Miscellanies (1785) :: :: University of Virginia Library

While bless'd with infant innocence and truth,
Those fair attendants of ingenious youth,
While yet in embrio each idea lies,
And in the soul her opening passions rise;
While dawning Reason ripens in her mine,
And all the Senses bow at Nature's shrine;
Amidst the bounties of superior Wealth,
The joys which flow from Fortune and from Health;
While crowds obsequious on thy beck attend,
And a free people, fraught with incense, bend;

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While courtly Adulation, false and dear,
Pours her delicious poison in thine ear;
While servile bards, in mercenary praise,
The honied period turn a thousand ways.
Surrounded thus by all that can inspire,
Bliss, Passion, Pleasure, Frolic, and Desire,
O let the free born Muse, with loyal zeal,
Boldly declare what flatterers wou'd conceal!

Smit with the splendor of the shining ore,
The flame of Fashion, and the awe of Power,
The thund'ring title, the imperial sway,
The regal ornament, the venal lay;
Seldom the poet dares obey his heart,
But makes his fear a pander to his art;
Thou noble youth, shoud'st spurn th' harmonious strain,
Nor let a Briton strike the lyre in vain.

O! in that season, when in Nature's pride
The sallying passions rove without a guide,

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O'er the warm cheek when glows Life's fervid flush,
And to the eye the buoyant spirits rush,
When thrilling rapture trances all the soul,
And joys tumultuous in the bosom roll,
Hard is the task to walk in Reason's fence,
And keep the fair sobriety of Sense.

Man, various, compound of direct extremes,
Incongruous in his wakings as his dreams,
As strange in that he chooses or rejects,
In what he follows, as in what neglects,
Fond of new game, yet weary of the chase,
Ere he has run, with firmness, half the race;
In love with order, living without plan,
Now as an angel acting, now as man;
Half slave, half victor, piercing, and yet blind,
Seraph in form, hermophradite in mind;
Now weak as Paris, now as Ajax strong,
In love with virtues, yet attach'd to wrong;
Passions chief toy, and as they sink or rise,
Or great or mean, magnanimous or wise,

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Now weeping frailty, and now boasting power,
Sport of the present, past, and future hour.

Thus inconsistent, ah how weak his will,
To guard the bosom from pervading ill,
Assail'd by Nature, close beset by Art,
And ah! too strongly tempted by the heart;
Allur'd by titles, by false pleasure charm'd,
By Wealth solicited, by Love disarm'd;
Ambitions sky-crown'd trophies in the eye,
And the foul touch'd with Hope's insidious sigh:
How arduous, Sir, to keep the princely mind
A temple sacred to the human kind!

As varying Pleasure darts her smiles around,
And strews her ruddiest rose-buds on the ground,
As shines Love's nectar in Youth's flattering glass,
And Nature gilds the minutes as they pass.
Swift glides the heart from Virtue's fair intent,
And faint Denial half implies consent.
'Twixt shame and passion floats the struggling mind,
To Virtue now, and now to vice inclin'd,

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This frowns refusal, that persuades to yield,
Till Reason falls, and Passion takes the field,
Then guard, oh! noble youth, the sliding heart,
Sov'reigns are subjects to the master part;
The ruling passion still maintains its post,
Monarch o'er monarchs, and the mortal's lost.

Had he, who rules supreme th' etherial way,
Suffer'd yon golden orb who guides the day,
Lawless and free to range the bright expanse,
And on the neighb'ring systems wild advance,
Verge all at random on some station'd star,
A fiery deluge trailing thro' the air;
No more its genial radiance would bless,
But blast the visual nerves with bright excess:
Yet, justly order'd by th' Almighty Power,
It kindly darts on man, and beast, and flow'r,
Warms into life the vegetative globe,
And decks creation in a smiling robe.
So Thou, great youth, should Reason quit the helm,
Folly invade, or passions overwhelm;

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Should sycophants suggest the whim to waste,
Or Fancy tempt thee to an useless taste;
Shouldst thou illustrious Edward's footsteps quit,
Or on the rocks of hapless Richard split;
Should ere th' unprincely rage of Pow'r enflame,
Or Avarice plunge thee in the miser's shame;
Should Fashion riot in the realms of Sense,
Or Pomp spread forth her vain magnificence;
Should Public Phrenzy the fair soul disgrace,
And make a kingdom totter on its base;
Should Private Madness e'er the man deform,
While the pale virtues fly before the storm;
Then useless all a promis'd crown has given,
Then to dark curses all the boons of Heav'n:
But wisely govern'd, wide shalt thou dispense
The plenteous tides of rich Benevolence,
And like the sun, with universal glow,
Rich thro' thy empire shall each blessing flow.

But know, each virtue strain'd, becomes a vice,
And barriers bound them exquisitely nice;
Thin the partitions betwixt good and ill,
Outrageous virtues like strong vices kill;

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As moderate sweets are grateful to the sense,
But surfeit in th' extreme, and give offence;
As potent odours violate the small,
Or Heav'n, should music stun us, would be Hell.

Oft in the beating of the liberal breast,
To save the sorrowing, and to serve th' opprest;
Oft when high feelings touch the regal mind,
And stretch the arms of Bounty to mankind;
Some start of Fancy, some caprice of Pride,
Turns the best purpose of the soul aside;
A new Delusion o'er the senses play,
And Resolution idly melts away.
Oft too, the nobler principles misled,
Float with the feather in the Flatterer's head,
And each brave impulse of sublimer hearts,
Are oft subverted by the Pander's arts.
Nature and Fortune mourn an equal cause,
For half their fav'rites counteract their laws;
With idiot wildness break down Nature's fence,
And ravage all the stores of sober sense.

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The nymph who moves with more than Cyprian grace,
By nature blest with more than cherub face,
Or proud or peevish, or severely grave,
The child of vanity, of prate the slave,
Vain or affected, seldom knows the art
To touch the senses, or to warm the heart.
All froth and flutter, some inconstant things
Eternal flap their aromatic wings,
Who languish out their lives in silken sighs,
Gay, gaudy, giddy, human butterflies.
While others, rough and masculine of mind,
Whom nature fashion'd of the doubtful kind,
By some dear sin each charm of face deform,
As Heav'n enwraps the sunshine in the storm.

Nor less the sons of Greatness wrong their power,
Lost in the luxury of a golden shower,
How few the joys of affluence improve,
Sunk by false shame, inebriate with love,

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In each extravagance of mad expence,
The whims of Folly, and the whirls of Sense,
The circling thousands in profusion fly,
To glut th' enthusiast's lazy dignity.

Heav'n, when it gives proportions to the end,
And without wild profusion, proves a friend,
Liberal to all, to none a part denies,
Preserves, prevents, accommodates, supplies,
And in the scheme of wisdom, 'twas decreed,
That those who rule should govern those who need;
Not govern only, but with generous care,
The partial blessings bountifully share.
Thus Wealth its superfluity divides,
Thus Power enjoys what Industry provides.

Such God's first sov'reign law to subject man;
O England's Hope! mayst thou adopt the plan,
Let all the social, royal graces move
Thy ardent soul to Friendship, and to Love;

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In thy glad eye be shining Truth express'd,
Bright as the star that glitters on thy breast;
The various realms of wretchedness explore,
And pour Compassion's Balm on every sore;
Where private anguish rends the honest heart,
Timely apply, blest youth, thy saving art;
Where public tumult maddens in thy state,
Assert thy virtue, and be truly great;
Wipe the warm tear from Penury's sad eye,
And chear the spirit labouring with its sigh:
Till wide diffus'd thy spreading bounties run,
Great, rich, and various as the noon-tide sun;
Till future ages with delight may sing,
The deathless honour of a patriot King;
While ev'ry British bosom beats thy praise,
And conscience casts a glory round thy days.