University of Virginia Library

That nation boasts a happy fate
Whose prince is good as well as great,
Calm peace at home with plenty reigns,
The law its proper course obtains;
Abroad the public is respected,
And all its int'rests are protected:
But when his genius, weak or strong,
Is by ambition pointed wrong,
When private greatness has possess'd
In place of public good his breast,
'Tis certain, and I'll prove it true,
That ev'ry mischief must ensue.
On some pretence a war is made,
The citizen must change his trade;
His steers the husbandman unyokes,
The shepherd too must quit his flocks,
His harmless life and honest gain,
To rob, to murder, and be slain:
The fields, once fruitful, yield no more
Their yearly produce as before:
Each useful plant neglected dies,
While idle weeds licentious rise
Unnumber'd, to usurp the land
Where yellow harvests us'd to stand.
Lean famine soon in course succeeds;
Diseases follow as she leads.
No infant bands at close of day
In ev'ry village sport and play.
The streets are throng'd with orphans dying
For want of bread, and widows crying:
Fierce rapine walks abroad unchain'd,
By civil order not restrain'd:
Without regard to right and wrong,
The weak are injur'd by the strong;
The hungry mouth but rarely tastes
The fatt'ning food which riot wastes;
All ties of conscience lose their force,
Ev'n sacred oaths grow words of course.
By what strange cause are kings inclin'd
To heap such mischiefs on mankind?
What pow'rful arguments controul
The native dictates of the soul?
The love of glory and a name
Loud-sounded by the trump of fame:
Nor shall they miss their end, unless
Their guilty projects want success.
Let one possess'd of sov'reign sway
Invade and murder and betray,
Let war and rapine fierce be hurl'd
Thro' half the nations of the world;
And prove successful in a course
Of bad designs, and actions worse,
At once a demi-god he grows,
And incens'd both in verse and prose,
Becomes the idol of mankind;
Tho' to what's good he's weak and blind;
Approv'd, applauded, and respected,
While better rulers are neglected.

Where Shotts's airy tops divide
Fair Lothian from the vale of Clyde,
A Tempest from the east and north
Fraught with the vapours of the Forth,
In passing to the Irish seas,
Once chanc'd to meet the western Breeze.
The Tempest hail'd him with a roar,
“Make haste and clear the way before;
No paltry Zephyr must pretend
To stand before me, or contend:
Begone, or in a whirlwind tost
Your weak existence will be lost.”

The Tempest thus:—The Breeze reply'd
“If both our merits shou'd be try'd,
Impartial justice wou'd decree
That you shou'd yield the way to me.”

At this the Tempest rav'd and storm'd,
Grew black and ten times more deform'd.
What qualities, quoth he, of thine,
Vain flatt'ring wind, can equal mine?
Breath'd from some river, lake or bog,
Your rise at first is in a fog;
And creeping slowly o'er the meads
Scarce stir the willows or the reeds;
While those that feel you hardly know
The certain point from which you blow.
From earth's deep womb, the child of fire,
Fierce, active, vigorous, like my sire,
I rush to light; the mountains quake
With dread, and all their forests shake:
The globe itself convuls'd and torn,
Feels pangs unusual when I'm born:
Now free in air with sov'reign sway,
I rule, and all the clouds obey:
From east to west my pow'r extends,
Where day begins and where it ends:
And from Bootes downwards far,
Athwart the track of ev'ry star.
Thro' me the polar deep disdains
To sleep in winter's frosty chains;
But rous'd to rage, indignant heaves
Huge rocks of ice upon its waves;
While dread tornados lift on high
The broad Atlantic to the sky.
I rule the elemental roar,
And strew with shipwrecks ev'ry shore:
Nor less at land my pow'r is known
From Zembla to the burning zone.
I bring Tartarian frosts to kill
The bloom of summer; when I will
Wide desolation doth appear
To mingle and confound the year:
From cloudy Atlas wrapt in night,
On Barca's sultry plains I light,
And make at once the desert rise
In dusty whirlwinds to the skies;
In vain the trav'ler turns his steed,
And shuns me with his utmost speed;
I overtake him as he flies,
O'erblown he struggles, pants and dies.
Where some proud city lifts in air
Its spires, I make a desart bare;
And when I choose, for pastime's sake,
Can with a mountain shift a lake;
The Nile himself, at my command,
Oft hides his head beneath the sand,
And midst dry desarts blown and tost,
For many a sultry league is lost.
All this I do with perfect ease,
And can repeat whene'er I please:
What merit makes you then pretend
With me to argue and contend,
When all you boast of force or skill
Is scarce enough to turn a mill,
Or help the swain to clear his corn,
The servile tasks for which you're born?

Sir, quoth the Breeze, if force alone
Must pass for merit, I have none;
At least I'll readily confess
That yours is greater, mine is less.
But merit rightly understood
Consists alone in doing good;
And therefore you yourself must see
That preference is due to me:
I cannot boast to rule the skies
Like you, and make the ocean rise,
Nor e'er with shipwrecks strew the shore,
For wives and orphans to deplore.
Mine is the happier task, to please
The mariner, and smooth the seas,
And waft him safe from foreign harms
To bless his consort's longing arms.
With you, I boast not to confound
The seasons in their annual round,
And marr that harmony in nature
That comforts ev'ry living creature.
But oft from warmer climes I bring
Soft airs to introduce the spring;
With genial heat unlock the soil,
And urge the ploughman to his toil:
I bid the op'ning blooms unfold
Their streaks of purple, blue and gold,
And waft their fragrance to impart
That new delight to ev'ry heart,
Which makes the shepherd all day long
To carrol sweet his vernal song:
The summer's sultry heat to cool,
From ev'ry river, lake and pool,
I skim fresh airs. The tawny swain,
Who turns at noon the furrow'd plain,
Refresh'd and trusting in my aid,
His task pursues and scorns the shade:
And ev'n on Afric's sultry coast,
Where such immense exploits you boast,
I blow to cool the panting flocks
'Midst desarts brown and sun-burnt rocks,
And health and vigour oft supply
To such as languish, faint and die:
Those humbler offices you nam'd,
To own I'll never be asham'd,
With twenty others that conduce
To public good or private use,
The meanest of them far outweighs
The whole amount of all your praise;
If to give happiness and joy,
Excels the talent to destroy.

The Tempest, that till now had lent
Attention to the argument,
Again began (his patience lost)
To rage, to threaten, huff and boast:
Since reasons fail'd, resolv'd in course
The question to decide by force,
And his weak opposite to brave—
The Breeze retreated to a cave
To shelter, till the raging blast
Had spent its fury and was past.