The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] ... With a Copious Index. To which is prefixed Some Account of his Life. In Four Volumes |
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 | The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] |  |
ODE XV.
Dead is idolatry, and faint the praise
That sceptred people meet with now-a-days!
All unmolested, lo! the virtues sleep!
Their roof with fair applause but rarely rings—
Sweet Panegyric moves with snail-like creep,
And Defamation on the lightning's wings!
That sceptred people meet with now-a-days!
All unmolested, lo! the virtues sleep!
Their roof with fair applause but rarely rings—
Sweet Panegyric moves with snail-like creep,
And Defamation on the lightning's wings!
Too pleas'd to pluck the soaring plume of pow'r,
You bless an opposition hour;
Too fond, alas! of roasting harmless kings;
Too well I know what freedoms you would take—
Beat the dear creatures just like bears at stake;
Just like a poor tame gull's, would clip his wings!
You bless an opposition hour;
Too fond, alas! of roasting harmless kings;
Too well I know what freedoms you would take—
Beat the dear creatures just like bears at stake;
Just like a poor tame gull's, would clip his wings!
Poor bird! whom fate oft cruelly assails;
Forc'd from his bold aërial height,
Sweeping the sun amidst his flight,
To hop a garden, and hunt snails!
Forc'd from his bold aërial height,
Sweeping the sun amidst his flight,
To hop a garden, and hunt snails!
Such is the fate of Louis Seize,
Whom Pity, with a sigh, surveys;
Whom Frenchmen daringly have laid a curb on;
Who now no more full royally indites,
No more ‘Sic volo’ to his kingdom writes,
But, ‘I'm your humble servant, Louis Bourbon.’
Whom Pity, with a sigh, surveys;
Whom Frenchmen daringly have laid a curb on;
Who now no more full royally indites,
No more ‘Sic volo’ to his kingdom writes,
But, ‘I'm your humble servant, Louis Bourbon.’
Lettres-de-cachet, now no longer known,
Shall lull no more an empire's idle groan:
Bastilles, those schools of peace and sweet morality,
Instruct no more the mob, and men of quality.
Bastilles, the haunt of philosophic gloom,
Surround the imps of liberty no more:
In dust each iron and colossal door,
Which clos'd in thunder on a rebel's room;
That pealing, with reverberated sound,
Rung through the caverns of the dread profound;
Where Meditation ponder'd, pensive maid!
And Horror, death-like, paus'd upon the shade.
Shall lull no more an empire's idle groan:
Bastilles, those schools of peace and sweet morality,
Instruct no more the mob, and men of quality.
206
Surround the imps of liberty no more:
In dust each iron and colossal door,
Which clos'd in thunder on a rebel's room;
That pealing, with reverberated sound,
Rung through the caverns of the dread profound;
Where Meditation ponder'd, pensive maid!
And Horror, death-like, paus'd upon the shade.
Oh, let us cherish, then, the royal race,
The fount of honour, freedom, pension, place!
On me would kings their treasure fling away,
Most humbly grateful would I say,
‘Thus Lybia's forests a kind shade supply,
And for the meanest savage form a den;
And thus the mountains that invade the sky,
Kind, in their shaggy bosoms warm the wren.’
The fount of honour, freedom, pension, place!
On me would kings their treasure fling away,
Most humbly grateful would I say,
‘Thus Lybia's forests a kind shade supply,
And for the meanest savage form a den;
And thus the mountains that invade the sky,
Kind, in their shaggy bosoms warm the wren.’
| The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | |