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

Tears, which the bar-rang'd oratours command,
Are tears of pleasure for the fee in hand,
The greater it the more abundant those,
Rated by price, as wine by measure flows.
But wines a due hilarity impart,
Their tears add sadness to the client's heart.
Grief, when sincere, by no vain proof appears,
Too vast for the parade of formal tears.
So, in the sky when deep-charg'd thunders brew,
No clouds descend in rain, or melt in dew.

On Tully's words when list'ning senates hung,
Charm'd by the magic accents of his tongue,
Few tears suffic'd; for tears then learn'd to flow
Less at the call of Lucre than of Wo.

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Once from the offer'd hand your fee withdraw,
That key which opes the cabinet of Law,
Tears then no more shall their full sluices break,
Nor eyes amid the dew of rhetoric—speak.
The maxim then how much the truth beyond
That hearts and eyes must ever correspond!
Reverse the adage, and behold it true,
If you mankind by no false optics view.

The Doctor's tears, if doctors weep at all,
That soon his patient will recover, fall.
Each salient vein that vibrates towards health,
Beats in repugnance to the pulse of wealth;
Each sign that to an happy crisis tends,
A tear resistless to its orbit sends.
But here the pointed satire fain would stop,
Joy too, like Sorrow, boasts her pearly drop.
From fleecy clouds, on which the sun-beam plays,
Oft falls the dew-show'r interspers'd with rays.
Let Candour, then, who scorns the partial plan,
Sometimes mistake the doctor for a man.
“All hope is gone! behold! the doctor cries!
“His tears speak out in silence from his eyes!
“Good tender man!—but say, dear doctor, say,
“Is it too certain what your looks betray?

155

“Has Physic now no last resource to try?
“And must the sweet, the lovely patient—die?

“No, Heav'n be prais'd!” with fervour-lifted eyes,
“My tears are tears of joy,” the doctor cries;
“No more the fever's heats internal burn,
“No more deliriums, big with fate, return;
“Mix these few cordials, and your fears abate,
“Our patient's in a convalescent state.”
Short triumph! his lank purse so empty felt,
Each eye would fain from other motives melt.
Now certain hopes Health's kind prognostics give,
So soon cur'd patients, how shall doctors live?
Men must debauch, take fevers, faint, and rave,
Few hopes attend them, and late periods save;
Their fatal snares must wine and women spread,
Or doctors go a-begging for their bread.
Which is the worst alternative, let those
That dictate from the casuist's chair disclose.

Now to the pulpit turns the Muse's eye,
There, haply, tears from proper fonts to spy;
Doubtless, if such us any where o'ertake,
Although with-held for Friendship's pressing sake,

156

Though rarely found in rostrums, it must be
Where God descends, and mortals bend the knee.
Where all confess, a tale that still begins,
How much Religion suffers by their sins,
On whose sublime and venerable plan,
We rise to angel, and renounce the man.

But hold,—all honour to the sacred gown,
Though less rever'd the gem-encircled crown.
A scoff contemptuous here, were to decry
Virtue herself, fair native of the sky.
Were to defame the Volume of the skies,
By God's own finger penn'd to make men wise.
Degrade the gown, and ridicule the text,
You must (dread thought!) dethrone Jehovah next.
The person from the office we divide,
To shun the stigma, or of guilt or pride;
Pride, that betrays a littleness of mind,
And guilt of a most disingenuous kind.

Tears, gushing forth, the parson's sight bedim,
His eyes, like stars in mists, uncertain swim;
Nor wonder such his cautious lids beguile,
For oh! the melting pathos of his style!
Who can behold him, and refrain from tears?
None, but the marble-hearted wretch who—hears.

157

This vain parade of partial tears is shown,
Because the preacher's to himself unknown.
In big effusive consciousness they run,
For what his pen, not wicked heart, has done.
With contrite looks, and some few passing groans,
His sins and errours multiplied, he owns;
But let no censure from the critic fall,
His pen omnipotent has cancell'd all.
For acting ill, as few in both excel,
Sure Heav'n will pardon him for—writing well.
But this, not Nature's, but the preacher's law,
No tears but sacerdotal e'er can draw;
Hence, though the rapt self-conscious parson weeps,
No social tear a well-bred cadence keeps;
Or, if a courteous drop with his consents,
The cheek alone, but not the soul, relents.
Thus womens eyes abundant use to flow.
If you the reason ask—they do not know.
Few honest tears, like gentle Pleydell's, start,
Conglob'd by Friendship, from the feeling heart.

But shall rough Satire quite ingross the page,
And through the numbers spend its Cynic rage?
No; let some gentle subject close the song,
To the soft passions softer strains belong.

158

The muse increasing ardours too may feel,
And kindle onward like a chariot-wheel;
But not, as chariots raise the dust around,
Truth to obscure, or reason to confound.

Tears are the eye's pellucid dews, that fall
At Pity's summons, or at Mercy's call;
Though ruthless eyes oft-times affect them too,
As stones themselves distill a breathing dew:
As Spring's to earth, all-gently such impart
A kindly genial softness to the heart.
Tears, when the mind enjoys unruffled ease,
For form-sake shed, or from desire to please,
Seem like those rains, through sunshine oft sent down,
From partial clouds, when Nature wears no frown.

Tears are the special messengers, akin
To oracles, on errands from within,
To tell mankind, beyond conjectures vain,
Those secrets Friendship only can explain;
What active passions rise in tender strife,
What soft affections touch the springs of life.
Tears are the wordless language of the heart,
That more, far more, than empty sounds impart;
By which it loves, o'erburden'd, to complain,
When speech would but offend, or prove in vain.

159

Tears ease the soul in anguish and despair,
And leave a sadly-pleasing languor there.
Thus close-pent clouds dissolve in hasty show'rs,
By which the thunder loses all its pow'rs;
The sky, far as the spreading view unfolds,
A temp'rature serene and soften'd holds.
Tears are the gentle streams that off convey
Those floods that would o'erwhelm us by delay;
The heart's big swell, by hard misfortunes griev'd,
That heaving soon would burst, not thus reliev'd.
Tears are the tender proofs of love sincere,
In silence shed, whence no reports take air;
Shed, as the tribute of congenial minds,
While each a more than vulgar transport finds:
False eyes, indeed, may weep, if fame divulge,
But true affection only can indulge.

Tears are the debt, in pearly drops convey'd,
But more than pearls in price, to merit paid;
In which none act the base insolvent's part,
But those whom Nature form'd without a heart.
Tears wait on Vice, and oft on Virtue too,
As winter-clouds dissolve in summer-dew.
Tears, though the cheek a partial mark retain,
Wash out, if shed aright, a fouler stain.

160

Tears are the silent arguments to tell
That man's immortal, though at first he fell.
Immortal!—for he weeps for joy oft-times,
Free from the sting of recollected crimes.
And what can Nature's law thus counteract?
What thus sensation's springs revers'd affect?
O thought sublime! strong proofs inculcate hence,
How much inferiour to the mind the sense,
Dissolv'd in tears, that feebly it reflects
Back to the soul what rapt'rous she expects;
As Cynthia, though in full-orb'd glory bright,
But faintly represents her parent light.
Thus men infer, the soul superiour must
Exist apart, when dust returns to dust.
For, if the body impotent withstands
Those transports she to infinite demands;
Reason dare promise her desires immense,
As Virtue's long-expected recompense,
But when, or where, no mortal's taught to know,
That full enjoyment sense can ne'er bestow,
When matter lives in various forms no more,
And all the farce of human life is o'er.