University of Virginia Library

BOOK II.

And now again 'tis morn, the orient sun
Prepares once more his radiant course to run;
O'er yon tall trees I see his glories rise,
Tinge their green tops, and gain upon the skies;
The social principle resumes the shade,
Basks on the banks, or glides along the glade:
See how it pants, my friend, in yonder throng,
Where half a village bears the sheaves along;
Low stoops the swain to dress his native soil,
And here the housewife comes to soothe his toil;
While heav'n's warm beams upon her bosom dart,
She owns the fondness of her wedded heart,
From his damp brow the labour'd drop removes,
And dares to show with what a force she loves;
Where'er the mother moves, her race attend,
And often cull the corn, and often bend;
Or bear the scrip, or tug the rake along,
Or catch the burthen of the reaper's song;
Or shrinking from the sickle's curving blade,
Cling to the gown, half pleas'd, and half afraid;
While he who gave them life looks on the while,
And views his little houshold with a smile;
Imprints the kiss, then blessing ev'ry birth,
Carols his joy, and hails the generous earth.
But not to scenes of pleasantry confin'd,
Though, hap'ly, simpler there, as less refin'd,
Not circumscrib'd to these the social plan,
Which more extends, as more pursu'd by man.
Just as yon path-way, winding through the mead,
Grows broad and broader by perpetual tread,
The social passion turns the foot aside,
And prompts the swains to travel side by side;
Both edge, by turns, upon the bord'ring sod,
And the path widens as the grass is trod.
In cities thus, though trade's tumultuous train
Spurn at the homely maxims of the plain,
Not all the pride of rank, the trick of art,
Can chase the generous passion from the heart:
Nay more, a larger circle it must take,
Where men embodying, larger int'rests make,
And each, perforce, round each more closely twine,
Where countless thousands form the social line.
As slow to yonder eminence I bend,
Gradual the views of social life extend,
Where benches ease the steep ascent I stray,
And stop at each to take a just survey;
At every step, as sinks the vale behind,
A wider prospect opens on mankind.
Far to the right where those blue hills arise,
And bathe their swelling bosoms in the skies,
The barks of commerce set the flapping sail,
And the dark sea-boy sues the busy gale;
There the deep warehouse shows its native store,
There flame the riches of a foreign shore;
Thick swarm the sons of trade on every hand,
And either India breathes along the strand;
Gold, give me gold, each bustler cries aloud,
As hope or fear alternate seize the crowd;
To careless eyes the love of pelf alone,
Seems to drain off the golden tide for one;
But closer view'd a various course it takes,
And wide meanderings in its passage makes;
Through many a social channel see it run,
In splendid heritage from sire to son;
From thence in many a mazy stream it flows,
And feels no ebb, no dull stagnation knows;
Thus nature and necessity agree
The social chain to stretch from land to sea.
Thus e'en the miser, tho' his sordid soul
Loves but himself, befriends perforce the whole.
Ask you a stronger proof? Place wealth alone
With some hard niggard, lock up all his own:
Pile bills, and bags, and bonds upon his shelf,
And a close prisoner chain him to his pelf.
Unhappy man! from family and friends,
From all which heav'n in soft compassion sends,
From touch of kindred, tune of tender speech,
And exil'd from the social passion's reach;
How would he sigh, tho' every hope were vain,
And buy a glance at man with half his gain!
How, at some chink or crevice would he ply,
And envy each poor beggar limping by!
Far happier he, who breasting every wind,
Lives on the common mercy of his kind,
Who roams the world to tell his piteous case,
And dies as last amidst the human race.
MAN dragg'd the splendid stranger first to view,
And, like a meteor, round the world it flew,
A ready welcome from the world it found,
And Phœbus hail'd the Phœnix from the ground.
Immediate wonder seiz'd the circling crowd,
But chief Europa to her idol bow'd,
Her bark, her car, with emblems gilded o'er
The homage spread from ocean to the shore;
Attractive Gold obsequious votaries drew,
Till useful fondness into dotage grew.
Yet still be just. In shape of fraud or force,
Ere Gold appear'd the Passions took their course;
Like whirldwinds swept the flowers of life along,
And crush'd the weak, and undermin'd the strong;
Lord as thou wert, Tibullus, of the strains
That sweetest paint an hapless lover's pains,
Long, long ere execrated Gold from earth
Arose to give each tender trespass birth,
Full many a mistress knew, like thine, the art,
To sport with vows, and practise on the heart.
Let sage Tradition's reverend records tell,
Unbrib'd by gold, what hosts in battle fell,
Unbrib'd by gold,—when acorns were the food,
And man with beast roam'd naked thro' the wood,
Ev'n in those times which raptur'd bards have sung,
When nature triumph'd, and the world was young,
Blest days! whose charms so many lays rehearse,
Blest days, alas! which only bloom in verse—
Ev'n then let Hist'ry tell what follies sped,
Assail'd the hut, and thro' the forest spread;
How daring guilt in proud obtrusion stood,
And dy'd his dreadful robe in brothers blood;
How son and sire, with unrelenting strife,
Ensanguin'd sought each other's kindred life;
How matrons stopt the new-born infants breath,
And bold self-slaughter rush'd on impious death;
How darkling error stain'd the blushing morn,
And life's first roses bore the pointed thorn;
How ages past exhibit all the crimes
That random satire aims at modern times;
How varying modes alone divide the plan
Betwixt the savage and the social man;
How ruder vices now refin'd appear,
Adopting still the fashion of the year;
Conclude we then the vices are the same,
Conclude that Man, not Gold, is still to blame,
Rail then no more at gold, for plain to view
Behold an antidote and poison too:
Oh save the shining metal from abuse,
And the heart turns it to a social use!
The widow, orphan, and ten thousand more,
Prove that no dross need hang about the ore;
Prove, that this glittering treasure may dispense
The sterling joys of pure benevolence,
While from the golden reservoir may flow
The richest streams of sympathy below.
In soft alliance with the tender heart,
The senses too, their sympathy impart:
No longer blessings than as all conspire
With kindred zeal to fan the social fire.
Of sight, or smell, say what the mighty power,
If but to see the sun, or scent the flower?
Of touch, taste, hearing, what the wond'rous boast,
If narrow'd all to self, they all are lost?
But ye of finer souls, who truly know
The rich division of a joy and woe,
Oh tell the rapture when a friend is nigh
To charm the ear, or to delight the eye,
To draw amusement from the pictur'd air,
As fancy shapes her thousand visions there,
Now paints her monsters, now her armies strong,
When slow she drives her twilight car along:
Oh tell the rapture that each pleasure wears,
When the soul's friend each passing pleasure shares,
When with twin'd arms ye watch the opening rose,
Or trace the devious streamlet as it flows,
Together mark fair summer's radiant store,
Together nature's vernal haunts explore;
And fondly jealous of each object new,
Contend who first shall point it to the view;
Then part awhile, o'er hill and valley stray,
And anxious court the fortune of the day.
But if long absent, hail'd be every power
That blots the sunbeam and destroys the bower,
That wraps th' affrighted atmosphere in storms,
And each gay vision of the sky deforms,
The social senses then partake the grief,
And seek some kindred object of relief.
Oh hark, my soul, to yonder Stockdove's note,
Sweet as the woe from Philomela's throat;
Soft let me steal along the copse to hear
The mournful murmur break upon my ear;
Ah, gentle bird! indulge thy tender pains,
While the Muse greets thee with congenial strains,
Nor quit thy sombrous seat, nor, needless fly
The still, small breathings of a social sigh:
That ruffled plumage, that disorder'd wing,
More soothing now than softest blooms of spring,
And that deep sob, to every sense more dear
Than all the music of the vocal year.
Blest be the hand that lends the power to feel,
And frames us subject to the wounds we heal,
That urges all to minister relief,
And instant fly with open arms to grief;
That veils the soft attraction in a tear,
Each bliss makes poignant, and each sorrow dear;
Eternal incense from the soul ascend
To him who made each being want a friend,
Who plac'd us in a world 'twixt sun and shade,
That those which bloom might succour those that fade;
And doubly bless'd the providence, whose skill
In life's thin loom has woven many an ill;
Tho' weak the texture, from that weakness springs
The strength and beauty of all human things;
For still as fate or nature deals the blow,
The balms we now solicit, now bestow,
And all our miseries but clearly prove
The social powers of pity and of love.
Ask the pale mother why 'tis joy to weep
When o'er her stricken babe faint slumbers creep?
Ask why the child at midnight's thickest gloom
Still fondly lingers at a parent's tomb?
Or why the wife, in times of raging death,
Yet leans to catch her lord's polluted breath?
Go, warn them straight of pestilential air,
Point to the weakness here, the danger there,
Let mirth and music all their powers employ,
To spread for every sense its favourite joy,
Then, arm'd with all the world's seductions try
To wean the mourners from so dark a sky,
Oh! they will spurn the offer'd gales of health,
The lures of pleasure and the snares of wealth,
Prefer the dark recesses of disease,
The sickly pillow and the tainted breeze,
And call it conscience, nature, bliss, to know
The last extremities of social woe.
Hence the great principle to all expands,
Thaws Lapland's ice, and glows on India's sands;
Above, below, its genial splendours play,
Where'er an human footstep marks the way.
“Oh! for one track of man upon the snow,
“The trace of sweet society to show;
“Oh! for one print on swarthy Afric's shore!”
Thus prays the wanderer 'scap'd from Ocean's roar;
In every clime is felt the thorb divine,
By land, by water, here, and at the Line.
Nor climates only, but each age imparts
The kindly bias to our social hearts.
See the swath'd infant cling to the embrace,
Th' instinctive fondness dawning in its face,
See it, ascending, strengthen as it grows,
Till ripe and riper the affection glows,
Then view the child, its toys and trinkets share,
With some lov'd partner of its little care:
Behold the man a firmer bond requires,
For him the passion kindles all its fires;
Next, see his numerous offspring twining near,
Now move the smile, and now excite the tear;
Terror and transport in his bosom reign,
Succession sweet of pleasure and and of pain,
As age advances, some sensations cease,
Some, lingering, leave the heart, while some increase:
Thus, when life's vigorous passions are no more,
Self-love creeps closest to the social power;
The stooping vet'ran with time-silver'd hair,
Crawls to the blazing hearth and wicker chair;
There huddled close, he fondly hopes to spy
His goodly sons and daughters standing by;
To the lisp'd tale he bends the greedy ear,
And o'er his children's children drops a tear;
Or, every friend surviv'd, himself half dead,
Frail nature still demands her board, her bed;
And these some kindred spirit shall bestow,
His wants supply, or mitigate his woe;
Still Sympathy shall watch his fleeting breath,
And gently lead him to the gates of death.
Yet more; e'en war, the scourge of human kind,
But serves more close the social links to bind;
Confed'rate courage forms th' embattled line,
Firm on each side connecting passions join;
'Tis social danger either troop inspires,
'Tis social honour either army fires,
'Tis social glory burnishes the van,
'Tis social faith spreads on from man to man;
As front to front the warring parties meet,
For social ends they dare the martial feat;
As breast to breast, and eye to eye they fix,
For social ends they seperate or mix.
King, country, parents, children, prompt the fight,
For these alone they bleed, resist, unite;
And, hap'ly, first hostilities arose
From nice distinctions made of friends and foes;
Some scornful slight where nature most can smart,
Some stinging insult forest to the heart,
Some wrong detected, forfeited some trust,
A treaty broken, or a barrier burst,
Bade Sympathy call Vengeance to her aid,
Till where the laws avail'd not wars were made;
Affection sought from arms the wish'd relief,
And bore them 'gainst the assassin and the thief;
Eager o'er those who faith's fair league invade
With social zeal to lift th' avenging blade;
Or from the spoiler's hand to fence the flowers
That sweetly blossom round life's private bowers:
'Tis thus, the steady eye of Reason finds
What seems to snap the chain, more closely binds;
And thus each peril like each pleasure try'd,
Unites the rosy bonds on either side.
But less do arms than arts assist the plan,
Those may defend, but these embellish man;
These softly draw him nearer to his kind,
And mark distinct his seraph form of mind.
Lo, in firm compact, hand, and head, and heart,
To aid the system take an helping part,
Their various powers by various modes they lend,
And serve in union as one common friend;
Hence, by consent, men clear the unthrifty wood,
New model earth, and navigate the flood;
Hence hamlets grow into the city's pride,
While the soul opens, like the talents, wide.
By social pleasure, social profit sway'd,
Some soar to learning, and some stoop to trade.
Studious to gain the love of human kind,
The social sage at midnight stores his mind,
Robs weary nature of her just repose,
Nor drinks the dew that bathes the morning rose,
Nor when the sun to Cynthia gives the night,
Eyes the soft blessing of her tender light,
But o'er the taper leans his pensive head,
And for the living communes with the dead.
The dusky artizan, his effort made;
Asserts his rights, and leaves the sickly shade;
At eve he quits the spot where glooms annoy,
And seeks the bosom of domestic joy;
The social faggot, and the light repast,
Await to cheer him when his toils are past.
And hence each class of Elegant and Great,
Art decks the dome, and commerce crounds the street;
The heav'n-born Muse impetuous wings her way,
When her lov'd Seward seeks the realms of day;
Queen of the comic power, hence Cowley wooes
Fair visitations of the gayer Muse;
The painter hence his magic pencil plies,
And Reynolds bids a new creation rise;
Hence Kauffman sketches life's lov'd forms anew,
And holds the mirror of past times to view,
Restores each grace that mark'd the Grecian age,
And draws her lovely comment on the page;
And still to chear the solitary hour,
For this has Beach display'd his happiest power;
I see my friend upon the canvas glow,
And feel the smile that lightens every woe.
All, Sympathy, is thine; th' Immortal strung,
For thee that more than golden harp the tongue:
The sphere's best music taught it to impart,
And bade each soft vibration strike the heart.
Thine too, the varied fruitage of the fields,
The clustering crops which yonder valley yields
That thymy down where feeds a thousand sheep,
This bower umbrageous, and yon cultur'd steep;
The still smooth joys that bloom o'er life's serene,
And all the bustle of its public scene.
Nor think the dull cold reasoners, can disprove
These varied powers of Sympathetic love;
Nor hope, ye cynics, all your skill can find
From partial spots a flaw in human kind;
As well the panther might ye charge with sin,
And call each streak a blemish on his skin;
Allow to self the broadest scope ye can,
Still breathe the social principle in man.
Oft when pride whispers that he stands alone,
His strength proceeds from other than his own;
Oft when he seems to walk the world apart,
Another's interest twines about his heart;
And call his project rash, his effort vain,
The end is social which he sighs to gain;
Or say, this builds for pomp, that digs for bread,
This shews you pictures, that a pompous bed,
This toils a niggard at his lonely trade,
That rears the bower but asks not to its shade;
That this for vanity his wealth displays,
As that for pride unravels learning's maze;
Trace but their purpose to one general end,
You see it work the good of wife, or friend,
Parent or child their privilege still claim,
And social comfort springs from what we blame,
Frailty itself our sympathy may spare,
A graceful weakness when no vice is there.
Who hopes perfection breaks down nature's fence,
And spurns the modest bounds of sober sense.
When straw-like errors lean to virtue's side.
Ah! check, ye bigots, check your furious pride.
Some venial faults, like clouds at dawn of day,
Blush as they pass, and but a moment stay;
Those venial faults from sordid natures start,
And spring up only in the generous heart,
As florid weeds elude the labourer's toil,
From too much warmth or richness of the soil;
While meaner souls, like Zembla's hills of snow,
Too barren prove for weeds or flowers to grow.
This then is clear, while human kind exist,
The social principle must still subsist,
In strict dependency of one on all,
As run the binding links from great to small.
Man born for man some friendly aid requires,
The contract strengthening till the soul retires;
Nor then, ev'n then it breaks, for still we pay
A brother's homage to the breathless clay;
Jealous of destiny the heart would save
Its favour'd object from the closing grave,
Its favour'd object chosen from the rest,
In grief, in joy, the monarch of the breast;
To earth we trust what fondness would retain,
And leave the corpse to visit it again;
Nay, unconfin'd by partial ties of blood,
We brave e'en peril for a stranger's good.
Once, and not far from where those seats are seen,
Just where yon white huts peep the copse between,
A damsel languish'd, all her kin were gone,
For God who lent, resum'd them one by one;
Disease and penury in cruel strife,
Had ravish'd all the decent means of life,
E'en the mark'd crown, her lover's gift, she gave,
In filial duty for a father's grave,
That so the honour'd clay which caus'd her birth
Might slumber peaceful in the sacred earth,
Chim'd to its grass-green home with pious peal,
While hallow'd dirges hymn the last farewel;
At length these piercing woes her sense invade,
And lone and long the hapless wanderer stray'd,
O'er the black heath, around th' unmeasur'd wood,
Up the huge precipiece, or near the flood;
She mounts the rock at midnight's awful hour,
Enjoys the gloom, and idly mocks the shower;
Now scorns her fate, then patient bends the knee,
And courts each pitying star to set her free,
Then starting wilder, thinks those stars her foes,
Smites her sad breast, and laughs amidst her woes;
Oft would she chace the bee, or braid the grass,
Or crop the hedge-flower, or disorder'd pass;
Else, restless loiter in the pathless mead,
Sing to the birds at roost, the lambs at feed;
Or if a nest she found the brakes among,
No hand of hers destroy'd the promis'd young;
And when kind nature brought the balmy sleep,
Too soon she woke to wander and to weep;
Across her breast the tangled tresses flew,
And frenzied glances all around shew threw;
Th' unsettled soul those frenzied glances speak,
And tears of terror hurry down her cheek;
Yet still that eye was bright, that cheek was fair,
Though pale the rose, the lilly blossom'd there.
A wandering swain the beauteous Maniac found,
Her woes wild warbling to the rocks around;
A river roll'd beside, aghast she ran,
Her vain fears startling at the sight of man;
And, save me, God! my father's ghost! she cry'd,
Then headlong plung'd into the flashing tide.
The youth pursues—but wild the waters rose,
And o'er their heads in circling surges close,
Not heav'n-born Sympathy itself could save;
Both, both alas! were whelm'd beneath the wave.
And lives the man, who senseless could have stood
To see the victim buffet with the flood?
Whose coward cheek no tinge of honour feels,
Flush'd with no pride at which the Muse reveals?
If such a man, if such a wretch there be,
Thanks to this aching heart, I am not he.
Hail, lovely griefs, in tender mercy giv'n,
And hail, ye tears, like dew-drops fresh from heav'n;
Hail, balmy breath of unaffected sighs,
More sweet than airs that breathe from eastern skies;
Hail, sacred source of sympathy divine,
Each social pulse, each social fibre thine;
Hail, symbols of the God, to whom we owe
The nerves that vibrate, and the hearts that glow;
Love's tender tumult, friendship's holy fires,
And all which beauty, all which worth inspires,
The joy that lights the hope illumin'd eye,
The bliss supreme that melts in pity's sigh,
Affection's bloom quick rushing to the face,
The choice acknowledg'd and the warm embrace:
Oh power of powers, whose magic thus can draw,
Earth, air, and ocean, by one central law;
Join bird to bird, to insect insect link,
From those which grovel up to those which think;
Oh, ever blest! whose bounties opening wide
Fill the vast globe, for mortals to divide,
Thy heav'nly favours stretch from pole to pole,
Encircle earth, and rivet soul to soul!
Cease then to wonder these lov'd scenes impart
No more the usual transport to my heart;
Tho' modest Twilight visit Eve again,
At whose soft summons homeward steps the swain;
Though from the breath of oxen in the vale,
I catch the spirit of the balmy gale,
And from the brakes the answering thrushes sing,
While the grey owl sails by on solemn wing;
Nor wonder, if when morning blooms again,
In discontent I quit the flowery plain.
Thus the poor mariner, his traffic o'er,
Crouds ev'ry sail to reach his native shore,
With smiles he marks the pennons stream to port,
And climbs the top-mast mast to eye the fort;
Dim through the mist the distant lands appears,
And far he slopes to hail it with his tears;
From foreign regions, foreign faces come,
Anxious he seeks his much-lov'd friends at home,
Warm, and more warm, the social passions glows,
As near and nearer to the place he goes;
Quick beats his heart as pressing on he sees
His own fair cottage canopy'd with trees;
For there, in blessed health, he hopes to find
His wife and cradled infant left behind;
Panting, he plucks the latch that guards the door,
But finds his wife, his cradled babe no more!
Like some sad ghost he wanders o'er the green,
Droops on the blossom'd waste, and loaths the scene
Yet haply you, by Sympathy, may know
That here a-while I paus'd to paint my woe,
For sure if ever Silph or Silphid bore
One true friend's message to a distant shore;
If ever spirit whisper'd gentle deed,
In such an absence most its aid we need.—
Perhaps, for now let Fancy take her flight,
My friend, like me, may wander thro' the night,
Amidst a different scenery may roam,
And many gentle sigh address at home;
Ev'n now, where moon-beams tremble on the wave,
And circling seagulls their long pinions lave,
Where anchor'd vessels in the harbour ride,
To wait the flux of the returning tide,
Where the salt billow beats against the strand,
My friend may take his solitary stand;
Or to the rock projecting to the main,
May sit him down to mark the social strain,
Along the frothing beach may bend his way,
And suit, like me, his sorrows to his lay.
Farewel! my hour approaches with the dawn,
And up I spring to leave the flowery lawn;
The pain increases as I stay to trace
Another sunshine rising o'er the place:
Adieu then, balmy shrubs and shades, adieu,
This passing incense o'er your leaves I strew;
Adieu, thou dear and hill-screen'd cottage fair;
Adieu, thou decent dome of Sunday prayer;
To each, to all, adieu! your lonely guest
Retire. The social passions speaks the rest.