The Poetical Works of John Langhorne :: :: University of Virginia Library

O, No! Sir John—the Muse's gentle art
Lives not to blemish, but to mend the heart.
While Gay's brave robber grieves us for his fate,
We hold the harpies of his life in hate.
Ingenuous youth, by Nature's voice addrest,
Finds not the harden'd, but the feeling breast;
Can form no wish the dire effects to prove
Of lawless valour, or of venal love,
Approves the fondness of the faithful maid,
And mourns a gen'rous passion unrepaid.

Yet would I praise the pious zeal that saves
Imperial London from her world of knaves;
Yet would I count it no inglorious strife
To scourge the pests of property and life.

Come then, long skill'd in theft's illusive ways,
Lord of the clue that thrids her mighty maze!
Together let us beat all Giles's fields,
Try what the night-house, what the round-house yields,

Hang when we must, be candid when we please,
But leave no bawd, unlicens'd, at her ease.

Say first, of thieves above, or thieves below,
What can we order till their haunts we know?
Far from St.James's let your Nimrods stray,
But stop and call at Stephen's in their way.
That ancient victualler, we've been told, of late,
Has kept bad hours, encourag'd high debate;
That those without still pelting those within,
Have stunn'd the peaceful neighbours with their din;
That if you close his private walls invest,
'Tis odds, you meet with some unruly guest—
Good Lord, Sir John, how would the people stare,
To see the present and the late Lord Mayor,
Bow to the majesty of Bow-street chair!

Illustrious chiefs! can I your haunts pass by,
Nor give my long-lov'd Liberty a sigh?
That heav'nly plant which long unblemish'd blew,
Dishonour'd only, only hurt by you!
Dishonour'd, when with harden'd front you claim
To deeds of darkness her diviner name!
For you grim Licence strove with hydra breath
To spread the blasts of pestilence and death:
Here for poor vice, for dark ambition there
She scatter'd poison thro' the social air.

Yet here, in vain—Oh, had her toil been vain,
When with black wing she swept the western main;
When with low labour, and insidious art,
She tore a daughter from her parent's heart!

Oh, Patriots, ever patriots out of place,
Fair Honour's foil, and Liberty's disgrace!
With spleen I see your wild illusions spread
Thro' the long region of a land misled;
See commerce sink, see cultivation's charms
Lost in the rage of anarchy and arms!

And thou, O Ch—m, once a nation's pride,
Borne on the brightest wave of glory's tide!
Hast thou the parent spurn'd, the erring child
With prospects vain to ruin's arms beguil'd?
Hast thou the plans of dire defection prais'd
For the poor pleasure of a statue rais'd?

Oh, Patriots, ever patriots out of place,
From Charles quite graceless, up to Grafton's grace!

Where forty-five once mark'd the dirty door,
And the chain'd knife invites the paltry whore;
Tho' far, methinks, the choicest guests are fled,
And Wilkes and Humphrey number'd with the dead,

Wilkes, who in death would friendship's vows fulfil,
True to his cause, and dines with Humphrey still—
Where sculks each dark, where roams each desp'rate wight,
Owls of the day and vultures of the night,—
Shall we, O Knight, with cruel pains explore,
Clear these low walks, and think the bus'ness o'er?
No—much, alas! for you, for me remains,
Where Justice sleeps, and Depredation reigns.

Wrapt in kind darkness, you no spleen betray,
When the gilt Nabob lacqueys all the way:
Harmless to you his towers, his forests rise,
That swell with anguish my indignant eyes;
While in those towers raz'd villages I see,
And tears of orphans watering every tree.
Are these mock-ruins that invade my view?
These are the entrails of the poor Gentoo.
That column's trophied base his bones supply;
That lake the tears that swell'd his sable eye!
Let here, O Knight, their steps terrific steer
Thy hue and cry, and loose thy bloodhounds here.

Oh, Mercy, thron'd on his eternal breast,
Who breath'd the savage waters into rest;
By each soft pleasure that thy bosom smote,
When first creation started from his thought;
By each warm tear that melted o'er thine eye,
When on his works was written ‘These must die!’

If secret slaughter yet, nor cruel war
Have from these mortal regions forc'd thee far,
Still to our follies, to our frailties blind,
Oh, stretch thy healing wings o'er human kind!
—For them I ask not, hostile to thy sway,
Who calmly on a brother's vitals prey;
For them I plead not, who, in blood embru'd,
Have ev'ry softer sentiment subdu'd.

This was written about the year 1776.

Chained to the table, to prevent depredations.