By the world's kings, and kingdoms, most renown'd, The ship-boy's hammock, or the soldier's εtraw, From short ambition's zenith set for ever, Whence sorrow never chas'd thee; with thee bring Sad presage to vain boasters, now in bloom! Not hideous visions, as of latc; but draughts By the long list of swift mortality, Delicious of well-tasted, cordial, rest; From Adam downward to this evening knell, Man's rich restorative ; his balmy bath, Which midnight waves in fancy's startled eye, That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play And shocks her with an hundred centuries ; The various movements of this nice machine, Round Death's black banner throng'd, in human Which asks such frequent periods of repair. thought! When tir'd with vain rotations of the day, By thousands, now, resigning their last breath, Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn; And calling thee-wert thou so wise to hear! Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels, By tombs o'er tombs arising ; human earth Or Death quite breaks the spring, and motion ends. Ejected, to make room for-human earth; When will it end with me? The monarch's terror! and the sexton's trade! -“THOU only know'st, By pompous obsequies that shun the day, Thou, whose broad eye the future, and the past, The torch funereal, and the nodding plume, Joins to the present; making one of three Which makes poor man's humiliation proud; To mortal thought! Thou know’st, and thou alone, Boast of our ruin! triumph of our dust! All-knowing !-all-unknown !—and yet well-known . By the damp vault that weeps o'er royal bones; Near, though remote ! and, though unfathom'd, And the pale lamp that shows the ghastly dead, felt! More ghastly through the thick incumbent gloom! And, though invisible, for ever seen! By visits (if there are) from darker scenes, And seen in all! the great and the minute : The gliding spectre! and the groaning grave! Each globe above with its gigantic race, By groans, and graves, and miseries that groan Each flower, each leaf, with its small people For the grave's shelter! By desponding men, swarm'd, Senseless to pains of death, from pangs of guilt! (Those puny vouchers of Omnipotence!) By guilt's last audit! By yon Moon in blood, To the first thought, that asks, •From whence ?' The rocking firmament, the falling stars, declare And thunder's last discharge, great Nature's knell! Their common source. Thou fountain, running o'er By second chaos and eternal night.”— In rivers of communicated joy! Be wise-Nor let Philander blame my charm; Who gav'st us speech for far, far humbler themes ! But own not ill-discharg'd my double debt, Say, by what name shall I presume to call Love to the living; duty to the dead ! Him I see burning in these countless suns, For know I'm but executor; he left As Moses, in the bush? Illustrious Mind! This moral legacy; I make it o'er The whole creation, less, far less, to thee, By his command ; Philander hear in me; Than that to the creation's ample round. And Heaven in both.-If deaf to these, O! hear How shall I name thee !-How my laboring soul Florello's tender voice: his weal depends Heaves underneath the thought, too big for birth! On thy resolve ; it trembles at thy choice, “Great system of perfections! mighty cause For his sake-love thyself : example strikes Of causes mighty! cause uncaus'd! sole root All human hearts; a bad example more ; Of Nature, that luxuriant growth of God! First Father of effects! that progeny Last link admits a period, who can tell ? Father of all that is or seen, or sees ! If careless of Lorenzo! spare, Oh! spare Father of all that is, or shall arise ! Florello's father, and Philander's friend ! Father of this immeasurable mass Of matter multiform ; or dense, or rare ; Minute, or passing bound! in each extreme Father of these bright millions of the night! And thrown the gazer on his knee-Or, say, Is appellation higher still, thy choice? Of high paternal glory; rich endow'd With various measures, and with various modes But, Oh! I faint! My spirits fail!-Nor strange! or instinct, reason, intuition ; beams So long on wing, and in no middle clime ! More pale, or bright from day divine, to break The darker matter organiz'd (the ware Till the last ripens into lustre strong, (Wont to relurn with our returning peace) Of next approach to godhead. Father fond Will pay, ere long, and bless me with repose. (Far fonder than e'er bore that name on Earth) Haste, haste, sweet stranger! from the peasant's or intellectual beings! beings blest cot, With powers to please thee! not of passive ply To laws they know not ; beings lodg'd in seats On a poor breathing particle in dust, Or, lower, an immortal in his crimes. His crimes forgive! forgive his virtues, too! Of this proud, populous, well-policied, Those smaller faults, half-converts to the right. Though boundless habitation, plann'd by thee : Nor let me close these eyes, which never more Whose several clans their several climates suit; May see the Sun (though night's descending scale And transposition, doubtless, would destroy. Now weighs up morn), unpitied, and unblest! Or, Oh! indulge, immortal King, indulge in thy displeasure dwells elernal pain ; A title less august indeed, but more Pain, our aversion; pain, which strikes me now; Gently, ah gently, lay me in my bed, Let it out-preach the preacher; every night And when (the shelter of thy wing implor'd) On more than adamantine basis fix’d, My senses, sooth'd, shall sink in soft repose, O'er more, far more, than diadems and thrones, sink this truth still deeper in my soul, Inviolably reigns; the dread of gods! Suggested by my pillow, sign’d by fate, And Oh! the friend of man! beneath whose foot, First, in fate's volume, at the page of manAnd by the mandate of whose awful nod, Man's sickly soul, though turn'd and toss'd for All regions, revolutions, fortunes, fates, ever, of high, of low, of mind, and matter, roll From side to side, can rest on nought but thee : Through the short channels of expiring time, Here, in full trust; hereafter, in full joy ; Or shoreless ocean of eternity, On thee, the promis'd, sure, eternal down Nor of that pillow shall my soul despond; And loud eternity's triumphant song! God! Of Heaven with distant Earth! by whom I trust, Thou God and mortal! Thence more God to man! (If not inspir'd) uncensur'd this address Man's theme eternal! man's eternal theme! To thee, to them—10 whom !-Mysterious power! Thou canst not 'scape uninjur'd from our praise. Reveal’d :—yet unreveal'd! darkness in light! Uninjur'd from our praise can he escape, Number in unity! our joy! our dread! Who, disembosom'd from the Father, bows The triple bolt ihat lays all wrong in ruin! The Heaven of Heavens, to kiss the distant Earth! That animates all right, the triple sun! Breathes out in agonies a sinless soul! Sun of the soul ! her never-setting sun! Against the cross, Death's iron sceptre breaks! Triune, unutterable, unconceiv'd, From famish'd ruin plucks her human prey! Throws wide the gates celestial to his foes ! And (to close all) omnipotently kind, What words are these-And did they come from Through—What? confounding interval! through Heaven? all And were they spoke to man? to guilty man? And more than laboring fancy can conceive ; What are all mysteries to love like this? Through radiant ranks of essences unknown; The songs of angels, all the melodies Through hierarchies from hierarchies detach'd of choral gods, are wasted in the sound; Round various banners of omnipotence, Heal and exhilarate the broken heart; With endless change of rapturous duties fir'd; Though plung’d, before, in horrors dark as night. Through wondrous beings interposing swarms, Rich prelibation of consummate joy! All clustering at the call, to dwell in thee; Nor wait we dissolution to be blest. Through this wide waste of worlds! this vista vast, This final effort of the moral Muse, All sanded o'er with suns; suns turn’d to night How justly titled ! nor for me alone : Before thy feeblest beam-Look down-down-For all that read; what spirit of support, down, What heights of Consolation, crown my song! • Nights the Sixth and Seventh. 78 † Prov. chap. viii. The Consolation. 3 B 2 more : THE Then, farewell night! of darkness, now, no LOVE OF FAME, UNIVERSAL PASSION; IN SEVEN CHARACTERISTICAL SATIRES. -Fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru Non minus ignotos generosis. Hor. SATIRE I. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF DORSET. -Tanto major Famæ sitis est, quam Virtutis. Juv. Sat. x. My verse is Satire ; Dorset, lend your ear, And patronize a Muse you cannot fear. Suppose Philander's, Lucia's, or Narcissa's, To poets sacred is a Dorset's name; The truth of things new-blazing in its eye, Their wonted passport ihrough the gates of Fame; Look back, astonishid, on the ways of men, It bribes the partial reader into praise, Whose lives' whole drifi is to forget their graves ! And throws a glory round the shelier'd lays : And when our present privilege is past, The dazzled judgment fewer faults can see, To scourge us with due sense of its abuse, And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me. The same astonishment will seize us all. But you decline the mistress we pursue: What then mast pain us, would preserve us now). Others are fond of Fame, but Fame of you. Lorenzo! 'tis not yet too late ; Lorenzo! Instructive Satire, true to virtue's cause! Seize wisdom, ere 'tis torment to be wise ; Thou shining supplement of public laws ! That is, seize wisdom, ere she seizes thee. When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age For what, my small philosopher, is Hell? Reproach our silence, and demand our rage; 'Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth, When purchas'd follies, from cach distant land, -When truth, resisted long, is sworn our foe: Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand; And calls eternity to do her right. When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite Thus, darkness aiding intellectual light, And South-sea treasures are not brought to light; And sacred silence whispering truths divine, When churchmen Scripture for the classics quit, And truths divine converting pain to peace, Polite apostates from God's grace to wit ; My song the midnight raven has out wing’d, When men grow great from their revenue spent, And shot, ambitious of unbounded scenes, And fly from bailiffs into parliament; Beyond the flaming limits of the world, When dying sinners, to blot out their score, Her gloomy Night. But what avails the flight Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore ; or fancy, when our hearts remain below? To chase our spleen, when themes like these increase, Virtue abounds in Natteries and foes; Shall panegyric reign, and censure cease? 'Tis pride to praise her; penance to perform. Shall poesy, like law, turn wrong to right, To more than words, to more than worth of And dedication waslı an Æthiop white, tongue, Set up each senseless wretch for nature's boast, Lorenzo! rise, at this auspicious hour; On whom praise shines, as trophies on a post? An hour, when Heaven's most intimate with man; Shall funeral eloquence her colors spread, When, like a falling star, the ray divine And scatter roses on the wealthy dead ? Glides swift into the bosom of the just; Shall authors smile on such illustrious days, And just are all, determind to reclaim; And satirize with nothing—but their praise? Which sels that lide high within thy reach. Why slumbers Pope, who leads the funeful train Awake, then: ihy Philander calls: awake! Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain ? Thou, who shalt wake, when the creation sleeps ; Donne, Dorset, Dryden, Rochester, are dead, When, like a taper, all these suns expire; And guilt's chief foe, in Addison, is fled; When Time, like him of Gaza in his wrath, Congreve, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won, Plucking the pillars that support the world, Sits smiling at the goal, while others run, In Nature's ample ruins lies entombid; He will not write ; and (more provoking still !) And midnight, universal midnight! reigns. | Ye gods! he will not write, and Mævius will. Doubly distrest, what author shall we find, • Horace. The love of praise, howe'er conceald by art, Aid me, great Homer! with thy epic rules, The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure; Satire! had I thy Dorset's force divine, A knave or fool should perish in each line; He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet, What is not proud ? the pimp is proud to see If virtues at his noble hands you crave, You bid him raise his father's from the grave. The whore is proud her beauties are the dread Men should press forward in Fame's glorious chase; of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed ; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race. And the brib'd cuckold, like crown'd victims born Let high-birth triumph! What can be more great ? To slaughter, glories in his gilded horn. Nothing—but merit in a low estale. To virtue's humblest son let none preser They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Dorset, let those who proudly boast their line, Vain as false greatness is, the Muse must own Mean sons of earth, who on a South-sea tide Is now a scribbler, who was once a man. Of full success, swam into wealth and pride, Imperious, some a classic fame demand, Knock with a purse of gold at Anstis' gale, For heaping up, with a laborious hand, And beg to be descended from the great. A wagon-load of meanings for one word, When men of infamy to grandeur soar, While A 's depos'd, and B with pomp restor'd. They light a torch to show their shame the more. Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote, Those governments which curb not evils, cause ! And think they grow immortal as they quote. And a rich knave's a libel on our laws. To patchwork learn'd quotations are allied ; Belus with solid glory will be crown'd; Both strive to make our poverty our pride. He buys no phantom, no vain empty sound; On glass how witty is a noble peer! But builds himself a name; and, to be great, Did ever diamond cost a man so dear? Sinks in a quarry an immense estate! Polite diseases make some idiots vain ; In cost and grandeur, Chandos he'll outdo; Which, if unfortunately well, they feign. And Burlington, thy taste is not so true. Or folly, vice, disease, men proud we see; The pile is finish’d; every toil is past; And (stranger still !) of blockheads' flattery ; And full perfection is arriv'd at last ; Whose praise desames; as if a fool should mean, When lo! my lord to some small corner runs, By spitting on your face, to make it clean. And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns. Nor is 't enough all hearts are swoln with pride, The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay Her power is mighty, as her realm is wide. Provides a home from which to run away. What can she not perform ? The love of Fame In Britain, what is many a lordly seat, Made bold Alphonsus his Creator blame : But a discharge in full for an estate ? Empedocles hurl'd down the burning steep: In smaller compass lies Pygmalion's fame; And (stronger still!) made Alexander weep. Not domes, but antique statues, are his fame : Nay, it holds Delia from a second bed, Not Fountaine's self more Parian charms has known, Though her lov'd lord has four half months been dead. Nor is good Pembroke more in love with stone. This passion with a pimple have I seen The bailiffs come (rude men, profanely bold !) Retard a cause, and give a judge the spleen. And bid him turn his Venus into gold. By this inspir'd (0 ne'er to be forgot!) No, sirs," he cries, “I'll sooner rot in jail : Some lords have learn'd to spell, and some to knot. Shall Grecian arts be truck'd for English bail ?" It makes Globose a speaker in the house; Such heads might make their very bustos laugh: He hems, and is deliverid of his mouse. His daughter starves; but Cleopatra's safe.* May spill their treasure in a nice conceit: • A famous statue. : By your revenue measure your expense ; Say, dear Hippolytus, (whose drink is ale, Whose mistress is saluted with a smack, And friend receiv'd with thumps upon the back,) Yet few without long discipline are sage ; When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound, And our youth only lays up sighs for age. And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground, But how, my Muse, canst thou resist so long Is that thy praise ? Let Ringwood's fame alone; The bright temptation of the courtly throng, Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own; Thy most inviting theme? The court affords Nor envies, when a gypsy you commit, Much food for satire ;-it abounds in lords. And shake the clumsy bench with country wit; “What lords are those saluting with a grin ?" When you the dullest of dull things have said, One is just out, and one as lately in. And then ask pardon for the jest you made. "How comes it then to pass, we see preside Here breathe, my Muse! and then thy task renew. On both their brows an equal share of pride ?" Ten thousand fools unsung are still in view. Pride, that impartial passion, reigns through all, Fewer lay-atheists made by church debates; Attends our glory, nor deserts our fall. Fewer great beggars fam'd for large estates; As in its home it triumphs in high place, Ladies, whose love is constant as the wind; And frowns a haughty exile in disgrace. Cits, who prefer a guinea to mankind; Some lords it bids admire their hands so white, Fewer grave lords to Scrope discreetly bend; Which bloom, like Aaron's, to their ravish'd sight: And fewer shocks a statesman gives his friend. Some lords it bids resign; and turns their wands, Is there a man of an eternal vein, Like Moses', into serpents in their hands. Who lulls the town in winter with his strain, These sink, as divers, for renown; and boast, At Bath, in summer, chants the reigning lass, With pride inverted, of their honors lost. And sweetly whistles as the waters pass? But against reason sure 'tis equal sin, Is there a tongue, like Delia's o'er her cup, The boast of merely being out, or in. That runs for ages witout winding-up? What numbers here, through odd ambition, strive Is there, whom his tenth epic mounts to fame? To seem the most transported things alive! Such, and such only, might exhaust my theme : As if by joy, desert was understood ; Nor would these heroes of the task be glad, For who can write so fast as men run mad ? SATIRE II. Heroes and gods make other poems fine ; What bodily fatigue is half so bad ? Plain Satire calls for sense in every line : With anxious care they labor to be glad. Then, 10 what swarms thy faults I dare expose ! And if these strains some nobler Muse excite So weak are human-kind by Nature made, Thou, like the Sun, all colors dost contain, High stations tumult, but not bliss, create : Varying, like rays of light, on drops of rain. None think the great unhappy, but the great : For every soul finds reason to be proud, Fools gaze, and envy; envy darts a sting, Though hiss'd and hooled by the pointing crowd. Which makes a swain as wretched as a king. Warm in pursuit of foxes and renown, I envy none their pageantry and show; Hippolytus* demands the sylvan crown; I envy none the gilding of their woe. But Florio's fame, the product of a shower, Give me, indulgent gods! with mind serene, Grows in his garden, an illustrious flower! And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene; Why teems the Earth? Why melt the vernal skies? No splendid poverty, no smiling care, Why shines the Sun? To make Paul Diackt rise. No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there: From morn to night has Florio gazing stood, There pleasing objects useful thoughts suggest ; And wonder'd how the gods could be so good : The sense is ravishd, and the soul is blest; What shape! What hue! Was ever nymph so fair ? On every thorn delightful wisdom grows; He dotes! he dies! he too is rooted there. In every rill a sweet instruction flows. O solid bliss! which nothing can destroy, But some, untaughi, o'erhear the whispering rill, Except a cat, bird, snail, or idle boy. In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still : In same's full bloom lies Florio down at night, Nor shoots up folly to a nobler bloom And wakes next day a most inglorious wight; The tulip's dead! See thy fair sister's fate, * This refers to the first Satire. † The name of a tulip. |