A postscript to the new Bath guide A Poem by Anthony Pasquin [i.e. John Williams] |
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| XIV. |
 | A postscript to the new Bath guide |  |
'Tis difficult from Custom to depart,
She tints the will—she clings about the heart:
Parent of Sorrow—relative of Glee,
The Demon's hope—the Fool's apology—
Oh! Habit, Habit! whither wilt thou lead,
While Fame capriciously upholds thy deed;
Our earliest apothegms her sorc'ries blind,
She wars with Wit for empire o'er the mind;
Fights to the last unknowing how to yield,
And inch by inch disputes the mental field.—
How few, like Russia's Lord, dare burst her chain,
Restrict her step, or regulate her reign;
The godlike Peter, all her force beguil'd,
And drove her 'yond the precincts of the wild;
Bade radiant Science 'mid his desarts rise,
Then gave her volumes to a nation's eyes:
The savage struggles of rude judgment fann'd,
And sent her eel meand'ring through the land.
She tints the will—she clings about the heart:
Parent of Sorrow—relative of Glee,
The Demon's hope—the Fool's apology—
Oh! Habit, Habit! whither wilt thou lead,
While Fame capriciously upholds thy deed;
84
She wars with Wit for empire o'er the mind;
Fights to the last unknowing how to yield,
And inch by inch disputes the mental field.—
How few, like Russia's Lord, dare burst her chain,
Restrict her step, or regulate her reign;
The godlike Peter, all her force beguil'd,
And drove her 'yond the precincts of the wild;
Bade radiant Science 'mid his desarts rise,
Then gave her volumes to a nation's eyes:
The savage struggles of rude judgment fann'd,
And sent her eel meand'ring through the land.
Touch'd by the subject—with its wonders fraught—
I spun this timely issue from my thought:—
I spun this timely issue from my thought:—
| A postscript to the new Bath guide | |