Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Not to the flowery margin of a stream,
Where gentle murmurs soothe the anxious thought;
Not to the broider'd vale, the upland glade,
Cool grotto, wide-stretch'd lawn, or rising hill,
The Muse invites; nor philosophic gloom,
Where Contemplation holds her pensive court,
And Philomel her tender throat attunes
To Love's soft languishments: far other scenes,

Far other objects, would engage thy eye,
That eye which will a brother's faults o'erlook,
And spy a beauty where the world sees none:
While others sing of Virtue's godlike charms,
And feel her raptures, while their numbers flow
Harmonious in her praise; mine be the task,
Less-lov'd, to draw her opposite, and thine.

O did the powers of Akenside inspire
My humble pen! his fancy, feeling, taste,
And energy of thought; his manly flow
Of eloquence; his judgment strong, as clear,
Profound, as strong, and as profound, correct!

What emperour on earth can boast a sway
So ample, so uncircumscrib'd, as Vice?
What king so many subjects round his throne,
Or prostrate slaves devoted to his nod?
Few potentates can boast their state secure
From rebels and from traitors, boldly bent
On success to their projects, or a grave;
Dreadful alternative! but she, by all
Her votaries so faithfully obey'd,
Scarce knows an enemy, but domineers,
With lordly rule, and insolence uncheck'd,
Both o'er her subjects properties and lives.

O Vice, how formidable is thy power,
How num'rous, how diversified thy train!
Sloth, with her hair, in dirty uncomb'd lengths,
Loit'ring upon her shoulders, stretching out
Her lazy limbs, with many a gape and yawn,
To push the sluggish current through her veins.
Lust with her wanton leer, and glance obscene,
Her lurid cheek, dim eye, and fœtid breath,
O'er-run with biles impure, and foul disease,
A nausea to herself. Swoln Gluttony,
With pamper'd visage, and foul scarlet nose,
And bloated skin; scarce able to support
His beastly load of fat, gorg'd to the throat
With luscious meats; cadaverous the smell
That from his fungous lungs, through putrid rows
Of crusted teeth, streams suffocating; soon
His well-fed carcase to regale the worm,
The hungry, thankless worm. Set by the bowl
His boon companion, Drunkenness; with voice
Vociferous, and eye that wildly reels
In its broad socket, index to his thoughts:
While horrid oaths and blasphemies burst forth
From falt'ring lips, and paralytic tongue.
Boast, savage, in thy nightly range for blood,

Loud bellowing to the rock's unconscious dells,
Thy reason—man's prerogative no more.

Nor these alone thy minions, that attend
Around thee, caught by thy alluring glance,
And fascinated by thy smile: behold!
What servile crouds officiously demand
Admittance in our song, proud to be rank'd
With thee, and all the vilest of mankind.
Base cowardice, that boldly turns his face
On every thing but danger, never acts
With honesty, but when he runs away.
Corruption, with her base and impious bribe
Extended in her hand, to buy men off
From conscience, duty, loyalty; to sear
The heart against humanity's soft pang,
The liberal hope, and patriotic wish,
The foe of Virtue, Freedom's mortal foe.
Envy, with eye askance, distorted look,
And pining heart; serpents curl'd hissing round
Her squalid locks. Hypocrisy smooth tongu'd,
With lamb-like features, and with dove-like eyes,
Although within a tyger. Mean Deceit,
Malice, Revenge, and Jealousy: Remorse,
Lash'd with a thousand scorpions, at his breast

A thousand vultures gnawing; wild Despair,
On whose dark brow the gloom of midnight lours;
With garments torn, and countenance deep mark'd
With horrour; fixing his determin'd eye
On the drawn dagger, cord, or poison'd cup.
Disease, with wan, emaciated cheek,
Glaz'd, hollow eyes, and flatten'd temples, shrunk
And dwindled to a shadow; gasping hard
For breath, toss'd in deliriums, or o'erwhelm'd
In apoplectic lethargy: hard by
Silent his tread, invisible, pale Death,
Frowning on Time, his ling'ring sands unspent.
O Vice! how formidable is thy pow'r!
How num'rous, how diversified thy train!

How glorious once was Nature! how august
Her works! how exquisite her charms, admir'd
By angels and by gods! ere Pain, and Shame,
And Death, admonish'd mankind of thy birth!
Then Innocence, in snow-white mantle clad,
From Heav'n to Earth a smiling cherub sent,
Attended by her gentle handmaids, Love,
Truth, Friendship, Candour, Equity, Joy, Peace,
Health, with her sparkling eye, her balmy breath,
And Beauty blooming with immortal youth,

Took up her residence with humankind,
Nor wish'd an habitation better form'd
To her peculiar taste, well-pleas'd below
To find that Paradise she left above:
But when the sun, from his celestial height,
Saw thee approach the frontiers of our world,
Hid in delusive form, and usher'd in
By Lucifer, fall'n spirit! hell itself
Freed of its worst inhabitant; behold!
Then Innocence, in snow-white clad,
From Heav'n to Earth a smiling cherub sent,
Attended by her gentle handmaids, Love,
Truth, Friendship, Candour, Equity, Joy, Peace,
Health with her sparkling eye, her balmy breath,
And Beauty blooming with immortal youth;
Bade Earth and its inhabitants adieu,
Happy, abandon'd and despis'd, above
To gain that Paradise she lost below.

Behold her, now, array'd in sweeping robes
Of garter'd statesman, insolent and vain,
With air contemptuous, and with head aloft,
Solemn and grave, affectedly serene,
As if—not a black villain at the heart.
With deep research of thought, sublime resolve,

With Pitt's head furnish'd, but without his heart,
How he the noble, gen'rous scheme conceives,
The patriotic scheme of—growing rich!
What tho' the foe should triumph o'er our fleets,
And Victory desert our dastard arms,
No gallant arm to interpose relief?
Unmov'd he stands, like the storm-beaten rock,
Enjoys our doom, or rises on our fall.
Thus, with small things the greatest to compare,
When rolling flames some wealthy roof assail,
The sons of plunder, exquisitely base,
Calm, unconcern'd, through suffocating fires,
Split rafters, half-burn'd beams, and sinking floors,
Slide, as through chaos hell's arch fiend, to spread
The sheeted conflagration, and to Steal.

The gamester, next, creeps forth at her command,
Till he his fellow meets, some brainless wight,
Unbless'd at home, unbless'd within himself,
Whom Heav'n has curs'd with riches. Lo! they meet,
Robbers of others purses, though forsooth,
Well-bred, polite, and courteous. In his hand,
His hand more learn'd and knowing than his head,
Each, with the matchless wisdom of a Hoyle,
Deals the mysterious pack; or on the board,

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With ceaseless rattle, and with artful twirl,
Throws the twin spotted dice, on ev'ry cast
Depending—sons and daughters, friends and wives.

But see the duellist, whose poltroon heart
Would quake with terrour, his unmanly knees
Together smite, his hair stand all on end
With fear, his blood creep freezing thro' his veins,
Were he to face the cannon's mouth, or walk
Left by his friend abruptly, in the dark;
See him (a murderer his fitter name)
Impell'd by something foreign to himself,
Hight man of honour, seal the fatal card,
That, haply, sends his soul (O glorious deed!)
His trembling soul, to hell before its time.
Him Vice still keeps industrious in her pay,
Lest her immortal interests might decline;
Lest real Honour might usurp her right,
And noblest friendships influence mankind:
Lest the afflicted parent ne'er should weep
Her son, her hope, her joy, untimely slain;
Children their sire snatch'd from each clasping arm;
A wife her husband torn from her embrace,
By violence and death; thus to provoke
All hell to rage, on mischief ever bent.

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But now remark her in far other dress,
In the mean peasant's tatter'd garments clad,
Who scarcely by laborious toil acquires
What keeps together soul and body, hides
His shiv'ring limbs from the cold wintry blast.
But though thus wretched in exteriour form,
Not so in thought; ambition swells his breast,
To imitate the follies of the great,
A perfect clown beside, as instanc'd here,
Still something worse. Amid the rustic ring,
He struts, talks big, and swaggers, aims his scoff,
And witty leer, at that old-fashion'd thing
The Bible call'd, swears with outrageous air,
Gets himself drunk, and whores, like any lord.

The Miser too her livery assumes,
His little heart contracted to a point,
A callous point, to every thing but gold,
The god whom he adores. Worn to the bone
With misery and want, he stands confess'd
A breathing type of death. Yet Death anon
Will not his likeness spare, but snatch his soul
To—not to Paradise, for ah! he leaves
His Paradise behind; to—not to hell,
For actual hell were needless, when alone

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Absence from his beloved gold, were hell,
Heated to all the scorching rage of flame—

Nor shall his brother, his congenial half,
(Detested couple) hight Monopolist,
Unnoted pass. So might a fiend escape,
Sent from Perdition's dungeon, to defraud,
To torture, to distress the sons of men.
Worse than the hurricane that spreads around
Ruin and devastation; than the plague
That sweeps away whole multitudes, and leaves
Cities and provinces one horrid blank;
Worse than the earthquake that expands its jaws,
And swallows millions at one mighty gape;
Worse than the gorg'd volcano, that o'erwhelms
Whole districts in its seas of liquid fire;
Abroad he moves with more than devil's glee,
To deepen human woes, to heighten grief,
Already unsupportable, and add
Anguish to pain, and to dire want despair!
These dreadful judgments incident to man,
(Man buffeted by elements, expos'd
To all Earth's dire convulsions) ne'er imply
Will or intention: his grand scheme of life,
His settled purpose, is, to starve mankind.

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Rumour! whence comes she, with impatient step,
And attitude of haste? breathless she comes,
Meaning impress'd on each important look.
Thus runs the purport of her ready tale,
“Vice oft assumes the sacerdotal robe,
“And struts beneath the mitre and the vest.”

What! clergymen plead guilty to the charge?
Forbid it, Heaven! blast, celestial Truth!
The bold assertion, if disown'd by thee!
Shall Virtue's ministers, the sacred priests
At chaste Religion's altar, men employ'd
In saving souls, the heralds of the skies,
Ambassadours of Heav'n; shall such forget
Their characters, their office, to attend
The palaces and levees of the great,
To catch a paltry nod, or empty smile;
Who should exhaust the pathos of discourse,
To lessen them in our esteem, and teach
A mind superiour to the pomp of kings?
Shall men of God, with prostituted knee,
Worship at Honour's tinsel shrine? pay court
To Fortune, basking on the topmost point
Of sun-gilt pinnacle, still turning round,
As flows the fickle current of the air?

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Shall preachers of humility assume
The turgid look, or supercilious air?
Shall messengers of peace, of love, embroil,
And plunge themselves in faction? enter fierce
The hackney'd list of libellers? increase
The public spleen? with random censure blast
The best and fairest characters? foment
The rage of civil discord? fan the fire
Of argument and disputation? all,
—To share a dinner at a patron's board:
Their flocks meantime, no guardian shepherd nigh,
Left and abandon'd to the rude attack
Of Vice and Errour; fatal, as night-wolves,
Or tygers, to the fold. Such better far,
Had serv'd their king and country in the field,
With hat cockaded, and with knotted sword,
A carnal weapon fit for carnal men;
Trench'd in the quirks and subtilties of law,
Wielded their wordy thunder at the bar;
Or with the riban'd cane, and full-spread wig,
Prescrib'd the lancet, julep, or the pill:
Such better had been sons of Traffic, bred
Learn'dly to count and discount at the desk;
Mechanics, fiddlers, players; taught, in fine,

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To handle spades, tend flocks, or hold the plough;
Than thus our pulpits wretchedly supply'd
With men, whose well-bred fashionable lips
Not, for the world, would purposely accent
That monosyllable of terrour—hell,
Uncouth, as obsolete; afraid to meet
The frown that threatens from a grandee's brow,
Nothing more impotent—except his smile.

Yet, some there are, who in a storm of words,
A cushion-aided eloquence, exhaust
Their own strain'd lungs, and overwhelm the ear
With mere noise, and unsentimental sounds;
Vociferating, with the thunder's voice,
Hell and damnation, all their genius spent
In these tremendous accents, foisted in,
Without grace, meaning, or propriety;
Nor with success; for such command the eye,
Alarm the ear, but never reach the heart.

Ah! how unlike the theologues of old
Our modern parsons! strikingly unlike,
In manners and address! but rarely seen
That plain simplicity of garb, of life
That unaffected innocence; that calm,
That humble, meek deportment, which so well

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Become our teachers, and examples too!
How many, ah! absurdly think their task
Perform'd, their duty done, but to expound
A solitary text one day in seven;
The rest devoted to the endless round
Of saunt'ring and amusement, sordid cares,
Pursuits and studies, foreign to the gown!
Such may do all mere human laws exact,
To earn a yearly stipend; such may pass
With well-bred patrons, or a noble Lord,
All whose religion, in the aggregate,
Is lolling on a cushion once a-week,
To hear a pray'r pronounc'd, or sermon read:
But Reason thinks her dignity concern'd
In not absolving such; while Conscience joins
Reason in all her scruples; and what both,
According in their sentence, right announce,
Heav'n surely must in equity affirm.

Ah! how unlike the theologues of old
Our modern parsons! strikingly unlike!
Save in some wretched corner of the land,
Where, from hard, blunt necessity, not choice,
In thread-bare suit attir'd, unless perchance,
Half naked, as half-starv'd, some simple wight

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A curate call'd, is fain to vend his pot
Of nappy ale, or glass of apple-juice,
As if the labourer not worth his hire;
Or, lower still, to enter the foul sty,
With bands and cassock thrown aside, to feed
His bristly hoglings, grunting for their draff.
Yet better scatt'ring acorns here, than pearls
Despis'd, elsewhere, before far other swine.

Thus the poor tatter'd curate spends his days,
Unenvied, yet, perhaps, esteem'd and lov'd;
Toiling in Heav'n's own vineyard, yet no drop
Of the choice vintage to inspire his heart
With gladness; nor needs our Nathanael such
Prelatic, royal comfort, to support him,
His conduct blameless, as his manners chaste,
His mind contented, and his conscience clear;
His Maker's wages these, as that mere man's.
Thus lives our humble curate, far from strife,
Save the illustrious strife of doing good;
Far from his mitred brethren, as remote
Haply, from him, in sense and virtue, they,
Clearness of head, and probity of heart.

But what fine object now attracts the Muse,
Struck with superiour awe? beauteous as Morn,

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When she the portals of the east expands,
With rosy finger; all divine her form,
In presence like a queen, she moves along
Lovely in ev'ry step, and looking round
Pleasure ineffable; her mien, her air,
Grace, ease, and majesty; her soften'd eye
Bright with the sparkle of a midnight star.
Each lineament Complacence marks serene,
Candour, and Sweetness. On her charming neck,
Her shaded neck, soft as the downy peach,
The virgin snow, with no ignoble pride,
Bestows its purest whiteness, left behind
Its native cold. On every dimpled cheek
Roses emit their bloom, the bloom of youth,
Of innocence, of health; nor here confin'd,
But lavish all their sweets upon her breath
That steals through lips of coral. Furnish'd thus
With graces, airs, and smiles, beyond the touch
Of pencil, or the drapery of words;
Say not that Vice, presumptuous, dare approach
An angel in terrestrial guise, unless
From her fair presence to retire, abash'd
And overaw'd. Let Censure's tongue be mute,
And Slander bite her lips in silent spite.

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Truth turns aside offended from the tale.
For see how charming looks Camilla, set
Deep in the umbrage of a woodbine bow'r,
Conversing with the learned Dead, who live,
More than mechanically live, beyond
Detraction's reach, safe from the poison'd fangs
Of Calumny, in the immortal page:
Authors, where Virtue shines in native charms
Of chaste simplicity, and undeform'd
With philosophic daub; where manly Wit
Flashes his sprightly sallies, Fancy glows
With all her picturesque descriptive pow'rs,
And force of imagery; such still as charm
In Milton's page sublime, seraphic bard!
In Pope's mellifluous numbers, or in Young's,
That master of the eloquent and grand;
Or flowing Thomson's well-imagin'd strains,
Or Akenside's, or Shenstone's: names inscrib'd
On monuments more permanent than brass.
There, amiable maid! in beauty's bloom,
In youth's, in health's, exemplify'd she shows,
How each exteriour grace, each skin-deep charm,
And elegance of manner, by a mind
Enlarg'd by thought and reading, is improv'd.

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Behold Dulcissa exquisitely pleas'd,
While she admires the needle's arts display'd
Creative; sees the smooth, or figur'd lawn,
The fine-wrought linen, or soft cambric spun
With all the nicety of spider's web,
Or costly stuffs from Indian climes convey'd,
Chang'd in their texture, form, and surface, now
No more the uniform and simple thread,
But richly vein'd with curious Dresden work,
Or rough with elegant embroidery.
Touch'd by the magic needle in her hand,
What noble figures on the canvas swell,
Tumid with silver, cotton, or with silk!
How accurate that hand, that gentle hand,
Which all their well-conceiv'd proportions fram'd,
With finish'd delicacy, and bestow'd
Their striking statures, colours, and attire!
Well may a new creation of her own
Delight her gazing eye, and heave her breast
With sentimental pride; Almira thus
Still Scipio's noble maxim may adopt,
While objects, wheresoe'er she casts her glance,
Court her survey, and almost seem to breathe.
There Candour, with her open honest face,

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And eye of soften'd sparkle; Beauty drawn
With more than mortal likeness; Modesty
In virgin white attir'd, and Meekness plac'd
In silent downcast attitude, afraid,
Her look, her air, her gesture might offend.
In vain would Sylvia, self-approv'd, pretend
To rival these bright patterns of her sex;
Sylvia the subject of each coxcomb's lay,
And boast of every fop, howe'er set off
With all the finery of mode and dress,
Her handmaids, Taste and Fancy; underneath
The pomp of silks, and jewels; on light toe
Conscious she moves along, by all admir'd,
In the smooth measures of the minuet-dance;
Or salient trips the floor's elastic board,
With step accordant to the sprightly jigg:
The room all odour'd with the rich perfumes,
That from her shining locks profusely breathe,
Or handkerchief, or bottle's crystal tube,
While to her smell applied, her lovely hand
Displays a white scarce rivall'd by the snow.

Thus, while to courts and levees others croud,
To bask in sunshine of a grandee's smile,
(Short as the glow-worm's twinkle, and as cold)

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Put on a face occasional, relax'd
And smooth with adulation, to belie
Their lurking hearts; the Muse has turn'd aside
With indignation, to inform mankind
What company there awaits them. But enough
Of Vice, ignoble, and unpleasing theme!
Away, thou monster, since men fell from Heav'n,
Too much admir'd; away from all the haunts
Of humankind, with thy associates dire,
Disease and Infamy—But O! begone
Chiefly from Britain's celebrated isles,
The seat of Empire, Liberty, and Peace,
Of Learning, Commerce, and the Muses.—Vice
May triumph, but let Virtue not despair.