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283

ODE TO MY GOOD FRIEND THE MOST MERCIFUL JUDGE ------.

O ------, whose fair heart so full of love,
Melts, snow-like, on the victim void of hope;
Whose conscience stretches like the softest glove,
To save the sighing culprit from the rope!
To thee, in Virtue's stoutest armour, strong,
Permit thy friend and bard to pour the song.
O let us drag the foes of man to day,
And hang them like thy rats upon our lay,
Murd'rers that strike the cheek of Horror pale!
Whose morals give contagion to a jail.
Illumin'd, ah! too oft by Fortune's rays,
A pigmy wretch is shown in yon huge house ;
Just as the solar microscope displays
A mite, a flea, a bug, a dirty louse.
A judge may rise, despising Nature's groan;
A villain, in damnation sunk so deep;
That Vice, black Vice, shall ne'er be idle known,
But when the fur-clad monster falls asleep!
284

Just as the hackney-coachmen curse aloud
Kind Sol, who dissipates a threatening cloud,
Dark-hov'ring, wishing much his power to show,
And bid his deluge drown the world below;
Just as the restless demon of the night
Low'rs on the maiden blush of orient light,
And skulks into the charnel's murky shade;
A judge may rise, whose scowl shall curse the smile
Of Justice, who so long has blest our isle,
And strike with ruffian fist the heav'nly maid.
Where is the judge, in murder only brave,
Whose soul delights to feed the gaping grave;
Who on the convict's pale cheek feasts his eyes;
Whose heart-felt sounds are Hope's expiring sighs.
Where is the happy patron of the rope,
Whose eyes on seas of blood would gladly ope;
Fresh hecatombs of carnage, ev'ry morn:
Whose ear could live on Virtue's deepest groan;
Stretch ev'n to pain, to catch her last faint moan,
Poor writhing wretch, by ev'ry torture torn?
There's no such damned judge—but let me say,
So foul a spirit may disgrace the day.
Where is the judge, who 'midst his shrinking vale,
Walks forth, ah! not to hear the turtle's tale;
But with a happy, keen, and sparkling eye,
To see the kite with fury sweep the sky;
Now in his iron talons bear along,
The lark which charm'd the season with his song?
To such Dame Nature never yet gave birth—
But such a miscreant vile, may curse the earth.
Where is the judge, who courts the gloom of night;
Charm'd with the owl's and bat's and beetle's flight,
And sees with joy the spectred band pass by;
With rapture listens to their piteous wail,
Now follows hard to catch the mournful tale,
And sorrows when the phantoms 'scape his eye?
285

A judge, like this, to bid poor Nature mourn,
Was never yet, thank Heav'n! but may be born.
Where is the judge who walks the foaming shore
At midnight, 'midst the ruthless tempest's roar,
When Fate and Horror ride the thund'ring deep;
Who, for the cormorant's broad pinion sighs,
To mingle with the tumult of the skies,
And join the whirlwind's wild resistless sweep;
To hover o'er the darken'd scene of death,
And triumph in the seaman's shrieking breath;
Charm'd with each mountain surge, for life that raves;
Charm'd as the arm of Fate, with cruel shock,
Heaves the huge vessel on the groaning rock,
And rends it piece-meal, 'midst a world of waves?
‘There's no such man, nor ever was,’ you cry:
Sweet judge, dear dove-like—! so say I.
But may there not a dev'l like this appear?
Life deals in monsters much too oft, I fear!
O Devon, parent of immortal men,
O should thy beauteous bosom prove a den,
To hold and suckle such an imp of shame;
Know, to the poet though thou gavest birth,
With soul-felt ardour will I wish thy death,
Renounce thy blasted soil, and change my name.
 

Hereby hangs a pretty little tale.

Westminster Hall.

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