The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale In two volumes |
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THE PHILOSOPHER.
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 | The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale |  |
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THE PHILOSOPHER.
A POEM.
------ In se totus teres atque rotundus.
HORACE.
HORACE.
His soul self-balanced, he disdains
The world's factitious joys and pains.
The world's factitious joys and pains.
337
1801.
Courage, my long-afflicted heart;
Assume the moral hero's part:
To fortune's unremitted blows
Determined sentiments oppose;
And since a late oppressive stroke
Thy force almost entirely broke;
Thy aims to nobler objects turn;
And her capricious empire spurn;
Nor with the phantom more be vexed,
Who smiles this hour, and frowns the next.
Assume the moral hero's part:
To fortune's unremitted blows
Determined sentiments oppose;
And since a late oppressive stroke
Thy force almost entirely broke;
Thy aims to nobler objects turn;
And her capricious empire spurn;
Nor with the phantom more be vexed,
Who smiles this hour, and frowns the next.
Distinguish, man, with steddy view,
Deceitful happiness from true;
Look round this sublunary sphere,
Survey the many gewgaws here;
Then look within the human mind,
For mighty purposes designed;
That can examine nature's laws,
And thence infer the general cause;
Being surrenders not with breath,
But is intended after death
To mock the wasteful hand of time,
And flourish in eternal prime.
He then who in this motley state
Had rags, and hunger for his fate,
Will dart up to the realms of day,
Light, airy, and divinely gay;
He, haply a distinguished guest,
Even in the mansions of the blessed,
In imagery will stretch to views
Never approached by Milton's muse;
And in a moment nature's roll
Will give such knowledge to his soul,
As ne'er to Newton's ken was brought
With all his vast extent of thought:
Through regions of unbounded space
Shall he creation's wonders trace,
More happy still as he pursues
The range of his expanded views.
Deceitful happiness from true;
338
Survey the many gewgaws here;
Then look within the human mind,
For mighty purposes designed;
That can examine nature's laws,
And thence infer the general cause;
Being surrenders not with breath,
But is intended after death
To mock the wasteful hand of time,
And flourish in eternal prime.
He then who in this motley state
Had rags, and hunger for his fate,
Will dart up to the realms of day,
Light, airy, and divinely gay;
He, haply a distinguished guest,
Even in the mansions of the blessed,
In imagery will stretch to views
Never approached by Milton's muse;
And in a moment nature's roll
Will give such knowledge to his soul,
As ne'er to Newton's ken was brought
With all his vast extent of thought:
Through regions of unbounded space
Shall he creation's wonders trace,
339
The range of his expanded views.
These scenes of bliss shall he explore
When Phœbus gives his light no more;
When Chaos shall resume o'er earth
Her sceptre as before its birth;
Perhaps when memory shall be fled
Of all the celebrated dead;
Erased from intellect each name
Bright in the roll of present fame;
Old Homer's vigorous, lasting lines
Sunk into nought with Dutch divines;
Cæsar, and Tully, and Rome's pride,
By weightier matter shoved aside;
Trifles in the celestial sphere,
Though awful to a mortal ear.
When Phœbus gives his light no more;
When Chaos shall resume o'er earth
Her sceptre as before its birth;
Perhaps when memory shall be fled
Of all the celebrated dead;
Erased from intellect each name
Bright in the roll of present fame;
Old Homer's vigorous, lasting lines
Sunk into nought with Dutch divines;
Cæsar, and Tully, and Rome's pride,
By weightier matter shoved aside;
Trifles in the celestial sphere,
Though awful to a mortal ear.
Thus is it with the comet rare;
It shoots a flaming length of hair,
Ere in it's circuit it hath run
Far from the influence of the sun;
Is gazed at nightly in our skies,
At once with terror, and surprize.
But from our world as it retires
Distance, and cold contract it's fires;
Till it's importance almost o'er,
It hardly draws one wonderer more;
Weaker and weaker sheds it's light,
And dies at length to human sight.
It shoots a flaming length of hair,
Ere in it's circuit it hath run
Far from the influence of the sun;
Is gazed at nightly in our skies,
At once with terror, and surprize.
340
Distance, and cold contract it's fires;
Till it's importance almost o'er,
It hardly draws one wonderer more;
Weaker and weaker sheds it's light,
And dies at length to human sight.
Such is our birth-right; should we then,
We, rational, immortal men,
Whose prospects are, as Heaven, sublime,
On sordid scenes employ our time?
Should sensual pleasure turn the soul
From pressing on to Virtue's goal;
Should interest be allowed to blind
The moral optics of the mind;
With anxious front, and sickly hue,
Should she persuade us to pursue
Of happiness no higher store
Than rounded bits of golden ore?
We, rational, immortal men,
Whose prospects are, as Heaven, sublime,
On sordid scenes employ our time?
Should sensual pleasure turn the soul
From pressing on to Virtue's goal;
Should interest be allowed to blind
The moral optics of the mind;
With anxious front, and sickly hue,
Should she persuade us to pursue
Of happiness no higher store
Than rounded bits of golden ore?
Oh no! and first, ye youthful train,
Attend the poet's friendly strain,
Who warmly wishes you would steer
Your course of Circe's island clear;
Her flowery, but her fatal bowers
Would murder your important hours;
Her goblets of delusive joy,
Your health, and happiness destroy.
Attend the poet's friendly strain,
Who warmly wishes you would steer
Your course of Circe's island clear;
341
Would murder your important hours;
Her goblets of delusive joy,
Your health, and happiness destroy.
But chief to you with melting eye,
My wholesome warning I apply,
Whom lively feelings oft expose
To indiscretions, and to woes;
Being by various views enlarge,
And render it a nicer charge;
While Dutchmen only know they live
As pipe and trade their impulse give;
Feelings, which, well-conducted, crown
Our life with pleasure and renown;
According to the turn they take,
A Fenelon, or Wilmot make.
My wholesome warning I apply,
Whom lively feelings oft expose
To indiscretions, and to woes;
Being by various views enlarge,
And render it a nicer charge;
While Dutchmen only know they live
As pipe and trade their impulse give;
Feelings, which, well-conducted, crown
Our life with pleasure and renown;
According to the turn they take,
A Fenelon, or Wilmot make.
But with an irritable frame,
So very difficult to tame,
If in a capital you live,
Your unrelaxed attention give
To Vice's pain, to Virtue's prize;
Keep them still full before your eyes
If but an hour your fancy strays,
Perchance you're lost in Folly's maze.
So very difficult to tame,
If in a capital you live,
Your unrelaxed attention give
To Vice's pain, to Virtue's prize;
Keep them still full before your eyes
342
Perchance you're lost in Folly's maze.
For there, in this luxurious age
How hard the task is to be sage!
There lounging dissipation reigns,
And oft her low invention strains
In starting some unheard-of toys,
To kill the life of bearded boys.
Riot in every street is found,
And deals disease, and death around:
With tenfold force the Cyprian dame
Diffuses there her lawless flame;
And prosperous villainy stalks there
With such an insolence of air,
That men are tempted to believe
Here our full sentence we receive;
That the good, persevering few
Miss the reward to merit due;
And that the hard, oppressive throng
Will never feel for doing wrong;
That life presents no better things
Than shouts of mobs, and smiles of kings.
Preposterous customs these, that bring
A transient joy, but lasting sting;
Kind, gentle Nature's laws controul,
And in a fever keep the soul.
There, in a rapid whirlpool tost;
The giddy man at length is lost;
No leisure in the silent shade
The world ideal to pervade;
Where every object that you meet
Invites to innocent retreat;
No leisure to concert a plan,
To think of God, and judge of man.
How hard the task is to be sage!
There lounging dissipation reigns,
And oft her low invention strains
In starting some unheard-of toys,
To kill the life of bearded boys.
Riot in every street is found,
And deals disease, and death around:
With tenfold force the Cyprian dame
Diffuses there her lawless flame;
And prosperous villainy stalks there
With such an insolence of air,
That men are tempted to believe
Here our full sentence we receive;
That the good, persevering few
Miss the reward to merit due;
And that the hard, oppressive throng
Will never feel for doing wrong;
That life presents no better things
Than shouts of mobs, and smiles of kings.
343
A transient joy, but lasting sting;
Kind, gentle Nature's laws controul,
And in a fever keep the soul.
There, in a rapid whirlpool tost;
The giddy man at length is lost;
No leisure in the silent shade
The world ideal to pervade;
Where every object that you meet
Invites to innocent retreat;
No leisure to concert a plan,
To think of God, and judge of man.
But let me from the moral page
Of an illustrious, stoic sage
Borrow a hint, and with some flowers
Created by poetic powers,
Try on the maxim to throw light,
And make it's beauty shine more bright;
A maxim, which, if well impressed,
And ever cherished in the breast,
Ever the pilot of the soul,
As the true needle shows the pole;
More fragrant would our virtue bloom,
More strong, till the decisive tomb
Freed us from dangers which await
Our warfare in this nether state.
Of an illustrious, stoic sage
Borrow a hint, and with some flowers
Created by poetic powers,
Try on the maxim to throw light,
And make it's beauty shine more bright;
A maxim, which, if well impressed,
And ever cherished in the breast,
Ever the pilot of the soul,
As the true needle shows the pole;
344
More strong, till the decisive tomb
Freed us from dangers which await
Our warfare in this nether state.
Remember that the life of man,
When longest, may be termed a span;
That nothing can redeem our breath
From grim, inexorable death:
And oft reflect on Virtue's pains,
Her noisome cells, her galling chains;
Think what was Regulus's doom,
Victim to honour, and to Rome;
Reflect how Socrates expired,
By Athens poisoned, though admired;
Recall the woes of many a sage,
Existing yet in Plutarch's page.
When longest, may be termed a span;
That nothing can redeem our breath
From grim, inexorable death:
And oft reflect on Virtue's pains,
Her noisome cells, her galling chains;
Think what was Regulus's doom,
Victim to honour, and to Rome;
Reflect how Socrates expired,
By Athens poisoned, though admired;
Recall the woes of many a sage,
Existing yet in Plutarch's page.
Unfashionable poet, I
With bolder pinions mean to fly;
From worthies of terrestrial line
I launch into a theme divine.
With bolder pinions mean to fly;
From worthies of terrestrial line
I launch into a theme divine.
View the Messiah; he who came
From Heaven, and took a human frame;
Who deigned for us to dwell below,—
Was not his life a scene of woe?
Blest purifier of the mind!
Blest benefactor to mankind!
'Twas thine philosophy to teach
Which even the Stoics could not reach;
The body, and the soul to heal,
Ever to watch o'er human weal;
And whilst the Jews, for doing good,
Insulted thee, and sought thy blood,
Such a rough tide of misery shed
On thy devoted, sacred head;
As, whilst we read the inspired page,
Horrour excites, and pious rage;
Yet mildness still didst Thou oppose
To the blind fury of thy foes,
Although with one almighty frown
Thou could'st have called the thunder down.
From Heaven, and took a human frame;
345
Was not his life a scene of woe?
Blest purifier of the mind!
Blest benefactor to mankind!
'Twas thine philosophy to teach
Which even the Stoics could not reach;
The body, and the soul to heal,
Ever to watch o'er human weal;
And whilst the Jews, for doing good,
Insulted thee, and sought thy blood,
Such a rough tide of misery shed
On thy devoted, sacred head;
As, whilst we read the inspired page,
Horrour excites, and pious rage;
Yet mildness still didst Thou oppose
To the blind fury of thy foes,
Although with one almighty frown
Thou could'st have called the thunder down.
What does my active fancy see!
They nail him to the fatal tree!
He, who from nothing into birth
Commanded our stupendous earth;
He, the dread, universal cause,
Who fixed the planetary laws,
Kindled the sun, and starry fires—
He, by the reptile, man, expires!
He on whose gentle, bounteous will
Sweet innocence attended still,
Whose life was fraught with heavenly deeds—
He 'twixt two murdering villains bleeds!
They nail him to the fatal tree!
He, who from nothing into birth
Commanded our stupendous earth;
He, the dread, universal cause,
Who fixed the planetary laws,
346
He, by the reptile, man, expires!
He on whose gentle, bounteous will
Sweet innocence attended still,
Whose life was fraught with heavenly deeds—
He 'twixt two murdering villains bleeds!
All nature sickens at the sight;
The frightened sun withholds his light;
Earth trembles at her Master's doom,
The dead awake, and quit the tomb:
Wild Chaos, in the realms below,
Exulting hears the tale of woe;
And clanks her adamantine chain,
Fond to resume her dreary reign!
The frightened sun withholds his light;
Earth trembles at her Master's doom,
The dead awake, and quit the tomb:
Wild Chaos, in the realms below,
Exulting hears the tale of woe;
And clanks her adamantine chain,
Fond to resume her dreary reign!
Since then the firmest virtue here
To pain so oft must give a tear;
And since the Son himself of God
'Scaped not affliction's iron rod;
But ever suffering in our stead,
He had not where to lay his head;
What earthly thing should raise desire
Too high, and set the soul on fire?
What object is there here so fair
As to deserve corroding care?
To pain so oft must give a tear;
And since the Son himself of God
'Scaped not affliction's iron rod;
But ever suffering in our stead,
He had not where to lay his head;
What earthly thing should raise desire
Too high, and set the soul on fire?
347
As to deserve corroding care?
Oh none! kind Heaven did ne'er intend
This world for man's momentous end;
Not for our ultimate abode,
But for Elysium's painful road:
He placed us in it to call forth,
And to refine our moral worth:
Always to earth, would you be wise,
Sit loose, and ready for the skies.
This world for man's momentous end;
Not for our ultimate abode,
But for Elysium's painful road:
He placed us in it to call forth,
And to refine our moral worth:
Always to earth, would you be wise,
Sit loose, and ready for the skies.
What present object to our view
Can give the world a darker hue
Than Corsica's immortal chief,
Admired, and yet refused relief;
Sinking beneath proud Gallia's weight,
Yet still himself, still good, and great!
Can give the world a darker hue
Than Corsica's immortal chief,
Admired, and yet refused relief;
Sinking beneath proud Gallia's weight,
Yet still himself, still good, and great!
Thou human comet, in our sphere
Scarce seen in a five-hundredth year,
Paoli!—thy illustrious name
Recalls the flower of Roman fame!
Not when her chiefs, ambition fired,
And gold her sordid thoughts inspired;
But when pure, simple virtue ruled,
When she the man inflamed, or cooled;
When Mucius his mistaken hand
Consumed indignant, at the brand;
When brave Patricians held the spade;
When Fabius gallantly delayed.
Scarce seen in a five-hundredth year,
Paoli!—thy illustrious name
Recalls the flower of Roman fame!
348
And gold her sordid thoughts inspired;
But when pure, simple virtue ruled,
When she the man inflamed, or cooled;
When Mucius his mistaken hand
Consumed indignant, at the brand;
When brave Patricians held the spade;
When Fabius gallantly delayed.
Yes, when thy image fills the mind,
We leave these little times behind;
And fancy darts to better days,
Productive of immortal praise.
By thee o'er Latium is displayed
Antiquity's majestick shade;
My working mind beholds no more
The languor of the Italian shore;
It drops the soft, degenerate crew,
Their fiddling, painting, and virtù.
Methinks I see old Numa rise,
An awful form, before my eyes;
Poets their sacred fire impart,
And rouze to fame the manly heart;
Virgil resumes his epick fire,
Horace awakes the moral lyre;
And mighty Tully I descry;
He shoots heaven's lightning from his eye;
He wields heaven's thunder in his hand;
And the high-priest of heaven's command;
With periods copious, sweet, and strong,
Electrifies the Roman throng.
We leave these little times behind;
And fancy darts to better days,
Productive of immortal praise.
By thee o'er Latium is displayed
Antiquity's majestick shade;
My working mind beholds no more
The languor of the Italian shore;
It drops the soft, degenerate crew,
Their fiddling, painting, and virtù.
Methinks I see old Numa rise,
An awful form, before my eyes;
Poets their sacred fire impart,
And rouze to fame the manly heart;
349
Horace awakes the moral lyre;
And mighty Tully I descry;
He shoots heaven's lightning from his eye;
He wields heaven's thunder in his hand;
And the high-priest of heaven's command;
With periods copious, sweet, and strong,
Electrifies the Roman throng.
Stupendous man! thy steady soul
Nothing external can controul.
Thy vigorous patriotic flame
Licentious Naples could not tame;
It's manners soft, it's balmy air,
Could not thy mental force impair:
Proud Genoa, with proud Gallia joined,
Served but to rouze thy generous mind;
To realize thy god-like plan,
And to the hero raise the man.
Nothing external can controul.
Thy vigorous patriotic flame
Licentious Naples could not tame;
It's manners soft, it's balmy air,
Could not thy mental force impair:
Proud Genoa, with proud Gallia joined,
Served but to rouze thy generous mind;
To realize thy god-like plan,
And to the hero raise the man.
Gallia! though boastful of thy fame,
Of human race the scourge, and shame!
Polite barbarians! whose fierce joy
Is to distress, and to destroy;
Misery to stab with deeper wrongs;
And then with sacrilegious tongues,
'Tis told us by the shameless elves
That honour lives but with themselves!
Of human race the scourge, and shame!
Polite barbarians! whose fierce joy
Is to distress, and to destroy;
350
And then with sacrilegious tongues,
'Tis told us by the shameless elves
That honour lives but with themselves!
Administration! thou vile thing!
Thou foe to subjects, and their king!
How does thy baseness urge the fate
Of our luxurious, falling state!
Soon haply, yet too late may cease
The follies of a shameful peace;
Mars in his rattling, crimson car
May soon call Britain forth to war;
When the brave Corsican is slain,
And France the pirate of the main.
Thou foe to subjects, and their king!
How does thy baseness urge the fate
Of our luxurious, falling state!
Soon haply, yet too late may cease
The follies of a shameful peace;
Mars in his rattling, crimson car
May soon call Britain forth to war;
When the brave Corsican is slain,
And France the pirate of the main.
I now imagine that I hear
The critick dry with look severe
Ask whither all these wanderings tend?—
I'll tell you, awful sir, their end.
'Tis, that good deeds we may pursue
With steady, unretorted view;
Act in the world our part assigned
With a disinterested mind;
Nor our felicity expose
To fortune's, or to human blows:
That Virtue's friend may oft reflect
All the reward he can expect
While living, for the course he steers,
Is, his own solitary tears.
And that undauntedly we may,
If a proud lord comes in our way,
Sees our poor habit thread-bare worn,
And us, as he concludes, forlorn,
And asks us, with disdainful air,
To gall us, not relieve us, where
Our country, our connections lie,
Point, with mute rhetorick, to the sky.
The critick dry with look severe
Ask whither all these wanderings tend?—
I'll tell you, awful sir, their end.
'Tis, that good deeds we may pursue
With steady, unretorted view;
Act in the world our part assigned
With a disinterested mind;
351
To fortune's, or to human blows:
That Virtue's friend may oft reflect
All the reward he can expect
While living, for the course he steers,
Is, his own solitary tears.
And that undauntedly we may,
If a proud lord comes in our way,
Sees our poor habit thread-bare worn,
And us, as he concludes, forlorn,
And asks us, with disdainful air,
To gall us, not relieve us, where
Our country, our connections lie,
Point, with mute rhetorick, to the sky.
Here, critick, I observe my text—
You shrug, and say—well, what comes next?
In truth I'll ramble yet awhile,
And if you frown, why—I shall smile.
You shrug, and say—well, what comes next?
In truth I'll ramble yet awhile,
And if you frown, why—I shall smile.
Say, do you pant for high renown;
And would you be transmitted down
In History's honourable page,
Your country's friend through every age?
And would you be transmitted down
In History's honourable page,
Your country's friend through every age?
352
Ambition Heaven on man bestows,
The stock on which perfection grows.
But as fierce passion should obey
Calm Reason's moderating sway,
If to distinction you would rise
By some uncommon, great emprize,
Your soul let warm ambition feed
With vigour for the hardy deed;
But let it not with raging fire
Excite the fever of desire;
Or you relinquish Virtue's laws,
Mad for capricious man's applause.
Oh! you do wrong, if you lose sight
Of the calm, rational delight,
The conscientious, modest joy,
Raised far above each earthly toy;
The rash applauses of the crowd,
Unsatisfactory, though loud:
If most you wish not to be blessed
By pleasing heaven, and your own breast;
If this high privilege is lost,
No purchase can repay the cost.
The stock on which perfection grows.
But as fierce passion should obey
Calm Reason's moderating sway,
If to distinction you would rise
By some uncommon, great emprize,
Your soul let warm ambition feed
With vigour for the hardy deed;
But let it not with raging fire
Excite the fever of desire;
Or you relinquish Virtue's laws,
Mad for capricious man's applause.
Oh! you do wrong, if you lose sight
Of the calm, rational delight,
The conscientious, modest joy,
Raised far above each earthly toy;
The rash applauses of the crowd,
Unsatisfactory, though loud:
If most you wish not to be blessed
By pleasing heaven, and your own breast;
If this high privilege is lost,
No purchase can repay the cost.
Genius, and Virtue often here
Suffer through life, a fate severe;
And genuine worth it's well-earned praise
Misses a thousand adverse ways;
Closes it's long-expecting eyes
Without the gilded, airy prize.
Suffer through life, a fate severe;
353
Misses a thousand adverse ways;
Closes it's long-expecting eyes
Without the gilded, airy prize.
Historic sage! from sloth awake,
The part of injured Virtue take;
Assume the vindicating pen!—
Alas! historians are but men;
Apt, in what warmly they aver,
To speak from party, or to err.
The part of injured Virtue take;
Assume the vindicating pen!—
Alas! historians are but men;
Apt, in what warmly they aver,
To speak from party, or to err.
If history, well-informed, and just,
Discharges her important trust;
If there the venerable dead
Are fairly in description read;
May not the blind, or selfish rage
Of some remoter factious age,
The patriot spoil of his renown,
Tear from his brows the civic crown;
By urging old, and modern lies,
Rejected by the good, and wise,
Of men a hideous picture draw,
Whom Virtue mentions yet with awe;
Embalms yet with a pious tear—
Whom even assassins can revere?
Discharges her important trust;
If there the venerable dead
Are fairly in description read;
May not the blind, or selfish rage
Of some remoter factious age,
The patriot spoil of his renown,
Tear from his brows the civic crown;
By urging old, and modern lies,
Rejected by the good, and wise,
Of men a hideous picture draw,
Whom Virtue mentions yet with awe;
354
Whom even assassins can revere?
Unhappy Charles! thy virtues, rare
In those who the regalia wear:
The nice, and complicated art
Required to act the royal part,
When thou wast seated on the throne,
Now cannot for thy faults atone.
For then bold privilege began,
Fierce guardian of the rights of man,
With generous, but excessive flame,
To urge aloud her noble aim.
Prerogative with stately mien,
And less the goddess than the queen,
Her sceptre shook with vengeful hand;
They two o'er Britain's wretched land
Political confusion hurled,
That stunned our European world.
When thus there struggles in a state
Some great eruption, big with fate;
'Tis not the most untainted heart,
A head endowed with common art,
That can the royal function fill,
Foresee the shock, and ward the ill:
At such a crisis no less king
To harmony the realm could bring,
Than Prussia's king, of talents great;
Or Alfred, of a glorious fate.
In those who the regalia wear:
The nice, and complicated art
Required to act the royal part,
When thou wast seated on the throne,
Now cannot for thy faults atone.
For then bold privilege began,
Fierce guardian of the rights of man,
With generous, but excessive flame,
To urge aloud her noble aim.
Prerogative with stately mien,
And less the goddess than the queen,
Her sceptre shook with vengeful hand;
They two o'er Britain's wretched land
Political confusion hurled,
That stunned our European world.
When thus there struggles in a state
Some great eruption, big with fate;
'Tis not the most untainted heart,
A head endowed with common art,
355
Foresee the shock, and ward the ill:
At such a crisis no less king
To harmony the realm could bring,
Than Prussia's king, of talents great;
Or Alfred, of a glorious fate.
Unhappy Charles! these cruel days
Will not allow thee any praise:
Valour, and piety sincere,
Were thine, and claim a pitying tear;
Thy conduct in domestick life,
To servants, children, and thy wife,
Could be converted into crimes
Only in most abandoned times.
Thy grief for an unnatural war,
Thy spirit at a ruffian-bar,
With as heroic mildness joined,
Indexes of a god-like mind,
Perverse mankind refuse to prize,
Thy errors glaring in their eyes.
The axe's sacrilegious blow
Sooths not severity with woe;
Even fashionable Hume in vain
Is tender of thy hapless reign.
Will not allow thee any praise:
Valour, and piety sincere,
Were thine, and claim a pitying tear;
Thy conduct in domestick life,
To servants, children, and thy wife,
Could be converted into crimes
Only in most abandoned times.
Thy grief for an unnatural war,
Thy spirit at a ruffian-bar,
With as heroic mildness joined,
Indexes of a god-like mind,
Perverse mankind refuse to prize,
Thy errors glaring in their eyes.
The axe's sacrilegious blow
Sooths not severity with woe;
356
Is tender of thy hapless reign.
But rash Macauley, how couldst thou
Thy sex's softness disavow;
Fired with presumption seize the pen,
And dictate government to men?
Woman impertinent, and vain,
Intruder on the learned train!
Go, manage thy affairs at home;
Go, guide the spindle, and the loom;
As Hector told his tender wife,
Incroaching on his martial life.
Thy sex's softness disavow;
Fired with presumption seize the pen,
And dictate government to men?
Woman impertinent, and vain,
Intruder on the learned train!
Go, manage thy affairs at home;
Go, guide the spindle, and the loom;
As Hector told his tender wife,
Incroaching on his martial life.
Consult thy heart; dost thou pretend
To be mankind's impartial friend?
Thy family's licentious spleen
In thy invenomed page is seen:
Hadst thou a Jacobite been bred,
Different chimeras in thy head
Would then have floated; kingly power
Would then in thy romantick hour
Have dictatorially been shown,
Responsible to God alone;
Poor Charles would then have been divine,
And patriots all the Stuart-line.
To be mankind's impartial friend?
Thy family's licentious spleen
In thy invenomed page is seen:
Hadst thou a Jacobite been bred,
Different chimeras in thy head
Would then have floated; kingly power
Would then in thy romantick hour
Have dictatorially been shown,
Responsible to God alone;
357
And patriots all the Stuart-line.
Unluckily thy wayward youth,
Not fit for complicated truth
Beyond it's limits stretched it's views,
And ancient history would peruse;
Which fired the tender, female brain,
Like the quick essence of Champagne.
Intoxicated with these fumes,
The heroine her pen assumes;
And heedless as a woman's tongue,
Her declamation foams along.
Not fit for complicated truth
Beyond it's limits stretched it's views,
And ancient history would peruse;
Which fired the tender, female brain,
Like the quick essence of Champagne.
Intoxicated with these fumes,
The heroine her pen assumes;
And heedless as a woman's tongue,
Her declamation foams along.
The London buck, at midnight hour,
Thus feels the bacchanalian power;
Burgundian juice in every vein
Wakes high-flushed riot's noisy strain;
And if a man of sober trim
Differs from his politic whim;
Before the grave-one can be heard,
He quickly takes him by the beard;
Nought his unshackled fancy awes;
He damns the king, and blasts the laws.
Thus feels the bacchanalian power;
Burgundian juice in every vein
Wakes high-flushed riot's noisy strain;
And if a man of sober trim
Differs from his politic whim;
Before the grave-one can be heard,
He quickly takes him by the beard;
Nought his unshackled fancy awes;
He damns the king, and blasts the laws.
358
Look into Swift's immortal page,
And tremble at thy party rage;
See how he writes in Freedom's cause,
Freedom supported by the laws;
Freedom against bad monarchs brave,
That calls the second Charles a knave,
The second James a gloomy fool;
Yet still lets Truth her judgment rule;
And oft reflects, with gushing eye,
How Charles the first was doomed to die.
And tremble at thy party rage;
See how he writes in Freedom's cause,
Freedom supported by the laws;
Freedom against bad monarchs brave,
That calls the second Charles a knave,
The second James a gloomy fool;
Yet still lets Truth her judgment rule;
And oft reflects, with gushing eye,
How Charles the first was doomed to die.
Yes, Swift, if thou hadst not as yet
To nature paid the general debt,
And could I dare to be so great
As to encounter some high fate;
Withstand corruption, risk my blood,
And perish for my country's good;
Nothing would rid me more of fear,
And animate my high career;
Make me with tenfold ardour glow,
Than, most august of men, to know,
That, when I had resigned my breath,
Thy virtuous praise would crown my death.
To nature paid the general debt,
And could I dare to be so great
As to encounter some high fate;
Withstand corruption, risk my blood,
And perish for my country's good;
Nothing would rid me more of fear,
And animate my high career;
Make me with tenfold ardour glow,
Than, most august of men, to know,
That, when I had resigned my breath,
Thy virtuous praise would crown my death.
359
As probably the Power Divine
With pleasure views such worth as thine,
The generous tribute thou hast payed
To virtuous Charles's injured shade,
May with the Deity atone
For insults on his memory thrown;
Even for his horrid murder may
Wipe half the nation's guilt away.
With pleasure views such worth as thine,
The generous tribute thou hast payed
To virtuous Charles's injured shade,
May with the Deity atone
For insults on his memory thrown;
Even for his horrid murder may
Wipe half the nation's guilt away.
Swift, great calumniated name!
The priesthood's glory, and it's shame!
Thy destiny I may produce
To serve my present moral use.
No churchman's heart with too much heat
For a proud bishop's throne should beat;
Since so deserving, so renowned,
Thou wast not with the mitre crowned.
The priesthood's glory, and it's shame!
Thy destiny I may produce
To serve my present moral use.
No churchman's heart with too much heat
For a proud bishop's throne should beat;
Since so deserving, so renowned,
Thou wast not with the mitre crowned.
And if a wretch of human line
Can touch thee in the seats divine,
Accept, O Charles, a poet's lays,
Who sometimes pants for honest praise;
But would not be to please the times,
Guilty of prostituted rhymes;
Nor odium on the memory fling
Of an unhappy martyred king.
Can touch thee in the seats divine,
Accept, O Charles, a poet's lays,
Who sometimes pants for honest praise;
But would not be to please the times,
Guilty of prostituted rhymes;
360
Of an unhappy martyred king.
And yet my liberal, British muse
Harbours no high-church, kingly views;
Laughs at the dotage of the wight
Who broached a monarch's heavenly right;
And if a base, though sceptered hand,
Strives to oppress a generous land;
By sycophants, and royal pride,
From rectitude is drawn aside;
May hear complaints on every tongue,
Yet still redoubles public wrong;
Never begins the wholesome task,
In lonely hour himself to ask—
Have not I some way hurt the state,
That thus I feel the public hate?
Goes on in his opposing strain;
As if to harrass were to reign.
If such a wretch in any land
Is vested with supreme command—
My muse pronounces him a mule,
Disqualified for sovereign rule;
A magistrate through empire's lust,
Perfidious to a sacred trust.
Harbours no high-church, kingly views;
Laughs at the dotage of the wight
Who broached a monarch's heavenly right;
And if a base, though sceptered hand,
Strives to oppress a generous land;
By sycophants, and royal pride,
From rectitude is drawn aside;
May hear complaints on every tongue,
Yet still redoubles public wrong;
Never begins the wholesome task,
In lonely hour himself to ask—
Have not I some way hurt the state,
That thus I feel the public hate?
Goes on in his opposing strain;
As if to harrass were to reign.
If such a wretch in any land
Is vested with supreme command—
My muse pronounces him a mule,
Disqualified for sovereign rule;
361
Perfidious to a sacred trust.
Dear critick, yet my hasty pen
A little while indulge, and then
I'll bring my lecture to a close,
And you to phlegmatick repose.
A little while indulge, and then
I'll bring my lecture to a close,
And you to phlegmatick repose.
Say, are the men whom genius warms,
Purely triumphant in its charms?
Ah no! the organs wrought so fine,
The sensibility divine,
That rouse the animated strain,
Let in a world of moral pain.
Once more view Swift—his parts decay;
The mighty genius falls away:
Long have his studies been at strife
With Nature's finer springs of life;
Ideas ardent, and refined,
Have in a ferment kept his mind:
Strong passions, which, howe'er suppressed,
Will sometimes fire the generous breast;
Inmates of greatness ever born,
His health by slow degrees have worn.
Some wanderings too from Virtue's plan,
For Swift, though god-like, was a man;
His feeling heart would oft corrode,
And render life a galling load.
Purely triumphant in its charms?
Ah no! the organs wrought so fine,
The sensibility divine,
That rouse the animated strain,
Let in a world of moral pain.
Once more view Swift—his parts decay;
The mighty genius falls away:
Long have his studies been at strife
With Nature's finer springs of life;
Ideas ardent, and refined,
Have in a ferment kept his mind:
Strong passions, which, howe'er suppressed,
Will sometimes fire the generous breast;
Inmates of greatness ever born,
His health by slow degrees have worn.
362
For Swift, though god-like, was a man;
His feeling heart would oft corrode,
And render life a galling load.
There mute the awful changeling sits!
Tremble ye poets, patriots, wits!
See talents in their living tomb;
Yet once how brightly did they bloom!
And are thy soul's effusions o'er?
Yes; Reason holds her lamp no more;
Save that sometimes, with glimmering light,
She gives thy misery to thy sight.
Tremble ye poets, patriots, wits!
See talents in their living tomb;
Yet once how brightly did they bloom!
And are thy soul's effusions o'er?
Yes; Reason holds her lamp no more;
Save that sometimes, with glimmering light,
She gives thy misery to thy sight.
Kind death approaches; now 'tis done;
Swift's vital course at length is run;
Swift, now exempt from mortal woe,
Leaves all the pain he felt below;
From his old house in ruin flies,
And wings, aërial, to the skies.
Swift's vital course at length is run;
Swift, now exempt from mortal woe,
Leaves all the pain he felt below;
From his old house in ruin flies,
And wings, aërial, to the skies.
How many accidents combine
To blast the poet's bold design,
Who thinks to purchase, with his lays,
A crown of never fading bays!
Even Milton's energy of soul
Fanatick jargon could controul;
And though his deathless work is fraught
With vast sublimity of thought,
The trumpery of a cold divine
Incumbers, oft, his epic line.
Thy times, great poet, could not see
What eulogy was due to thee,
Where thy divine invention reigns,
And transport listens to thy strains.
Thy genius, in those barbarous days,
Could not be fed with England's praise—
Thou sleepest in the grave; thine ear
Cannot thy country's raptures hear,
Which now by taste, and judgment ruled,
Amidst thy dross admires thy gold.
To blast the poet's bold design,
Who thinks to purchase, with his lays,
A crown of never fading bays!
363
Fanatick jargon could controul;
And though his deathless work is fraught
With vast sublimity of thought,
The trumpery of a cold divine
Incumbers, oft, his epic line.
Thy times, great poet, could not see
What eulogy was due to thee,
Where thy divine invention reigns,
And transport listens to thy strains.
Thy genius, in those barbarous days,
Could not be fed with England's praise—
Thou sleepest in the grave; thine ear
Cannot thy country's raptures hear,
Which now by taste, and judgment ruled,
Amidst thy dross admires thy gold.
Butler pursued a different way;
The shining meteor of a day:
His work describes the frantick times;
And brightest wit adorns his rhymes:
Such poets ever must engage
The warm attention of their age:
But he, so read, and quoted once,
Is almost levelled with the dunce
:
His verses known to Charles by rote,
Who gave him not a single groat,
Of civil rage a picture give
Too circumstantially to live;
His party's warmth, long since, is o'er:
We battle with his wit no more.
The shining meteor of a day:
His work describes the frantick times;
And brightest wit adorns his rhymes:
Such poets ever must engage
The warm attention of their age:
But he, so read, and quoted once,
364
His verses known to Charles by rote,
Who gave him not a single groat,
Of civil rage a picture give
Too circumstantially to live;
His party's warmth, long since, is o'er:
We battle with his wit no more.
Ye, who the world external scorn,
On wings of speculation born
To the ideal vast profound;
What is your knowledge?—a vain sound.
Racking the mind with fruitless pain,
You form your unsubstantial chain:
Your links infallibly advance,
Till in the metaphysick trance,
Your reason, through her serious play,
Reasons the reasoner's self away.
On wings of speculation born
To the ideal vast profound;
What is your knowledge?—a vain sound.
Racking the mind with fruitless pain,
You form your unsubstantial chain:
Your links infallibly advance,
Till in the metaphysick trance,
Your reason, through her serious play,
Reasons the reasoner's self away.
Fallacious life! thy soothing schemes
In general prove but gilded dreams!
Men to the grave continue boys,
Enamoured still with trivial joys.
In general prove but gilded dreams!
Men to the grave continue boys,
Enamoured still with trivial joys.
365
In quest of emptiness we go;
Bubbles our pleasure 'tis to blow;
And eager after them we run,
Superbly painted by the sun:
They burst, and vanish into air;
Straight other bubbles we prepare.
Bubbles our pleasure 'tis to blow;
And eager after them we run,
Superbly painted by the sun:
They burst, and vanish into air;
Straight other bubbles we prepare.
But be it ever mine the views
At present cherished by the muse,
In memory to retain, and bring
My conduct to the notes I sing.
Let me a little circle draw
Around me, marked by Virtue's law;
And never let, with visit rude,
Within the sacred line intrude,
Of fancied wants the numerous train,
Those fiends, inflicting moral pain.
At present cherished by the muse,
In memory to retain, and bring
My conduct to the notes I sing.
Let me a little circle draw
Around me, marked by Virtue's law;
And never let, with visit rude,
Within the sacred line intrude,
Of fancied wants the numerous train,
Those fiends, inflicting moral pain.
Let me my simple plan pursue,
All luxury bursting on my view,
As steadily as when I talk
With Virtue in retirement's walk;
As when the rural shady bower
Imbrowns the philosophick hour.
All luxury bursting on my view,
As steadily as when I talk
With Virtue in retirement's walk;
366
Imbrowns the philosophick hour.
While spirit-stirring exercise,
While modest temperance health supplies;
Still let my short, but ardent prayer,
Give thanks to heaven's paternal care:
Bread let me eat, and water drink,
With grateful pleasure, while I think
That Philip's riches may command
The luxury of sea and land;
But when the miscreant takes his seat,
His stomach's palled, he cannot eat;
For he looks up, and sees despair
Hang trembling by a single hair.
While modest temperance health supplies;
Still let my short, but ardent prayer,
Give thanks to heaven's paternal care:
Bread let me eat, and water drink,
With grateful pleasure, while I think
That Philip's riches may command
The luxury of sea and land;
But when the miscreant takes his seat,
His stomach's palled, he cannot eat;
For he looks up, and sees despair
Hang trembling by a single hair.
And if (too sanguine thought!) my strains
Should e'er reward their poet's pains;
Be reckoned worthy to inspire
Britannia's sons with virtuous fire;
Let neither minister, nor king,
Dictate to me how I shall sing:
But let me, if the times demand
For freedom's sake a hardy stand,
Rather embrace a Wilkes's fate,
As brave as he, though not so great;
For publick good, not publick breath,
Encounter exile, chains, or death.
Should e'er reward their poet's pains;
Be reckoned worthy to inspire
Britannia's sons with virtuous fire;
Let neither minister, nor king,
Dictate to me how I shall sing:
367
For freedom's sake a hardy stand,
Rather embrace a Wilkes's fate,
As brave as he, though not so great;
For publick good, not publick breath,
Encounter exile, chains, or death.
London, June 25th, 1769.
| The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale | |