and startling sleep to mourn,
Till morn the tyrant and the scourge return:
Bred up in grief, can pleasure be our theme?
Our endless anguish does not nature claim?
Reason and sorrow are to us the same.
Alas! with wild amazement we require
If idle Folly was not Pleasure's sire?
Madness, we fancy, gave an ill-timed birth.

This is the series of perpetual wo
Which thou, alas! and thine, are born to know.
Illustrious wretch! repine not nor reply;
View not what Heaven ordains with reason's eye;
Too bright the object is, the distance is too high.
The man who would resolve the work of fate
May limit number and make crooked straight:
Stop thy inquiry, then, and curb thy sense,
'Tis God who must dispose and man sustain,
Born to endure, forbidden to complain:
Thy sum of life must his decrees fufil;
What derogates from his command is ill,
And that alone is good which centres in his will.

Yet that thy labouring senses may not droop,
Lost to delight, and destitute of hope,
Remark what I, God's messenger, aver
From him who neither can deceive nor err.
The land, at length redeem'd, shall cease to mourn,
Shall from her sad captivity return:
Sion shall raise her long-dejected head,
And in her courts the law again be read,
Again the glorious temple shall arise,
And with now lustre pierce the neighbouring skies:
The promised seat of empire shall again
Cover the mountain and command the plain;
And from thy race distinguish'd, One shall spring
Greater in act than victor, more than king;
In dignity and power sent down from heaven
To succour earth. To him, to him, 'tis given
Passion, and care, and anguish, to destroy;
Through him soft peace and plenitude of joy
Perpetual o'er the world redeem'd shall flow;
No more may man inquire or angel know.

Now, Solomon, remembering who thou art,
Act through thy remnant life a decent part:
Go forth; be strong; with patience and with care
Perform and suffer; to thyself severe,
Gracious to others, thy desires suppress'd,
Diffused thy virtues, first of men, be best.
Thy sum of duty let two words contain,
O may they graven in thy heart remain!
Be humble and be just. The angel said:
With upward speed his agile wings he spread,
Whilst on the holy ground I prostrate lay,
By various doubts impell'd, or to obey
Or to object; at length (my mournful look
Heavenward erect) determined, thus I spoke:

Supreme, all-wise, eternal Potentate!
Sole author, sole disposer, of our fate!
Enthroned in light and immortality,
Whom no man fully sees, and none can see!
Original of Beings! Power divine!
Since that I live, that I think, is thine;
Benign Creator! let thy plastic hand
Dispose its own effect: let thy command
Restore, great Father, thy instructed son,
And in my act may thy great will be done.