The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose Now First Collected with a Prefatory Memoir by his Nephews W. E. and Sir Bartle Frere |
 | I. |
 |
| MISCELLANIES. |
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| II. |
 | The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose |  |
261
MISCELLANIES.
263
FABLES FOR FIVE YEARS OLD.
FABLE I. Of the Boy and his Top.
A little boy had bought a Top,
The best in all the toyman's shop;
He made a whip with good eel's-skin,
He lash'd the top, and made it spin;
All the children within call,
And the servants, one and all,
Stood round to see it and admire.
At last the Top began to tire,
He cried out, “Pray don't whip me, Master,
“You whip too hard,—I can't spin faster,
“I can spin quite as well without it.”
The little Boy replied, “I doubt it;
“I only whip you for your good,
“You were a foolish lump of wood,
“By dint of whipping you were raised
“To see yourself admired and praised,
“And if I left you, you'd remain
“A foolish lump of wood again.”
The best in all the toyman's shop;
He made a whip with good eel's-skin,
He lash'd the top, and made it spin;
All the children within call,
And the servants, one and all,
Stood round to see it and admire.
At last the Top began to tire,
He cried out, “Pray don't whip me, Master,
“You whip too hard,—I can't spin faster,
“I can spin quite as well without it.”
The little Boy replied, “I doubt it;
“I only whip you for your good,
“You were a foolish lump of wood,
“By dint of whipping you were raised
“To see yourself admired and praised,
“And if I left you, you'd remain
“A foolish lump of wood again.”
Explanation.
Whipping sounds a little odd,It don't mean whipping with a rod,
It means to teach a boy incessantly,
Whether by lessons or more pleasantly,
Every hour and every day,
By every means, in every way,
264
By riding to see sights, and walking:
If you leave off he drops at once,
A lumpish, wooden-headed dunce.
FABLE II. Of the Boy and the Parrot
Parrot, if I had your wings,“I should do so many things.
“The first thing I should like to do
“If I had little wings like you,
“I should fly to uncle Bartle.
“Don't you think 'twould make him startle,
“If he saw me when I came,
“Flapping at the window-frame,
“Exactly like the print of Fame?”
All this the wise old Parrot heard,
The Parrot was an ancient bird,
And paused and ponder'd every word.
First, therefore, he began to cough,
Then said,—“It is a great way off,—
“A great way off, My Dear:”—and then
He paused awhile, and cough'd again,—
“Master John, pray think a little,
“What will you do for beds and victual?”
—“Oh! parrot, uncle John can tell—
“But we should manage very well.
“At night we'd perch upon the trees,
“And so fly forward by degrees.”—
—“Does uncle John,” the parrot said,
“Put nonsense in his nephew's head?
“Instead of telling you such things,
“And teaching you to wish for wings,
“I think he might have taught you better;
“You might have learnt to write a letter:—
“That is the thing that I should do
“If I had little hands like you.”
265
FABLE III. Of the Boy and the Wolf.
A little boy was set to keep
A little flock of goats or sheep.
He thought the task too solitary,
And took a strange perverse vagary,
To call the people out of fun,
To see them leave their work and run,
He cried and scream'd with all his might,—
“Wolf! wolf!” in a pretended fright.
Some people, working at a distance,
Came running in to his assistance.
They search'd the fields and bushes round,
The Wolf was no where to be found.
The Boy, delighted with his game,
A few days after did the same,
And once again the People came.
The trick was many times repeated,
At last they found that they were cheated.
One day the wolf appeared in sight,
The Boy was in a real fright,
He cried, “Wolf! wolf!”—The Neighbours heard,
But not a single creature stirr'd.
“We need not go from our employ,—
“'Tis nothing but that idle boy.”
The little boy cried out again,
“Help, help! the Wolf!”—he cried in vain.
At last his master went to beat him,
He came too late, the wolf had eat him.
A little flock of goats or sheep.
He thought the task too solitary,
And took a strange perverse vagary,
To call the people out of fun,
To see them leave their work and run,
He cried and scream'd with all his might,—
“Wolf! wolf!” in a pretended fright.
Some people, working at a distance,
Came running in to his assistance.
They search'd the fields and bushes round,
The Wolf was no where to be found.
The Boy, delighted with his game,
A few days after did the same,
And once again the People came.
The trick was many times repeated,
At last they found that they were cheated.
One day the wolf appeared in sight,
The Boy was in a real fright,
He cried, “Wolf! wolf!”—The Neighbours heard,
But not a single creature stirr'd.
“We need not go from our employ,—
“'Tis nothing but that idle boy.”
The little boy cried out again,
“Help, help! the Wolf!”—he cried in vain.
At last his master went to beat him,
He came too late, the wolf had eat him.
This shews the bad effects of lying,
And likewise of continual crying;
If I had heard you scream and roar,
For nothing, twenty times before,
Although you might have broke your arm,
Or met with any serious harm,
Your cries could give me no alarm,
They would not make me move the faster,
Nor apprehend the least disaster;
I should be sorry when I came,
But you yourself would be to blame.
And likewise of continual crying;
If I had heard you scream and roar,
For nothing, twenty times before,
Although you might have broke your arm,
Or met with any serious harm,
Your cries could give me no alarm,
266
Nor apprehend the least disaster;
I should be sorry when I came,
But you yourself would be to blame.
FABLE IV. Of the Piece of Glass and the Piece of Ice.
Once on a time, it came to pass,
A piece of ice and piece of glass
Were lying on a bank together.
There came a sudden change of weather,
The sun shone through them both.—The ice
Turn'd to his neighbour for advice.
The piece of glass made this reply,—
“Take care by all means not to cry.”
The foolish piece of ice relied
On being pitied if he cried.
The story says—That he cried on
Till he was melted and quite gone.
A piece of ice and piece of glass
Were lying on a bank together.
There came a sudden change of weather,
The sun shone through them both.—The ice
Turn'd to his neighbour for advice.
The piece of glass made this reply,—
“Take care by all means not to cry.”
The foolish piece of ice relied
On being pitied if he cried.
The story says—That he cried on
Till he was melted and quite gone.
This may serve you for a rule
With the little boys at school;
If you weep, I must forewarn ye,
All the boys will teaze and scorn ye.
With the little boys at school;
If you weep, I must forewarn ye,
All the boys will teaze and scorn ye.
FABLE V. Of the Cavern and the Hut.
An ancient cavern, huge and wide,
Was hollow'd in a mountain's side,
It served no purpose that I know,
Except to shelter sheep or so,
Yet it was spacious, warm, and dry.
There stood a little hut hard by.—
The cave was empty quite, and poor,
The hut was full of furniture;
By looking to his own affairs,
He got a table and some chairs,
All useful instruments of metal,
A pot, a frying-pan, a kettle,
A clock, a warming-pan, a jack,
A salt-box and a bacon-rack;
With plates, and knives, and forks, and dishes,
And lastly, to complete his wishes,
He got a sumptuous pair of bellows.—
The cavern was extremely jealous:
“How can that paltry hut contrive
“In this poor neighbourhood to thrive?”—
“The reason's plain,” replied the hut,
“Because I keep my mouth close shut;
“Whatever my good master brings,
“For furniture, or household things,
“I keep them close, and shut the door,
“While you stand yawning evermore.”
Was hollow'd in a mountain's side,
It served no purpose that I know,
Except to shelter sheep or so,
Yet it was spacious, warm, and dry.
There stood a little hut hard by.—
The cave was empty quite, and poor,
The hut was full of furniture;
267
He got a table and some chairs,
All useful instruments of metal,
A pot, a frying-pan, a kettle,
A clock, a warming-pan, a jack,
A salt-box and a bacon-rack;
With plates, and knives, and forks, and dishes,
And lastly, to complete his wishes,
He got a sumptuous pair of bellows.—
The cavern was extremely jealous:
“How can that paltry hut contrive
“In this poor neighbourhood to thrive?”—
“The reason's plain,” replied the hut,
“Because I keep my mouth close shut;
“Whatever my good master brings,
“For furniture, or household things,
“I keep them close, and shut the door,
“While you stand yawning evermore.”
If a little boy is yawning
At his lessons every morning,
Teaching him in prose or rhyme
Will be merely loss of time;
All your pains are thrown away,
Nothing will remain a day,
(Nothing you can teach or say,
Nothing he has heard or read,)
In his poor unfurnish'd head.
At his lessons every morning,
Teaching him in prose or rhyme
Will be merely loss of time;
All your pains are thrown away,
Nothing will remain a day,
(Nothing you can teach or say,
Nothing he has heard or read,)
In his poor unfurnish'd head.
FABLE VI. Showing how the Cavern followed the Hut's Advice.
This fable is a very short one:
The cave resolved to make his fortune;
He got a door, and in a year
Enrich'd himself with wine and beer.
The cave resolved to make his fortune;
He got a door, and in a year
Enrich'd himself with wine and beer.
Mamma will ask you, can you tell her,
What did the cave become?—A cellar.
What did the cave become?—A cellar.
268
FABLE VII. By Master John's desire, about the Rod and the Whip.
The Rod and Whip had some disputes;One managed boys, the other brutes,
Each pleaded his superior nature,
The Goad was chosen arbitrator,
A judge acquainted with the matter,
Upright, inflexible, and dry,
And always pointed in reply:—
“'Tis hard,” he said, “to pass a sentence,
“Betwixt two near and old acquaintance;
“The Whip alleges that he drives
“The plough, by which the farmer lives,
“And keeps his horses in obedience,
“And on this ground he claims precedence.
“The Rod asserts, that little boys,
“With nonsense, nastiness, and noise,
“Screaming, and quarrelling, and fighting,
“Not knowing figures, books, or writing,
“Would be far worse than farmer's horses,
“But for the rules which he enforces—
“He proves his claim as clear as day,
“So Whips and Goads must both give way.”
FABLE VIII. Of the Nine-pins.
A ninepin that was left alone,
When all his friends were overthrown,
Every minute apprehending,
The destructive stroke impending,
Earnestly complain'd and cried;
But Master Henry thus replied:—
“Are you the wisest and the best?
“Or any better than the rest?
“While you linger to the last,
“How has all your time been past?
“Standing stupid, unimproved,
“Idle, useless, unbeloved;
“Nothing you can do or say
“Shall debar me from my play.”
When all his friends were overthrown,
Every minute apprehending,
The destructive stroke impending,
Earnestly complain'd and cried;
But Master Henry thus replied:—
269
“Or any better than the rest?
“While you linger to the last,
“How has all your time been past?
“Standing stupid, unimproved,
“Idle, useless, unbeloved;
“Nothing you can do or say
“Shall debar me from my play.”
The Nine-pins you perceive are men,
'Tis death that answers them again;
And the fable's moral truth,
Suits alike with age and youth.
How can age of death complain,
If his life has past in vain?
How can youth deserve to last
If his life is idly past?
And the final application,
Marks the separate obligation,
Fairly placed within our reach,
Your's to learn, and mine to teach.
'Tis death that answers them again;
And the fable's moral truth,
Suits alike with age and youth.
How can age of death complain,
If his life has past in vain?
How can youth deserve to last
If his life is idly past?
And the final application,
Marks the separate obligation,
Fairly placed within our reach,
Your's to learn, and mine to teach.
270
A FABLE.
A dingy donkey, formal and unchanged,
Browzed in the lane and o'er the common ranged,
Proud of his ancient asinine possessions,
Free from the panniers of the grave professions
He lived at ease; and chancing once to find
A lion's skin, the fancy took his mind
To personate the monarch of the wood;
And for a time the stratagem held good.
He moved with so majestical a pace
That bears and wolves and all the savage race
Gazed in admiring awe, ranging aloof,
Not over anxious for a clearer proof—
Longer he might have triumphed—but alas!
In an unguarded hour it came to pass
He brayed aloud; and shewed himself an ass!
Browzed in the lane and o'er the common ranged,
Proud of his ancient asinine possessions,
Free from the panniers of the grave professions
He lived at ease; and chancing once to find
A lion's skin, the fancy took his mind
To personate the monarch of the wood;
And for a time the stratagem held good.
He moved with so majestical a pace
That bears and wolves and all the savage race
Gazed in admiring awe, ranging aloof,
Not over anxious for a clearer proof—
Longer he might have triumphed—but alas!
In an unguarded hour it came to pass
He brayed aloud; and shewed himself an ass!
The moral of this tale I could not guess
Till Mr. Landor sent his works to press.
Till Mr. Landor sent his works to press.
271
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFESSORS OF ART AND LITERATURE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
ON BEHALF OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, ESQUIRE; CONCLUDING WITH A RESPECTFUL REPRESENTATION TO THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY.
Ye painters and engravers! hear my call,
Sculptors and poets, artists one and all,
Let Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Walter Scott,
Pitt, Fox, and Burke, and Canning be forgot:
—Pre-eminent in priggery supreme
Let Walter Savage Landor be your theme:
Neither a Tory, Radical, nor Whig,
But an immaculate consummate prig!
—Ye Shaftesbury's and prigs of elder time,
Less perfect, and of priggery less sublime,
In those Elysian fields where now you tread
Engaged in conversations with the dead,
With contemplation of the immortal Plato,
And admiration of the virtuous Cato,
And other mighty prigs renowned in story;
Alas, alas, for your departed glory!
Here Walter Savage Landor comes to snatch
The laurel from the brows of all your batch!
Rise then, and with profound obeisance greet
Bowing at Walter Savage Landor's feet!
And own yourselves (as needs you must confess,
In prose less prosy, and in priggishness,
Beyond dispute, immeasurably less—
But I proceed too fast. It may be said
That Walter Savage Landor is not dead.
'Tis well observed, and therefore I return
To speak a word to those it may concern—
Painters and artists (as I said before)
I wish you to proceed on a new score.
Let Walter Savage Landor's glorious noddle
Be your exclusive, universal model.
Work! Work upon it! with renewed delight,
Work! Work (I tell ye) morning, noon, and night,
That in shop windows it may charm the sight,
Attracting every gaze; eclipsing all
Modern celebrities, both great and small,
Whiggish, Conservative, and Radical.
—Ye printsellers all! wherefore should ye deal
In lithographs of Wellington and Peel,
O'Connells, and Lord Melbournes, and Lord Johns?
List to my words! discard them all at once!
Compared, I say, with Walter Savage Landor
The most distinguished statesman and commander
In future ages will be deemed a gander.
Yes! Walter Savage Landor beats them hollow,
Away with them; let wits and poets follow,
Let the great Landor be your great Apollo;
Discard Lord Byron with his loose shirt collar,
Our glorious Landor is a better scholar,
Riper, as Shakespeare has it, and completer,
And makes Hendecasyllables in metre
As good as any fifth-form boy could do,
Without false quantities, or very few;
And tho' Lord Byron's peerage ranks him higher,
Yet Mister Landor writes himself “Esquire,”
And keeps a groom! and boasts himself to be
A scion of heraldic ancestry,
Wearing a coat of arms upon his seal!
A circumstance which animates his zeal
Against a base plebeian prelacy,
Fellows without a genealogy!
Poised on the cherub contemplation's wings,
His lordship sits blaspheming as he sings,
Cursing and damning all terrestrial things,
Feeling the persecution and malignity
Of providence; but feeling it with dignity,
Such as befits a person of his quality,
Pursued by a predestinate fatality,
But an essential poet in reality.
Admitting, therefore, that his lines are grander
Than those of Mister Walter Savage Landor,
We still maintain that in another sense
Our Landor claims a first pre-eminence.
I should be sorry to be deemed severe,
But Byron was a most licentious peer,
Leading, in fact, a dissipated life,
Without respect of widow, maid, or wife.
While Walter Savage Landor's immorality
Is mere imaginary classicality,
Wholly devoid of criminal reality.
Yet Walter Savage Landor in his way
Is often-times unutterably gay.
“He frolicketh,” and “doth frolic,” and in fine
(Adhering strictly to the classic line
With such methodic gambols as become
A classic Prig) Landor is frolicsome:
Quite a beau garcon, a consummate beau,
In the beau-monde two thousand years ago.
A perfect master of the savoir vivre.
Un homme à bonnes fortunes, a gay deceiver.
In his own conduct cautious and correct,
But a decided rake in retrospect
With classic ardour, rash and uncontrolled,
With Lais and with Thais he makes bold,
The Harriette Wilsons of the days of old.
He loves a tête-a-tête with fair Aspasia,
And takes his daily lounge in the gymnasia;
But his supreme delight is Alcibiades.
A rhyme, I want a rhyme for Alcibiades;
There's none that I can think of, none but Pleiades.
And a more lucky rhyme I never met!
For it suggests a scheme I might forget.
One point is settled, that we must not squander,
While we possess a Walter Savage Landor,
Honour or praise on any man beside;
Is he not Europe's wonder? England's pride?
Therefore, I say, let every means be tried
To immortalize the most immortal man;
Let all true Britons do the best they can,
Whatever art can do with brass and copper,
Canvas and marble, will be just and proper:
Whilst we that manufacture prose and verse
In humble strains endeavour to disburse
Our debt of admiration; and express
His high deserts by dint of letter-press;—
But all is transitory—prose and verse,
Sculpture and painting—Wise astronomers!
“In all things I prefer the permanent.”
Could you not place our Landor in the firmament?
Marble will decompose, and canvas moulder,
Before the world is many centuries older
Moreover, in all likelihood, God knows!
Our compositions, whether verse or prose,
Compose them as we may, will decompose:
Even great Landor's deathless works may die.
Whereas, if you could place him in the sky,
Nothing that happened here need signify.
There he might shine in spite of the ravages
And devastations of invading savages,
Tranquil and bright; whilst a benighted age
Profaned in filthy sort his mighty page.
Surely with all your curious observation
You might detect a vacant constellation;
Or make another new one here or there,
Just as you did with Berenice's hair.
Pope asked the question once, and so shall I!
“Is there no bright reversion in the sky?”
No reserved district? Nothing unallotted?
Were all your predecessors so besotted
As to grant out a total hemisphere
Assigned to the first claimants that appear
(Like that proud Pontiff the sixth Alexander.)
Is nothing left for Walter Savage Landor?
I should not wish for our heraldic scion
To stand a whole-length figure like Orion,
Perseus, and other astronomic giants;
I merely think that by the kind compliance,
Favour and aid of an illustrious science,
Somewhere or other in the bounds of space
His glorious inkstand might obtain a place.
See what a list of articles appear
Established in the southern hemisphere;
Their own chronometers and telescopes
Canonized by your astronomic Popes!
With other objects that still less concern us,
A painter's easel, and a chemist's furnace,
A sculptor's tools and workshop in a lot,
A microscope, an air-pump, and what not,
And, oh! shall Landor's Inkstand be forgot.
For Landor “scrawls not upon greasy platters,”
Nor such like sordid sublunary matters;
His paper and his ink are transcendental,
Warranted sempiternal, elemental,
His patent right in ink is a good rental,
His affidavit states that the true article
Does not contain a perishable particle.
Sculptors and poets, artists one and all,
Let Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Walter Scott,
Pitt, Fox, and Burke, and Canning be forgot:
—Pre-eminent in priggery supreme
Let Walter Savage Landor be your theme:
Neither a Tory, Radical, nor Whig,
But an immaculate consummate prig!
—Ye Shaftesbury's and prigs of elder time,
Less perfect, and of priggery less sublime,
In those Elysian fields where now you tread
Engaged in conversations with the dead,
With contemplation of the immortal Plato,
And admiration of the virtuous Cato,
And other mighty prigs renowned in story;
Alas, alas, for your departed glory!
Here Walter Savage Landor comes to snatch
The laurel from the brows of all your batch!
Rise then, and with profound obeisance greet
Bowing at Walter Savage Landor's feet!
And own yourselves (as needs you must confess,
In prose less prosy, and in priggishness,
Beyond dispute, immeasurably less—
But I proceed too fast. It may be said
272
'Tis well observed, and therefore I return
To speak a word to those it may concern—
Painters and artists (as I said before)
I wish you to proceed on a new score.
Let Walter Savage Landor's glorious noddle
Be your exclusive, universal model.
Work! Work upon it! with renewed delight,
Work! Work (I tell ye) morning, noon, and night,
That in shop windows it may charm the sight,
Attracting every gaze; eclipsing all
Modern celebrities, both great and small,
Whiggish, Conservative, and Radical.
—Ye printsellers all! wherefore should ye deal
In lithographs of Wellington and Peel,
O'Connells, and Lord Melbournes, and Lord Johns?
List to my words! discard them all at once!
Compared, I say, with Walter Savage Landor
The most distinguished statesman and commander
In future ages will be deemed a gander.
Yes! Walter Savage Landor beats them hollow,
Away with them; let wits and poets follow,
Let the great Landor be your great Apollo;
Discard Lord Byron with his loose shirt collar,
Our glorious Landor is a better scholar,
Riper, as Shakespeare has it, and completer,
And makes Hendecasyllables in metre
As good as any fifth-form boy could do,
Without false quantities, or very few;
And tho' Lord Byron's peerage ranks him higher,
Yet Mister Landor writes himself “Esquire,”
And keeps a groom! and boasts himself to be
A scion of heraldic ancestry,
273
A circumstance which animates his zeal
Against a base plebeian prelacy,
Fellows without a genealogy!
Poised on the cherub contemplation's wings,
His lordship sits blaspheming as he sings,
Cursing and damning all terrestrial things,
Feeling the persecution and malignity
Of providence; but feeling it with dignity,
Such as befits a person of his quality,
Pursued by a predestinate fatality,
But an essential poet in reality.
Admitting, therefore, that his lines are grander
Than those of Mister Walter Savage Landor,
We still maintain that in another sense
Our Landor claims a first pre-eminence.
I should be sorry to be deemed severe,
But Byron was a most licentious peer,
Leading, in fact, a dissipated life,
Without respect of widow, maid, or wife.
While Walter Savage Landor's immorality
Is mere imaginary classicality,
Wholly devoid of criminal reality.
Yet Walter Savage Landor in his way
Is often-times unutterably gay.
“He frolicketh,” and “doth frolic,” and in fine
(Adhering strictly to the classic line
With such methodic gambols as become
A classic Prig) Landor is frolicsome:
Quite a beau garcon, a consummate beau,
In the beau-monde two thousand years ago.
A perfect master of the savoir vivre.
Un homme à bonnes fortunes, a gay deceiver.
In his own conduct cautious and correct,
But a decided rake in retrospect
With classic ardour, rash and uncontrolled,
With Lais and with Thais he makes bold,
The Harriette Wilsons of the days of old.
He loves a tête-a-tête with fair Aspasia,
And takes his daily lounge in the gymnasia;
274
A rhyme, I want a rhyme for Alcibiades;
There's none that I can think of, none but Pleiades.
And a more lucky rhyme I never met!
For it suggests a scheme I might forget.
One point is settled, that we must not squander,
While we possess a Walter Savage Landor,
Honour or praise on any man beside;
Is he not Europe's wonder? England's pride?
Therefore, I say, let every means be tried
To immortalize the most immortal man;
Let all true Britons do the best they can,
Whatever art can do with brass and copper,
Canvas and marble, will be just and proper:
Whilst we that manufacture prose and verse
In humble strains endeavour to disburse
Our debt of admiration; and express
His high deserts by dint of letter-press;—
But all is transitory—prose and verse,
Sculpture and painting—Wise astronomers!
“In all things I prefer the permanent.”
Could you not place our Landor in the firmament?
Marble will decompose, and canvas moulder,
Before the world is many centuries older
Moreover, in all likelihood, God knows!
Our compositions, whether verse or prose,
Compose them as we may, will decompose:
Even great Landor's deathless works may die.
Whereas, if you could place him in the sky,
Nothing that happened here need signify.
There he might shine in spite of the ravages
And devastations of invading savages,
Tranquil and bright; whilst a benighted age
Profaned in filthy sort his mighty page.
Surely with all your curious observation
You might detect a vacant constellation;
Or make another new one here or there,
Just as you did with Berenice's hair.
Pope asked the question once, and so shall I!
“Is there no bright reversion in the sky?”
No reserved district? Nothing unallotted?
275
As to grant out a total hemisphere
Assigned to the first claimants that appear
(Like that proud Pontiff the sixth Alexander.)
Is nothing left for Walter Savage Landor?
I should not wish for our heraldic scion
To stand a whole-length figure like Orion,
Perseus, and other astronomic giants;
I merely think that by the kind compliance,
Favour and aid of an illustrious science,
Somewhere or other in the bounds of space
His glorious inkstand might obtain a place.
See what a list of articles appear
Established in the southern hemisphere;
Their own chronometers and telescopes
Canonized by your astronomic Popes!
With other objects that still less concern us,
A painter's easel, and a chemist's furnace,
A sculptor's tools and workshop in a lot,
A microscope, an air-pump, and what not,
And, oh! shall Landor's Inkstand be forgot.
For Landor “scrawls not upon greasy platters,”
Nor such like sordid sublunary matters;
His paper and his ink are transcendental,
Warranted sempiternal, elemental,
His patent right in ink is a good rental,
His affidavit states that the true article
Does not contain a perishable particle.
P.S. and N. B.
A necessary caution to the buyer—Counterfeits are abroad—please to enquire
For packets sealed and signed, “Landor, Esquire.”
The Aeidian fluid, ink of immortality,
The rest are frauds of an inferior quality.
276
P.S.
On second thoughts, “I must recall my groom,And add a postscript, tho' for want of room
It must be short—a warning was omitted
Which to the sons of science is submitted.
My dear Astronomers! you must be sensible
That caution in this case is indispensable;
—I feel I must confess—my doubts and fears,
From Landor's exaltation to the spheres.
Let it be done with care and circumspection;
And don't proclaim a general election
Of candidates for the new constellation,
Or every star will hurry from his station:
The least of them that feels the least ambition
To change his place and better his condition
Will bustle and start forth in the confusion
Of a chaotic general dissolution,—
Depend upon it, we shall hear the sky.
Re-echoing with an universal cry,
“Place us in Landor's inkstand or we die.
“—Yes, welcome chaos! if we can attain
“That high distinction, let it come again.
277
MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.
The cumbrous pollards that o'ershade,Those uplands rough with brakes and thorns,
The green way with its track-worn glade
The solitary grange forlorn,
The lonely pastures wild and drear
The lonely dwellings wide apart,
Are whispering to the fancy's ear
A secret strain that moves the heart.
No forms of grandeur or of grace,
In the rude landscape you behold,
But their rough lineaments retrace
The features of the times of old:
They speak of customs long retained
Of simple, plain, primeval life,
They mark the little we have gained,
With all our study, toil and strife;
Such England was to Shakespeare's eyes,
So Chaucer viewed her as he roved,
In russet weeds of rustic guise,
In homelier beauty more beloved.
Our ancient halls have left the land,
Turrets and towers have passed away,
Arcades and porticoes were planned
And these again have had their day:
Impatient, peevish wealth recalls
The forms which she defaced before,
Unthrifty sires destroyed the halls,
Which modern prodigals restore;
Confounding England, Rome, and Greece,
Our antient and our modern grace,
We dislocate with wild caprice
All unities of time and place;
Yet here attended by the Muse
Let harassed Fancy pause awhile
And unpolluted yet peruse
This remnant of our ancient isle.
278
JOURNEY TO HARDINGHAM
TO VISIT THE REV. W. WHITER, OF CLARE HALL.
The rude South-wester from his den
Comes raving o'er a range of fen;
The window frame of massy cast,
Unhinged, unpullied, never fast,
Trembles and jostles to the blast:
The drops still standing on the pane,
The shivering twigs that drip with rain,
The prospect of the distant plain,
Obscure and undistinguish'd furnish
No motive for cross country journeys.
Besides—with waiting for the post—
The morning is already lost.
While Reason pauses to decide,
Let Fancy paint the future ride.
From famed Winfarthing's lonely pound
To Buckenham's huge mysterious mound,
How dull and dismal is the scene—
Dreary, monotonous, and mean.
Its ancient Common, wide and bare,
Dissected into straight and square,
How cheerless and devoid of grace!
With painful interrupted pace,
The drooping Peasantry retire
Comes raving o'er a range of fen;
The window frame of massy cast,
Unhinged, unpullied, never fast,
Trembles and jostles to the blast:
The drops still standing on the pane,
The shivering twigs that drip with rain,
The prospect of the distant plain,
Obscure and undistinguish'd furnish
No motive for cross country journeys.
Besides—with waiting for the post—
The morning is already lost.
While Reason pauses to decide,
Let Fancy paint the future ride.
From famed Winfarthing's lonely pound
To Buckenham's huge mysterious mound,
How dull and dismal is the scene—
Dreary, monotonous, and mean.
Its ancient Common, wide and bare,
Dissected into straight and square,
How cheerless and devoid of grace!
With painful interrupted pace,
The drooping Peasantry retire
Stumbling and staggering thro' the mire:
From scattered huts the transient rays
Betray their frugal evening blaze;
The wintry sun's descending beam,
With chilly melancholy gleam,
Reflected from the stagnant drains
Illuminates those endless lanes:
Such scenes absorb my thoughts and bring 'em,
Prepared with joy to enter Hingham;
Her stately steeple strikes the sight,
And cheerful sounds and lively light,
My past antipathies requite;
Again, afraid to miss the mark,
I plunge thro' turnings close and dark,
Immerging among trackless acres
I hope to light upon the Quakers.
The Quakers—sure it must be so—
The stream lies glimmering there below,
Look on—the steeple stands in view—
The parsonage and the steeple too—
The clattering gate returning hard,
Announces guests within the yard;
I see the worthy priest rejoice—
With open face and hearty voice,
His old acquaintance kindly hailing,
With hand outstretched across the paling.
Alighting now, we pass the hall
And view the parlour snug and small,
The fire of logs, the tapestry wall;
Huge volumes prostrate on the floor;
A parsonage of the days of yore.
Our dinner ended, we discourse
Of old traditions and their source,
Of times beyond the reach of history,
Of many a mythologic mystery,
Of primitive records and acts,
Their traces and surviving facts,
Of tribes, of languages, and nations,
Of immemorial old migrations;
Hence our digressive chat enquires
Of justices, divines, and squires,
Of births, and marriages, and deaths,
Enclosures of the neighbouring heaths,
Of ancient friends at Caius and King's.
And such like sublunary things.
Again—we soar to the sublime,
On pinions of recited rhyme,
While you persuade me to proceed
With “Well,” or “Very well, indeed!”
A long continued recitation,
Epistle, fable, or translation,
Exhausting all my last year's stock,
Conducts us on to twelve o'clock.
So be it then—In spite of weather,
I'll take the good and bad together;
So George put up of shirts a pair,
And bid them saddle me the mare.
From scattered huts the transient rays
Betray their frugal evening blaze;
The wintry sun's descending beam,
With chilly melancholy gleam,
279
Illuminates those endless lanes:
Such scenes absorb my thoughts and bring 'em,
Prepared with joy to enter Hingham;
Her stately steeple strikes the sight,
And cheerful sounds and lively light,
My past antipathies requite;
Again, afraid to miss the mark,
I plunge thro' turnings close and dark,
Immerging among trackless acres
I hope to light upon the Quakers.
The Quakers—sure it must be so—
The stream lies glimmering there below,
Look on—the steeple stands in view—
The parsonage and the steeple too—
The clattering gate returning hard,
Announces guests within the yard;
I see the worthy priest rejoice—
With open face and hearty voice,
His old acquaintance kindly hailing,
With hand outstretched across the paling.
Alighting now, we pass the hall
And view the parlour snug and small,
The fire of logs, the tapestry wall;
Huge volumes prostrate on the floor;
A parsonage of the days of yore.
Our dinner ended, we discourse
Of old traditions and their source,
Of times beyond the reach of history,
Of many a mythologic mystery,
Of primitive records and acts,
Their traces and surviving facts,
Of tribes, of languages, and nations,
Of immemorial old migrations;
Hence our digressive chat enquires
Of justices, divines, and squires,
Of births, and marriages, and deaths,
Enclosures of the neighbouring heaths,
280
And such like sublunary things.
Again—we soar to the sublime,
On pinions of recited rhyme,
While you persuade me to proceed
With “Well,” or “Very well, indeed!”
A long continued recitation,
Epistle, fable, or translation,
Exhausting all my last year's stock,
Conducts us on to twelve o'clock.
So be it then—In spite of weather,
I'll take the good and bad together;
So George put up of shirts a pair,
And bid them saddle me the mare.
IMITATION OF HORACE, LIB. I. EP. XI.
Quid tibi visa Chios, etc.
Dear Bartle,
How does Turkey suit your taste,Compared with it is Lisbon quite effaced,
Seville, and all the scenes we viewed together,
What sort of climate have you found, and weather?
The fish, the figs, the grapes, and Grecian wine,
In real earnest, are they quite as fine
As modern travellers have represented?
Inform us—are you joyous and contented,
Or are you sick of Dragomans and Turks,
Muftis, Bashaws, and all their wicked works?
And pine to visit our domestic scene,
Roydon and Finningham, and Mellis' Green,
To pass a rainy winter afternoon
With Mr. Mrs. and the Misses Moon,
Till, like an affable convivial priest,
Returning late from his parochial feast,
Temple diverts us from backgammon playing,
281
Next morning we must saunter out once more
To view the scenes so often viewed before.
The solemn feature and commanding stare
Of antient-justices and ladies fair,
Which Rednall still preserves with loyal care,
Arranged in order round his parlour wall,
Poor emigrants from the deserted hall;
Or prune with grave discussion and suspense
The rising saplings in the new-made fence;
Or wander forth where Syret's wife deplores
The broken pantiles in her pantry floors;
Or eastward pass to that remoter scene
Where tracts of hostile acres intervene,
To look at Kersey's maid, and taste his ale,
And grieve to see the new-made plaister fail.
Then to return, and find at every station
Old topics, that revive the conversation,
Themes of complacency and consolation.
“That stream with proper care might overflow
“The strip of pasture ground that lies below;
“Those trees have of themselves contrived to grow;
“Those ancient chimneys have been well replaced,”
And “Temple's chancel has been tiled with taste.”
Such joys as these attend on my return
To Roydon, from the place of date—Eastbourne.
August 23, 1812.
FRAGMENT.
Is the dominion of an abstract rule
Restricted to the Geometric School,
To be recognized there, and there alone,
Shall we conclude of sciences unknown
Restricted to the Geometric School,
To be recognized there, and there alone,
Shall we conclude of sciences unknown
Analogy forbids it. What is true
In an established science, in a new
May be true likewise. Her reply would say,
“Must—absolutely must—not only may—
“But struggle for yourselves, I point the way.”
And what say we? shall our familiar guide
Hear her instructions scoffed at, and denied?
Good old analogy that first supplied
Our infant world with elemental speech!
She, that in daily life descends to teach
With nature at her side, adult, and grown
And wise in an experience of our own,
What nature dictates, and analogy,
Shall we with peremptory pride deny?
Or shall we follow where she points the way,
A path of steep ascent and hard assay,
Yet leading to a summit clear and high,
Of boundless vision, in a cloudless sky,
Where nature's mighty landscape, unsurveyed
By mortal eye, lies open and displayed.
In an established science, in a new
282
“Must—absolutely must—not only may—
“But struggle for yourselves, I point the way.”
And what say we? shall our familiar guide
Hear her instructions scoffed at, and denied?
Good old analogy that first supplied
Our infant world with elemental speech!
She, that in daily life descends to teach
With nature at her side, adult, and grown
And wise in an experience of our own,
What nature dictates, and analogy,
Shall we with peremptory pride deny?
Or shall we follow where she points the way,
A path of steep ascent and hard assay,
Yet leading to a summit clear and high,
Of boundless vision, in a cloudless sky,
Where nature's mighty landscape, unsurveyed
By mortal eye, lies open and displayed.
The Ideal ruling law, like words to deeds,
In numbers and geometry, precedes
The Concrete, Thought is there the lord and king,
The sov'reign; the mechanic subject thing
Is substance, practice, and experiment;
And shall we deem, that intellect was lent
To light a single science? Have the rest
Lost their high caste, degraded and deprest
Irrevocably: doomed to labour here
For fame and gain, in an inferior sphere,
Surveyor, architect, or engineer?
Is there no spirit of a loftier strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos, to divide,
And fix the mass of knowledge dark and wide,
With a divining hand, to seize the clue,
To keep the known conclusion full in view,
And work the problem till he proves it true?
Must we for ever shrewd and worldly wise,
Confine ourselves to Solomon's advice,
To seek enjoyment, and escape from want,
To take our pattern from the labouring ant,
Where imitative nature emulates
The forms of understanding, and creates
Devoid of intellect, her pigmy states,
A single soul in sundry forms combined,
A patriotic universal mind,
An instrumental nature, ever striving
For a fixt purpose, labouring and contriving,
United, orderly, coherent, still
Without a selfish aim or separate will,
With nothing individual? Which is he,
The legislator master of the free,
The great preceptor, teaching from his tomb
A living multitude, that shall presume
To place his model for the rule of man,
In parallel with this, the simple plan
Fixed and ordained for an inferior state,
Penultimate of man's penultimate?
In numbers and geometry, precedes
The Concrete, Thought is there the lord and king,
The sov'reign; the mechanic subject thing
Is substance, practice, and experiment;
And shall we deem, that intellect was lent
To light a single science? Have the rest
Lost their high caste, degraded and deprest
Irrevocably: doomed to labour here
For fame and gain, in an inferior sphere,
Surveyor, architect, or engineer?
Is there no spirit of a loftier strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos, to divide,
And fix the mass of knowledge dark and wide,
With a divining hand, to seize the clue,
To keep the known conclusion full in view,
And work the problem till he proves it true?
Must we for ever shrewd and worldly wise,
Confine ourselves to Solomon's advice,
To seek enjoyment, and escape from want,
To take our pattern from the labouring ant,
283
The forms of understanding, and creates
Devoid of intellect, her pigmy states,
A single soul in sundry forms combined,
A patriotic universal mind,
An instrumental nature, ever striving
For a fixt purpose, labouring and contriving,
United, orderly, coherent, still
Without a selfish aim or separate will,
With nothing individual? Which is he,
The legislator master of the free,
The great preceptor, teaching from his tomb
A living multitude, that shall presume
To place his model for the rule of man,
In parallel with this, the simple plan
Fixed and ordained for an inferior state,
Penultimate of man's penultimate?
With righteous or perverted will to take
Good simply as good—evil for evil's sake;
Mischief in children—bold debauch in men
Exulting and approved—the pimping pen
That seeks to pander for a race unborn,
The unholy league that pours contempt and scorn
On every better purpose, industry
Perverse and servile, that descends to pry
In crevices of forgotten infamy,
With unrewarded toil, to canonize
The rakes and drabs of former centuries,
Their relics and remains.
These and a thousand other signs reveal
The existence of a pure unpurchased zeal,
Zeal in the cause of evil, that divests
The obedient mind of selfish interests,
And ranks them in the legendary list,
The martyrs of the great antagonist.
Enough of Evil—for the bve of good
Misconstrued, scandalized, misunderstood,
Denied and hated—still that it exists
I feel and know—Deny it he that lists—
But grant it—and gou see human will
Working in eager chase of good or ill.
These rudiments of an ulterior state
Embarrass and bewilder with debate
Our human hive and ant-hill—as the wings
Unfledged, are cumbrous and contentious things
To callow birds (that struggle in the nest
Naked and crowded) useless at the best.
Good simply as good—evil for evil's sake;
Mischief in children—bold debauch in men
Exulting and approved—the pimping pen
That seeks to pander for a race unborn,
The unholy league that pours contempt and scorn
On every better purpose, industry
Perverse and servile, that descends to pry
In crevices of forgotten infamy,
With unrewarded toil, to canonize
The rakes and drabs of former centuries,
Their relics and remains.
These and a thousand other signs reveal
The existence of a pure unpurchased zeal,
Zeal in the cause of evil, that divests
The obedient mind of selfish interests,
And ranks them in the legendary list,
The martyrs of the great antagonist.
Enough of Evil—for the bve of good
Misconstrued, scandalized, misunderstood,
Denied and hated—still that it exists
I feel and know—Deny it he that lists—
But grant it—and gou see human will
284
These rudiments of an ulterior state
Embarrass and bewilder with debate
Our human hive and ant-hill—as the wings
Unfledged, are cumbrous and contentious things
To callow birds (that struggle in the nest
Naked and crowded) useless at the best.
FRAGMENT. II.
The revelation of an element,
Its accidents and forms—What else is meant
By that established phrase, “the visible world?”
What but a single element unfurled
And manifested to a single sense?
Its accidents and forms—What else is meant
By that established phrase, “the visible world?”
What but a single element unfurled
And manifested to a single sense?
Is tangible creation more immense,
More multiform than the domain of Light,
That visible creation which the sight
Holds as its empire through the ministry
Of light, its elemental sole ally?
The Almighty Wisdom and Power that could direct,
And with a single element effect
So vast a purpose, shall we dare deny
(What reason teaches and analogy)
That the same Wisdom and Power, working his will
With the like simple means, with the same skill,
In a like form and method might devise
All that a grosser sense can recognize?
No! the celestial Author and Creator
In those two volumes of the Book of Nature
Ordained for our instruction, represents,
By multiform but single elements,
One universe of sense, all that we know,
The visible world of instantaneous show
And tangible creation, hard and slow,
The last remaining inlet of the mind,
The dreary blank creation of the blind.
Nor is it vain what elder bards indite
Of Love self-born, and by inherent might
Emerged from chaos and primeval night.
Was this the form, which idle fancy sings,
With glowing cheeks adorned and glittering wings,
The classic idol and the modern toy,
A torch, a quiver, and a blinded boy?
Was this the sense? or does it represent
Some sovereign and controlling element,
Some impulse unapproachable by thought,
Some force that 'midst the eternal tumult wrought,
And this fair order from confusion brought;
Established motion's substance, form, and weight,
The statutes of this earth's material state?
—Suppose a single element the source
Of all attractive and impelling force,
That motion and cohesion are the extreme
United opposites upon the beam
Of Nature's balance, a magnetic whole,
Single itself, and one; but pole to pole
Contrasted; as the powers of heat and light
Stand each confronted with its opposite
Darkness and cold; not mere negations they,
But negatives with a divided sway,
Pressing—oppressed—advancing—giving way.
Suppose then (as has been supposed before
By wisest men) that in the days of yore
There was a deeper knowledge, and a store
Of science more exalted and sublime,
Whose relics on the barren shore of time
Lie stranded and dispersed, retaining still
Intelligible marks of art and skill,
Of an intended purpose and appliance,
The scanty salvage of a shipwrecked science
Submerged time out of mind! Kepler could draw
From these remains the mighty truth he saw
Of an harmonic, necessary law;
Then with an indefatigable mind
Analogies incessantly combined
With a foreseen conclusion full in view
He worked the problem till he proved it true.
Is there no spirit of a nobler strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos to divide,
And fix the mass of knowledge waste and wide;
For as “the crowd of trees conceals the wood,”
With all things known, with nothing understood,
Perplexed with new results from year to year,
As on the puzzled Ptolemaic sphere
With cycles epicycles scribbled o'er,
Like ancient Philomaths we doze and pore:
Thus Ashmole, Lilly, shine in portraiture
(Dear to the calcographic connoisseur);
While the wise nightcap and the Jacob's staff
Awe the beholder and conceal his laugh.
—If we despair then to decypher nature
With our new facts and novel nomenclature:
Those almanacks of science that appear
Framed and adjusted for the current year,
And warranted correct for months to come;
If calculation fails to find the sum
(A formula to comprehend the whole)
Of countless items on the crowded scroll,
Corrected, re-corrected, and replaced,
Obliterated, interlined, effaced,
Blotted and torn in philosophic squabble,
And endless, unintelligible scrabble;
If the huge labyrinth with its winding ways
Entangled in the inextricable maze,
The wilderness of waste experiment,
Has foiled your weary spirits worn and spent,
Since every path is trodden round and tried,
—Trust for a moment a superior guide;
The trembling needle or the stedfast star,
Some point of lofty mark and distant far,
These shall conduct you, whatsoe'er your fate,
At least in a decided path and strait;
Not running round in circles, evermore
Bewildered and bewitched as heretofore:
Like the poor clown that robbed the wizard's store
Breathless and hurrying in his endless race,
With eager action, and a ghastly face,
By subtle magic tether'd to the place.
More multiform than the domain of Light,
That visible creation which the sight
Holds as its empire through the ministry
Of light, its elemental sole ally?
The Almighty Wisdom and Power that could direct,
And with a single element effect
So vast a purpose, shall we dare deny
(What reason teaches and analogy)
That the same Wisdom and Power, working his will
With the like simple means, with the same skill,
In a like form and method might devise
All that a grosser sense can recognize?
No! the celestial Author and Creator
In those two volumes of the Book of Nature
Ordained for our instruction, represents,
By multiform but single elements,
One universe of sense, all that we know,
The visible world of instantaneous show
And tangible creation, hard and slow,
The last remaining inlet of the mind,
The dreary blank creation of the blind.
Nor is it vain what elder bards indite
Of Love self-born, and by inherent might
Emerged from chaos and primeval night.
285
With glowing cheeks adorned and glittering wings,
The classic idol and the modern toy,
A torch, a quiver, and a blinded boy?
Was this the sense? or does it represent
Some sovereign and controlling element,
Some impulse unapproachable by thought,
Some force that 'midst the eternal tumult wrought,
And this fair order from confusion brought;
Established motion's substance, form, and weight,
The statutes of this earth's material state?
—Suppose a single element the source
Of all attractive and impelling force,
That motion and cohesion are the extreme
United opposites upon the beam
Of Nature's balance, a magnetic whole,
Single itself, and one; but pole to pole
Contrasted; as the powers of heat and light
Stand each confronted with its opposite
Darkness and cold; not mere negations they,
But negatives with a divided sway,
Pressing—oppressed—advancing—giving way.
Suppose then (as has been supposed before
By wisest men) that in the days of yore
There was a deeper knowledge, and a store
Of science more exalted and sublime,
Whose relics on the barren shore of time
Lie stranded and dispersed, retaining still
Intelligible marks of art and skill,
Of an intended purpose and appliance,
The scanty salvage of a shipwrecked science
Submerged time out of mind! Kepler could draw
From these remains the mighty truth he saw
Of an harmonic, necessary law;
Then with an indefatigable mind
Analogies incessantly combined
With a foreseen conclusion full in view
He worked the problem till he proved it true.
Is there no spirit of a nobler strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos to divide,
286
For as “the crowd of trees conceals the wood,”
With all things known, with nothing understood,
Perplexed with new results from year to year,
As on the puzzled Ptolemaic sphere
With cycles epicycles scribbled o'er,
Like ancient Philomaths we doze and pore:
Thus Ashmole, Lilly, shine in portraiture
(Dear to the calcographic connoisseur);
While the wise nightcap and the Jacob's staff
Awe the beholder and conceal his laugh.
—If we despair then to decypher nature
With our new facts and novel nomenclature:
Those almanacks of science that appear
Framed and adjusted for the current year,
And warranted correct for months to come;
If calculation fails to find the sum
(A formula to comprehend the whole)
Of countless items on the crowded scroll,
Corrected, re-corrected, and replaced,
Obliterated, interlined, effaced,
Blotted and torn in philosophic squabble,
And endless, unintelligible scrabble;
If the huge labyrinth with its winding ways
Entangled in the inextricable maze,
The wilderness of waste experiment,
Has foiled your weary spirits worn and spent,
Since every path is trodden round and tried,
—Trust for a moment a superior guide;
The trembling needle or the stedfast star,
Some point of lofty mark and distant far,
These shall conduct you, whatsoe'er your fate,
At least in a decided path and strait;
Not running round in circles, evermore
Bewildered and bewitched as heretofore:
Like the poor clown that robbed the wizard's store
Breathless and hurrying in his endless race,
With eager action, and a ghastly face,
By subtle magic tether'd to the place.
Yet let us hope that something may befall!
That things will find their level after all!
That these atomic facts, ever at war,
Tumbled together in perpetual jar,
After a certain period more or less
Will ultimately form or coalesce.
So shall it be! Strife shall engender motion,
And kindle into life each tardy notion.
Keen disputants in a judicial fight,
Sparring with spurs of controversial spite,
In battle-royal shall decide the right.
Till truth's majestic image stands revealed
The sole surviving game-cock in the field!
—That venerable, old, reviewing phrase,
Threadbare and overworn—mark what it says
The fashionable tenet of the time,
Tho' stale in prose, it may be hashed in rhyme.
—When disputants, it says, with hasty zeal
Clash in hard discord like the flint and steel,
The sparks elided from their angry knocks,
Caught in a philosophic tinder-box,
Falling upon materials cut and dried,
With modest brimstone diligently ply'd,
And urged with puffs incessantly supplied,
As an atonement for the noise and scandal,
Will serve to light a scientific candle.
—But no!—the wrath of man never attains
To pure results, nor his ambitious pains,
Nor busy canvas, nor a learned league,
(Except in undermining and intrigue;)
In lonely shades those miracles of thought
Are brought to light. No miracles are wrought
To gratify the scruples or the whim
Of a contentious testy Sanhedrim.
“To satisfy just doubts,” “to guide decision,”
For no such purposes, the mighty vision
Was ever yet vouchsaf'd sudden and bright,
Descending in a soft illapse of light.
Quenching its murky steam of filthy vapour,
It kindles at a touch the fumy taper.
That things will find their level after all!
287
Tumbled together in perpetual jar,
After a certain period more or less
Will ultimately form or coalesce.
So shall it be! Strife shall engender motion,
And kindle into life each tardy notion.
Keen disputants in a judicial fight,
Sparring with spurs of controversial spite,
In battle-royal shall decide the right.
Till truth's majestic image stands revealed
The sole surviving game-cock in the field!
—That venerable, old, reviewing phrase,
Threadbare and overworn—mark what it says
The fashionable tenet of the time,
Tho' stale in prose, it may be hashed in rhyme.
—When disputants, it says, with hasty zeal
Clash in hard discord like the flint and steel,
The sparks elided from their angry knocks,
Caught in a philosophic tinder-box,
Falling upon materials cut and dried,
With modest brimstone diligently ply'd,
And urged with puffs incessantly supplied,
As an atonement for the noise and scandal,
Will serve to light a scientific candle.
—But no!—the wrath of man never attains
To pure results, nor his ambitious pains,
Nor busy canvas, nor a learned league,
(Except in undermining and intrigue;)
In lonely shades those miracles of thought
Are brought to light. No miracles are wrought
To gratify the scruples or the whim
Of a contentious testy Sanhedrim.
“To satisfy just doubts,” “to guide decision,”
For no such purposes, the mighty vision
Was ever yet vouchsaf'd sudden and bright,
Descending in a soft illapse of light.
Quenching its murky steam of filthy vapour,
It kindles at a touch the fumy taper.
Let, then, a new progressive step be tried,
Since light and heat, it is not now denied,
Are agents, consubstantial and allied.
Now for this other power, which we must call
(Taking a single quality for all)
Attraction, or the power of gravity,
The power of motion, form, solidity,
Third person of the Pagan Trinity.
This power, then, of attraction, truly viewed,
Displays a likeness and similitude
With light, as a congenial kindred force;
For common reason will concede, of course,
That all attractive forces great and small
Are retroactive and reciprocal;
As when the mariners with trampling feet,
In even cadence round the capstan beat,
Moving in order round the mighty beam,
To warp their vessel against wind and stream,
While the huge cable, with its dripping fold,
In weary coils incessantly enrolled,
Drags forth the labouring vessel to the deep.
The point, then, we have conquer'd, and can keep:
As being drawn itself, the cable draws,
Tho' passive, it becomes a moving cause.
Take then at once the reason and the facts,
Light is attracted, therefore light attracts—
And though the nobler attributes of light
Have left this incident unnoticed quite,
And tho' we find its feebler efforts fail,
Of marked effect on a material scale,
Unheeded and impalpable to sense,
Yet reason must acknowledge its pretence
Enough to range it in a kindred class
Tho' inefficient on the subject mass.
The facts and inferences fairly viewed,
With this result we finally conclude—
If ever Reason justly gave assent
To truths too subtle for experiment,
Then light is an attracting element,
And heat, its congener, will be the same,
A joint supporter of this worldly frame.
Nor these alone—but that attractive force
Described in the first lines of our discourse,
Whose nature and existence known of yore
Was but a portion of the secret store
Of Eastern learning, which the busy Greek,
Active and eager, started forth to seek,
Purchasing here and there a wealthy prize,
Amidst the ruins of the rich and wise,
The mighty sacerdotal monarchies,
Stupendous Egypt—Stately Babylon
By the barbarian Persian overthrown.
(The Chivalrous Barbarian in his line,
A gallant loyal warrior, but in fine
A fierce Iconoclastic Ghibelline!)
Such is the fact—our first historic page
—Herodotus—begins with a dark age,
An age of antient Empires overturned,
Records obliterated, temples burned,
Their living archives, all the learned class,
Methodically murder'd in a mass.
Hence like a sutler at a city's sack,
The wary Grecian pedlar filled his pack,
And cannily contrived to bring it back
With merchandize: such as a pedlar gets,
Remnants and damaged samples, broken sets,
Fragments of plunder, purchased or purloined,
Rich fragments but incongruously joined.
Since light and heat, it is not now denied,
Are agents, consubstantial and allied.
288
(Taking a single quality for all)
Attraction, or the power of gravity,
The power of motion, form, solidity,
Third person of the Pagan Trinity.
This power, then, of attraction, truly viewed,
Displays a likeness and similitude
With light, as a congenial kindred force;
For common reason will concede, of course,
That all attractive forces great and small
Are retroactive and reciprocal;
As when the mariners with trampling feet,
In even cadence round the capstan beat,
Moving in order round the mighty beam,
To warp their vessel against wind and stream,
While the huge cable, with its dripping fold,
In weary coils incessantly enrolled,
Drags forth the labouring vessel to the deep.
The point, then, we have conquer'd, and can keep:
As being drawn itself, the cable draws,
Tho' passive, it becomes a moving cause.
Take then at once the reason and the facts,
Light is attracted, therefore light attracts—
And though the nobler attributes of light
Have left this incident unnoticed quite,
And tho' we find its feebler efforts fail,
Of marked effect on a material scale,
Unheeded and impalpable to sense,
Yet reason must acknowledge its pretence
Enough to range it in a kindred class
Tho' inefficient on the subject mass.
The facts and inferences fairly viewed,
With this result we finally conclude—
If ever Reason justly gave assent
To truths too subtle for experiment,
Then light is an attracting element,
And heat, its congener, will be the same,
A joint supporter of this worldly frame.
Nor these alone—but that attractive force
Described in the first lines of our discourse,
Whose nature and existence known of yore
289
Of Eastern learning, which the busy Greek,
Active and eager, started forth to seek,
Purchasing here and there a wealthy prize,
Amidst the ruins of the rich and wise,
The mighty sacerdotal monarchies,
Stupendous Egypt—Stately Babylon
By the barbarian Persian overthrown.
(The Chivalrous Barbarian in his line,
A gallant loyal warrior, but in fine
A fierce Iconoclastic Ghibelline!)
Such is the fact—our first historic page
—Herodotus—begins with a dark age,
An age of antient Empires overturned,
Records obliterated, temples burned,
Their living archives, all the learned class,
Methodically murder'd in a mass.
Hence like a sutler at a city's sack,
The wary Grecian pedlar filled his pack,
And cannily contrived to bring it back
With merchandize: such as a pedlar gets,
Remnants and damaged samples, broken sets,
Fragments of plunder, purchased or purloined,
Rich fragments but incongruously joined.
The scheme of Hutchinson was incomplete,
It stands without its complement of feet:
A tripod resting upon light and heat
His third supporter fails, limping and bare
Of evidence, his element of air.
His scheme then at the time was doomed to fall,
Or left with lumber propt against the wall,
A maim'd utensil, destitute of use,
Obscure with dust of obsolete abuse—
The learned dust excited in the frays
Of Jacobite and Hanoverian days.
Newton and Cambridge and the Brunswick line,
And Dr. Clarke, and Gracious Caroline,
Matched against Oxford and the right divine.
Whether, in fact, as all opinions mix,
They finally converge to politics,
Or shrewd intriguers had contrived to fix
On their opponents a disloyal stain,
Blind to the glories of so bright a Reign,
The name with Jacobite opinions link't
With Jacobite opinions was extinct:
Each cultivated ornamental prig
Of hybrid form, a parson and a whig,
(A whig by principle or calculation,
A Christian Priest by trade and occupation)
Each smooth aspirant, loyal and correct,
Was bound in policy to shun the sect;
While of the sacred bench each righteous son,
Clayton and Hoadley, and meek Warburton,
Condemned them soul and body, blood and bone!
Meanwhile Sir Isaac's theory of attraction,
Afforded universal satisfaction;
Applauded by the clerical profession
As friendly to the Protestant succession;
A sober well-affected theory
Which none but a nonjuror could deny—
A theory may be false or incomplete,
While the phenomena and the rules may meet;
Conceive (as was imagined formerly)
That vision is ejected from the eye
—You'll find the rules of perspective apply.
We judge from practice the physician's skill,
And let him choose what principles he will,
Bad theories may cure and good ones kill.
First then our drugs and aliments we see,
Dry, cold, or hot in some assigned degree:
Next mathematic learning came in use,
The blood was clogged with particles obtuse:
Poisons were points which antidotes must sheath,
Mechanic action made us move and breathe:
A chemic system rose upon its fall,
Acids and alkalis were all in all:
A change of argument, a change of style,
Mere speculative change, for all the while
The same prescriptions rested on the file,
And while the verbal argument endured,
The patients as before were killed or cured.
It stands without its complement of feet:
A tripod resting upon light and heat
His third supporter fails, limping and bare
Of evidence, his element of air.
His scheme then at the time was doomed to fall,
Or left with lumber propt against the wall,
A maim'd utensil, destitute of use,
Obscure with dust of obsolete abuse—
The learned dust excited in the frays
Of Jacobite and Hanoverian days.
Newton and Cambridge and the Brunswick line,
And Dr. Clarke, and Gracious Caroline,
Matched against Oxford and the right divine.
Whether, in fact, as all opinions mix,
They finally converge to politics,
Or shrewd intriguers had contrived to fix
290
Blind to the glories of so bright a Reign,
The name with Jacobite opinions link't
With Jacobite opinions was extinct:
Each cultivated ornamental prig
Of hybrid form, a parson and a whig,
(A whig by principle or calculation,
A Christian Priest by trade and occupation)
Each smooth aspirant, loyal and correct,
Was bound in policy to shun the sect;
While of the sacred bench each righteous son,
Clayton and Hoadley, and meek Warburton,
Condemned them soul and body, blood and bone!
Meanwhile Sir Isaac's theory of attraction,
Afforded universal satisfaction;
Applauded by the clerical profession
As friendly to the Protestant succession;
A sober well-affected theory
Which none but a nonjuror could deny—
A theory may be false or incomplete,
While the phenomena and the rules may meet;
Conceive (as was imagined formerly)
That vision is ejected from the eye
—You'll find the rules of perspective apply.
We judge from practice the physician's skill,
And let him choose what principles he will,
Bad theories may cure and good ones kill.
First then our drugs and aliments we see,
Dry, cold, or hot in some assigned degree:
Next mathematic learning came in use,
The blood was clogged with particles obtuse:
Poisons were points which antidotes must sheath,
Mechanic action made us move and breathe:
A chemic system rose upon its fall,
Acids and alkalis were all in all:
A change of argument, a change of style,
Mere speculative change, for all the while
The same prescriptions rested on the file,
And while the verbal argument endured,
The patients as before were killed or cured.
A theory that enables us to plant
A tortoise underneath our elephant,
But wants a creature of some other sort,
To serve us for our tortoise's support:
In other words it teaches us the laws
—Of motion and attraction—not the cause.
The laws are undisputed, and we see
How punctually predicted facts agree;
Meanwhile the cause unnoticed or denied
Is with a monstrous postulate supplied:
First we suppose that our terrestrial ball,
Launched forth with an enormous capital
Of motion—like a wandering prodigal
Without a stipend of in-coming rent,
In all his course of travel, has not spent
One stiver of the first allotted sum,
Nor ever will, for ages yet to come.
The quantum still remains as heretofore,
An unexhausted, undiminished store,
The same precisely, neither less nor more;
An article of faith hard to digest,
If common sense and nature are the test,
Yet proselytes must bolt it, husk and bran,
And keep it on their stomachs if they can—
—No theory or conjecture, not a notion,
Of the first causes of a planet's motion!
Whence it originates no creature knows,
But with a given impulse forth it goes;
Attraction's laws prohibit it to roam,
And bind the wand'rer to his central home;
Else had the wretched orb been whirl'd away,
Far from the stars of night and beams of day,
A cheerless, endless, solitary way.
Rescued, and grateful for the glad reprieve,
It gilds the morn or decks the front of eve,
And winds a joyous uneccentric way
In the warm precincts of the solar ray:
Obedient system clears the bounds of space
From all that might retard the yearly race.
The same incessant circuit is pursued,
With the same force for ages unrenewed,
And sages of the sacred gown conclude.
That independent of an acting cause,
The properties of matters, motions, laws,
Preserve the punctual planet in his sphere,
Ordain the seasons and bring round the year—
See here the lessons reverend gownsmen teach,
The proud result of Learning's utmost reach.
291
But wants a creature of some other sort,
To serve us for our tortoise's support:
In other words it teaches us the laws
—Of motion and attraction—not the cause.
The laws are undisputed, and we see
How punctually predicted facts agree;
Meanwhile the cause unnoticed or denied
Is with a monstrous postulate supplied:
First we suppose that our terrestrial ball,
Launched forth with an enormous capital
Of motion—like a wandering prodigal
Without a stipend of in-coming rent,
In all his course of travel, has not spent
One stiver of the first allotted sum,
Nor ever will, for ages yet to come.
The quantum still remains as heretofore,
An unexhausted, undiminished store,
The same precisely, neither less nor more;
An article of faith hard to digest,
If common sense and nature are the test,
Yet proselytes must bolt it, husk and bran,
And keep it on their stomachs if they can—
—No theory or conjecture, not a notion,
Of the first causes of a planet's motion!
Whence it originates no creature knows,
But with a given impulse forth it goes;
Attraction's laws prohibit it to roam,
And bind the wand'rer to his central home;
Else had the wretched orb been whirl'd away,
Far from the stars of night and beams of day,
A cheerless, endless, solitary way.
Rescued, and grateful for the glad reprieve,
It gilds the morn or decks the front of eve,
And winds a joyous uneccentric way
In the warm precincts of the solar ray:
Obedient system clears the bounds of space
From all that might retard the yearly race.
The same incessant circuit is pursued,
With the same force for ages unrenewed,
And sages of the sacred gown conclude.
292
The properties of matters, motions, laws,
Preserve the punctual planet in his sphere,
Ordain the seasons and bring round the year—
See here the lessons reverend gownsmen teach,
The proud result of Learning's utmost reach.
Since wisest moderns have approved it true,
We take it as a fact—Nothing is new.
No—not the boast of this new century,
Our busy science of geology;
The terms of parturition and of birth
Express the first development of earth.
“This habitable earth, cheerful and fair,
“Heaved from the teeming depth to light and air;”
This truth which Hutton's school has taught us newly
Where do we find it first? In Moses truly!
You see the passage paraphrased and quoted,
In the two lines above with commas noted,
Much weaker than the original. Again—
The wisest, in his time, of living men
Adopts the same expression, adding more,
How the protruded mountains pierced the core
Of secondary strata formed before,
Even as a finger passing thro' “a ring,”
This truth was known to the “sapient king—”
See Proverbs, chapter eight, verse twenty-five,
And try what other meaning you can give;
Or take the converse; to characterise
The sense proposed, and frame it otherwise,
In Hebrew words, clearer and more precise;
And we shall hail you when the task is done
A better scholar than King Solomon—
—The Hetrurian priesthood knew the identity
Of lightning and of electricity.
Discovery or tradition!—Such things were
Sources of hidden knowledge, deep and rare,
Before the days of Franklin and Voltaire,
(In the good days of old idolatry,
And priestcraft! undisturbed by blasphemy)
—Or tell me! By what strange coincidence
Is the same word employed in the same sense,
A single word that serves to signify
The electric substance and the Deity
Of storms and lightning; (their Elician Jove)
Whom with due rites invoked from the dark clouds above,
The priest attracted downwards! woe betide
The novice that presumptuously tried,
Ignorant of the ritual and the form,
To dally with the Deity of the storm;
Like the rash Roman king, by the dread stroke,
Which his unpractised art dared to provoke,
Smitten and slain; a just example made
For ancient sovereigns who might dare to invade,
And tamper with the sacerdotal trade.
We take it as a fact—Nothing is new.
No—not the boast of this new century,
Our busy science of geology;
The terms of parturition and of birth
Express the first development of earth.
“This habitable earth, cheerful and fair,
“Heaved from the teeming depth to light and air;”
This truth which Hutton's school has taught us newly
Where do we find it first? In Moses truly!
You see the passage paraphrased and quoted,
In the two lines above with commas noted,
Much weaker than the original. Again—
The wisest, in his time, of living men
Adopts the same expression, adding more,
How the protruded mountains pierced the core
Of secondary strata formed before,
Even as a finger passing thro' “a ring,”
This truth was known to the “sapient king—”
See Proverbs, chapter eight, verse twenty-five,
And try what other meaning you can give;
Or take the converse; to characterise
The sense proposed, and frame it otherwise,
In Hebrew words, clearer and more precise;
And we shall hail you when the task is done
A better scholar than King Solomon—
—The Hetrurian priesthood knew the identity
Of lightning and of electricity.
Discovery or tradition!—Such things were
Sources of hidden knowledge, deep and rare,
Before the days of Franklin and Voltaire,
(In the good days of old idolatry,
And priestcraft! undisturbed by blasphemy)
—Or tell me! By what strange coincidence
Is the same word employed in the same sense,
293
The electric substance and the Deity
Of storms and lightning; (their Elician Jove)
Whom with due rites invoked from the dark clouds above,
The priest attracted downwards! woe betide
The novice that presumptuously tried,
Ignorant of the ritual and the form,
To dally with the Deity of the storm;
Like the rash Roman king, by the dread stroke,
Which his unpractised art dared to provoke,
Smitten and slain; a just example made
For ancient sovereigns who might dare to invade,
And tamper with the sacerdotal trade.
In the vast depths of ocean far below,
Where neither storms disturb nor currents flow,
Fish would remain unconscious of the water:
And reason, if experience had not taught her
By the rude impulse of the changeful wind,
Mere common understanding would not find,
That air existed—Nothing here below,
Unless it can be felt or make a show,
Is marked or heeded, nothing else we know.
If light were universally displayed
Without its opposites, darkness and shade,
Constant and uniform in operation,
It never would attract our observation.
Where neither storms disturb nor currents flow,
Fish would remain unconscious of the water:
And reason, if experience had not taught her
By the rude impulse of the changeful wind,
Mere common understanding would not find,
That air existed—Nothing here below,
Unless it can be felt or make a show,
Is marked or heeded, nothing else we know.
If light were universally displayed
Without its opposites, darkness and shade,
Constant and uniform in operation,
It never would attract our observation.
Suppose the case, and that it were denied
That light existed—how could we decide,
Or judge the question by what test applied?
Strong Reason and superior Art perhaps,
Long labouring in a long continued lapse
Of ages, might at length attain to show
What infants from their first impression know:
—“Ever the same yesterday and to-day;”
Powers that exhibit no phenomena,
(No signs of life in change or difference)
To the mere understanding and the sense,
Are non-existencies; but here again,
Can our acknowledged principles explain
All our acknowledged facts? Do none remain?
When causes are assigned to their effects,
Will there be no Lacuna, no defects,
Nothing anomalous or unexplained?
I doubt it—otherwise the point is gained;
The point, I presuppose, that there exists
An unacknowledged power, that as it lists
Rules paramount in its domain of air,
Guiding its endless eddies here and there:
But whither or from whence the currents flow,
Their source or end our senses cannot show,
And science never has attained to know.
That light existed—how could we decide,
Or judge the question by what test applied?
Strong Reason and superior Art perhaps,
Long labouring in a long continued lapse
Of ages, might at length attain to show
What infants from their first impression know:
—“Ever the same yesterday and to-day;”
Powers that exhibit no phenomena,
(No signs of life in change or difference)
To the mere understanding and the sense,
Are non-existencies; but here again,
Can our acknowledged principles explain
All our acknowledged facts? Do none remain?
294
Will there be no Lacuna, no defects,
Nothing anomalous or unexplained?
I doubt it—otherwise the point is gained;
The point, I presuppose, that there exists
An unacknowledged power, that as it lists
Rules paramount in its domain of air,
Guiding its endless eddies here and there:
But whither or from whence the currents flow,
Their source or end our senses cannot show,
And science never has attained to know.
Darwin has sung in verse beyond compare,
That in the North, beneath the Frozen Bear,
A huge chamelion spits and swallows air.
In fact, an instantaneous formation,
And a precipitous annihilation
Of our aerial fluid seems implied
In facts not yet developed or denied.
As in a whirlpool's strife the waters flow,
Pressing in eager eddies as they go
Precipitously to the void below,
In their own giddy circle wheeled and held
By mutual haste impelling and impell'd:
With a like action airy currents move
To some unseen and hasty void above.
Now mark a strong coincidence!—Compare
The whirlpool's centre with its spire of air
Drawn downwards; and behold the waters move
From the smooth ocean's surface rear'd above
In fluid spires! Phenomena like these,
The careless seaman, in the summer seas,
Views unalarmed, the momentary play
Of nature's power, an innocent display.
But what a power is here! how little known,
That not beneath the Frozen north alone,
As Darwin deemed, but in the sultry zone
Exists and acts—an atmosphere destroyed,
And the creation of an instant void!
What other explanation can be found?
You see the watery columns whirling round,
They rise and move while Gravitation's laws
Are modified by a suspending clause—
In fine, if all our explanations fail,
When neither reason nor research avail
To solve the difficulty, this remains
The fair result and guerdon of our pains—
That ex absurdo thus it might be shown
That Gravity has phenomena of its own.
Thus far, at least, we might presume to say—
Here is a power without phenomena,
And the phenomena of a power unknown,
If both can be combined and brought in one
We gain a point, and something may be done.
The mere suggestion sure may be permitted:
No damage is incurred, no harm committed,
If not, they both remain on their own score
Obscure and unconnected as before.
That in the North, beneath the Frozen Bear,
A huge chamelion spits and swallows air.
In fact, an instantaneous formation,
And a precipitous annihilation
Of our aerial fluid seems implied
In facts not yet developed or denied.
As in a whirlpool's strife the waters flow,
Pressing in eager eddies as they go
Precipitously to the void below,
In their own giddy circle wheeled and held
By mutual haste impelling and impell'd:
With a like action airy currents move
To some unseen and hasty void above.
Now mark a strong coincidence!—Compare
The whirlpool's centre with its spire of air
Drawn downwards; and behold the waters move
From the smooth ocean's surface rear'd above
In fluid spires! Phenomena like these,
The careless seaman, in the summer seas,
Views unalarmed, the momentary play
Of nature's power, an innocent display.
But what a power is here! how little known,
That not beneath the Frozen north alone,
As Darwin deemed, but in the sultry zone
Exists and acts—an atmosphere destroyed,
And the creation of an instant void!
What other explanation can be found?
You see the watery columns whirling round,
295
Are modified by a suspending clause—
In fine, if all our explanations fail,
When neither reason nor research avail
To solve the difficulty, this remains
The fair result and guerdon of our pains—
That ex absurdo thus it might be shown
That Gravity has phenomena of its own.
Thus far, at least, we might presume to say—
Here is a power without phenomena,
And the phenomena of a power unknown,
If both can be combined and brought in one
We gain a point, and something may be done.
The mere suggestion sure may be permitted:
No damage is incurred, no harm committed,
If not, they both remain on their own score
Obscure and unconnected as before.
Now then, resuming what before was stated,
We seek to show the converse: Air created,
And a continued efflux generated,
Where seamen witness in a cloudless sky
A driving hurricane eager and dry,
Continuous fury—without pause or shift
Its unappeasable, impetuous drift
Scourges and harasses the main for hours,
For days, for weeks, with unabated powers,
The Spirit of the Tempest hurries by,
With hideous impulse, and a piercing cry,
A persevering wild monotony.
Shorn of her topmast, all her goodly pride
And rich attire of canvas stript aside;
In a bare staysail, with an abject mien,
The vessel labours in the deep ravine,
A watery vale that intercepts the sight,
Or in an instant hurried to the height,
Pauses upon the fluid precipice,
Then downward to the dark and deep abyss
Shoots forth afresh, and with a plunging shock
Achieves the leap of her Tarpeian rock.
Her joints of massy frame compactly clenched
With the tormenting strain, are racked and wrenched;
The baffled mariners, forlorn and pale,
Beneath eternal buffet droop and fail.
—Yet strange it seems the while! no signs are given
Betokening hope or fear—no vapour driven
In quick career across the void of Heaven!
Tranquil and calm and blank, the mighty space
Wears an unconscious and unruffled face
Impassive in sublimity serene,
Mocking our toil, smiling upon the scene!
And yet the strong commotion was foretold,
(The sign Archilochus beheld of old)
The crooked, wicked cloud that, creeping slow
Around the distant mountain's haughty brow,
Folded its angry wreath, settled and fixed,
Coiled in itself, unmoving and unmixed,
—A talismanic atmospheric spell—
The wary seaman knew the signal well;
The seal of wrath: and from the token drew
A timely warning, terrible but true—
—Will the known principles of any school,
Will hydrostatic laws, or those which rule
The motions of elastic fluids guide
Our judgment, or assist us to decide
On facts like these? Alas! when all is said,
We seek a living power among the dead,
And struggle to draw water in a sieve.
The cause of such effects must act and live,
Subsisting as a separate element,
Not as a mere result and accident
A simple passive thing urged or controuled
By change of cold to heat, or heat to cold,
The vassal of a fickle temperature,
But a distinct and active power of nature.
We seek to show the converse: Air created,
And a continued efflux generated,
Where seamen witness in a cloudless sky
A driving hurricane eager and dry,
Continuous fury—without pause or shift
Its unappeasable, impetuous drift
Scourges and harasses the main for hours,
For days, for weeks, with unabated powers,
The Spirit of the Tempest hurries by,
With hideous impulse, and a piercing cry,
A persevering wild monotony.
Shorn of her topmast, all her goodly pride
And rich attire of canvas stript aside;
In a bare staysail, with an abject mien,
The vessel labours in the deep ravine,
A watery vale that intercepts the sight,
Or in an instant hurried to the height,
Pauses upon the fluid precipice,
Then downward to the dark and deep abyss
Shoots forth afresh, and with a plunging shock
Achieves the leap of her Tarpeian rock.
Her joints of massy frame compactly clenched
With the tormenting strain, are racked and wrenched;
296
Beneath eternal buffet droop and fail.
—Yet strange it seems the while! no signs are given
Betokening hope or fear—no vapour driven
In quick career across the void of Heaven!
Tranquil and calm and blank, the mighty space
Wears an unconscious and unruffled face
Impassive in sublimity serene,
Mocking our toil, smiling upon the scene!
And yet the strong commotion was foretold,
(The sign Archilochus beheld of old)
The crooked, wicked cloud that, creeping slow
Around the distant mountain's haughty brow,
Folded its angry wreath, settled and fixed,
Coiled in itself, unmoving and unmixed,
—A talismanic atmospheric spell—
The wary seaman knew the signal well;
The seal of wrath: and from the token drew
A timely warning, terrible but true—
—Will the known principles of any school,
Will hydrostatic laws, or those which rule
The motions of elastic fluids guide
Our judgment, or assist us to decide
On facts like these? Alas! when all is said,
We seek a living power among the dead,
And struggle to draw water in a sieve.
The cause of such effects must act and live,
Subsisting as a separate element,
Not as a mere result and accident
A simple passive thing urged or controuled
By change of cold to heat, or heat to cold,
The vassal of a fickle temperature,
But a distinct and active power of nature.
297
TO A LADY WITH A PRESENT OF A WALKING STICK.
A compliment upon a crutchDoes not appear to promise much;
A theme no lover ever chose
For writing billet-doux in prose,
Or for an amatory sonnet;
But thus I may comment upon it.
Its heart is whole, its head is bright,
'Tis smooth and yielding, yet upright.
In this you see an emblem of the donor,
Clear and unblemished as his honor,
Formed for your use, framed to your hand,
Obedient to your least command.
Its proper place is by your side,
Its main utility and pride
To be your prop, support, and guide.
298
LINES ON ED. NUCELLA, ESQ., ÆT. 75.
DANCES; GOES LONG JOURNEYS; AND WALKS SIX MILES AN HOUR FOR TWO HOURS DAILY.
See the spirit and the vigourOf an aged hearty figure,
Fit to dance and fit to sing,
Fit for any kind of thing,
To be sober, to be sad,
To be merry, to be mad;
Never weary or afraid,
Undejected, undismayed,
With a manner and a tone,
A demeanour of his own,
Like a former age reviving,
Lingering among the living.
1833.
299
WRITTEN IN THE FLY-LEAF OF MR. POLLOK'S POEM, “THE COURSE OF TIME.”
Robert Pollok, A.M! this work of yoursIs meant, I do not doubt, extremely well,
And the design I deem most laudable,
But since I find the book laid on my table,
I shall presume (with the fair owner's leave)
To note a single slight deficiency:
I mean, in short (since it is called a poem),
That in the course of ten successive books
If something in the shape of poetry
Were to be met with, we should like it better;
But nothing of the kind is to be found,
Nothing, alas! but words of the olden time,
Quaint and uncouth, contorted phrase and queer,
With the familiar language that befits
Tea-drinking parties most unmeetly matched.
1832.
SPAIN.
Alas, alas! for the fair land of Spain,That noble and haughty nation, whose domain,
Stretched from the rising to the setting sun,
Are not her judgments even now begun?
Is she not marked and sealed, stamped with the stain
Of unrelenting fiery persecution?
And this the final hour of retribution
Fallen upon her? her that we beheld
Roused into wrath unquenchable, unquelled,
Disarmed and circumvented and betrayed
With an unanimous outbreak undismayed,
Daring him single-handed to the fight,
The fiend whose recreation and delight
300
The multitudinous European herd,
A meaner Race,
Politic and refined, sordid and base,
Enlightened, scientific, and polite,
Courts, cabinets, and camps crouched in affright,
Nor was their cumbrous and unwieldy strength
Roused by the fierce example, till at length
They saw the new Sennacherib down cast,
Smitten and withered in the wintry blast
With all his legions: then the cry went forth
Summoning to the field the people north,
Swarming in arms, and the quick life and soul
That had excited Spain inspired the whole.
Then warfare in another form was seen,
The strenuous effort—the people's strife,
And the tremendous tactical machine,
Moved on its mighty wheels instinct with life.
Malta, 1844.
HEXAMETERS.
Malta, sovereign isle, the destined seat and asylum
Of chivalry, honour, and arms—the nursing mother of heroes,
Mirror of ancient days, monumental trophy recording
All that of old was felt, or feared, or achieved, or attempted,
When proud Europe's strength, restored with the slumber of ages,
Roused and awoke to behold the triumphant impious empire
Throned in the East, and vaunting aloud with lordly defiance;
When from the Euxine shore to the Caspian and to the southern
Vast Erythrean main to the Gulfs of Ophir and Ormus,
Lydia Syrian Sion and all the dominion eastward,
Which the old Assyrian controlled to the bounds of Imaus,
Bowed to the Sultan's yoke: when slavery bitter and hopeless,
Hopeless and helpless, oppressed the dejected lowly believers.
Of chivalry, honour, and arms—the nursing mother of heroes,
Mirror of ancient days, monumental trophy recording
All that of old was felt, or feared, or achieved, or attempted,
When proud Europe's strength, restored with the slumber of ages,
Roused and awoke to behold the triumphant impious empire
Throned in the East, and vaunting aloud with lordly defiance;
When from the Euxine shore to the Caspian and to the southern
Vast Erythrean main to the Gulfs of Ophir and Ormus,
Lydia Syrian Sion and all the dominion eastward,
Which the old Assyrian controlled to the bounds of Imaus,
301
Hopeless and helpless, oppressed the dejected lowly believers.
Thence to the setting sun, where Mauritanian Atlas,
Chilled with eternal snows in a boundless cheerless horizon,
Views the deserted plain where Carthage, briefly triumphant,
(Africa's only boast, the rival of Italy, Carthage,)
Claimed for a while to command the subject world, and accomplish'd
That which destiny doom'd—her dark oblivion's annals
Torn and blotted in hate; her policy, valour, and ancient
Glory reduced to a scoff; with a proverb left to the pedant,
Thence enslaved and adorn'd with the toys of slavery—temples
Palaces, arches, baths—till they, the remorseless, apostate
Infidel enemy came to avenge that gaudy debasement,
Trampling in hate and scorn laws, learning, lazy religion,
Luxury, sumptuous art, antiquity. Woe to the vanquish'd!
Woe to the fields of Spain, to the towers of lordly Toledo,
Wealthy Valencia, proud Castile, and stately Granada!
Chilled with eternal snows in a boundless cheerless horizon,
Views the deserted plain where Carthage, briefly triumphant,
(Africa's only boast, the rival of Italy, Carthage,)
Claimed for a while to command the subject world, and accomplish'd
That which destiny doom'd—her dark oblivion's annals
Torn and blotted in hate; her policy, valour, and ancient
Glory reduced to a scoff; with a proverb left to the pedant,
Thence enslaved and adorn'd with the toys of slavery—temples
Palaces, arches, baths—till they, the remorseless, apostate
Infidel enemy came to avenge that gaudy debasement,
Trampling in hate and scorn laws, learning, lazy religion,
Luxury, sumptuous art, antiquity. Woe to the vanquish'd!
Woe to the fields of Spain, to the towers of lordly Toledo,
Wealthy Valencia, proud Castile, and stately Granada!
Woe to the Gascon tribes, to the mountain glens, to the lonely
Pyrenean abodes, to the herdsman and hunter and hermit;
Even amidst your shades, your woody recesses, and inmost
Rocky ravines, shall the armed tide with hideous impulse
Rise and inundate all, pouring, precipitous, headlong,
Forth to the fields of France.
Pyrenean abodes, to the herdsman and hunter and hermit;
Even amidst your shades, your woody recesses, and inmost
Rocky ravines, shall the armed tide with hideous impulse
Rise and inundate all, pouring, precipitous, headlong,
Forth to the fields of France.
THE BUBBLE YEAR.
Might we not hope, with humble confidence,That finally a benignant Providence
Will extricate the British nation
From her embarrassed situation,
And graciously dispense
An earthquake or a pestilence.
An earthquake would be far the best,
To set the question once for all, at rest;
Sinking the sister isle
At least a statute mile,
With a low, subsiding motion,
Beneath the level of the German Ocean,
302
Into something queer and strange:
Then if their “bones are coral made.”
They may supply the British trade
With an important new commodity:
Besides, when each Papistic churl
Shall have his eye-balls turn'd to pearl,
When “those are pearls which were his eyes.”
When each invaluable ball
Is fish'd to light by British enterprize
And British capital,
To what a premium will the shares arise.
308
EPITAPH ON LORD LAVINGTON.
WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF LADY LAVINGTON.
With every part well acted—life enjoyed,And every talent to the last employed,
Here Lavington is laid; a people's grief
Consigns to memory their regretted chief.
That easy vein of unaffected sense,
The wit devoid of effort or offence,
The cordial welcome and the smile sincere
To living memory long shall linger near.
Not that they feared those traces to forget,
Their ready suffrage paid the general debt,
And gave this lasting form to long regret.
No, fixt to future years they bid it stand,
A record of well exercised command.
Strict and exact, though popular and kind,
Discordant virtues in a single mind;
High principles with easy manners join'd,
A courtier's graces, but without his art;
A patriot's zeal where faction had no part,
And manly virtues in a gentle heart.
EPITAPH ON LORD NELSON.
The fragile texture of this earthly form,
Which Death has stript aside and cast below,
Must never more be shaken by the storm,
Nor worn with care, nor shatter'd by the foe.
Which Death has stript aside and cast below,
Must never more be shaken by the storm,
Nor worn with care, nor shatter'd by the foe.
At war's grim sacrifice in fire and blood
My living presence never must preside;
The keen pursuit across the trackless flood
My watchful spirit never more must guide.
My living presence never must preside;
The keen pursuit across the trackless flood
My watchful spirit never more must guide.
309
Britons, farewell! Our country's utmost claim,
My life, my labours all are past and paid;
The tears of vain regret, the toys of fame,
Are idle offerings to your champion's shade.
My life, my labours all are past and paid;
The tears of vain regret, the toys of fame,
Are idle offerings to your champion's shade.
This only tribute to my memory give:—
In all your struggles, both by land and sea,
Let Nelson's name in emulation live,
And in the hour of danger think on me.
In all your struggles, both by land and sea,
Let Nelson's name in emulation live,
And in the hour of danger think on me.
EPITAPH ON THE REV. WALTER WHITER,
AUTHOR OF THE “ETYMOLOGICON UNIVERSALE,” ETC. ETC.
If, wandering here, the learned or the wiseShould wish to view the spot where Whiter lies,
Here is his last abode! and close beside
The simple dwelling where he lived and died.
For forty years an unpromoted priest,
310
By genius and by learning placed above
The greedy, noisy, literary drove
Immeasurably high. Without a frown,
He views the silly press, the busy town,
And clouds of blockheads clamouring for renown.
The purpose of his life, its end and aim
The search of hidden truth; careless of fame,
Of empty dignities or dirty pelf,
Learning he sought—and loved it for itself.
1834.
311
EPITAPHS ON MR. CANNING.
While sister arts in rivalry combineFor Canning's honour,—Sculpture and Design,
Verse claims her portion; a memorial line
Such as he lov'd; and fittest to rehearse
His merit and his praises—Truth in verse.
The pride of Honor, and the love of Truth,
Adorn'd his age, and dignified his youth.
Approv'd thro' life, and tried with every test,
In power, in favour, in disgrace, confest
The first of his coevals, and the best.
Unchanged thro' life, from Childhood's early day,
Playfully wise, and innocently gay,
Ever the same; with wit correctly pure,
Reason miraculously premature,
Vivid imagination ever new,
Decision instantaneously true,
A fervid and precipitated power
312
What tardier wits, with toil of many a day,
Polish'd to less perfection by delay.
By nature gifted with a power and skill
To charm the heart, and subjugate the will:
Born with an ancient name of little worth,
And disinherited before his birth;
A landless Orphan—rank and wealth and pride
Were freely rang'd around him; nor denied
His clear precedence, and the warrant given
Of nobler rank; stamp'd by the hand of Heav'n
In every form of genius and of grace,
In loftiness of thought, figure and face.
Such Canning was: and, half a century past,
Such all the world beheld him to the last:
Admir'd of all, and by the best approv'd,
By those, who best had known him, best belov'd;
His Sovereign's support and the people's choice,
When Europe's balance trembled on the poise,
Call'd to command by their united voice;
Fate snatch'd him from the applauding world; the first
Omen of Europe's danger, and the worst.
ANOTHER ON THE SAME, SHOULD THE FORMER BE CONSIDERED TOO LONG.
While sister arts in rivalry combineFor Canning's honor,—Sculpture and Design,
Verse claims her portion; a memorial line
Such as he lov'd; and fittest to rehearse
His merit and his praises—Truth in verse.
Truth was his idol; and the pride of truth
Adorn'd his age, and dignified his youth.
313
Reason miraculously premature,
Vivid imagination ever new,
Decision instantaneously true.
By nature gifted with a power and skill
To charm the heart, and subjugate the will,
Admir'd of all, and by the best approv'd,
By those, who best had known him, best belov'd;
His Sovereign's support, and the people's choice,
When Europe's balance trembled on the poise,
Call'd to command by their united voice:
Fate snatch'd him from the applauding world; the first
Omen of Europe's danger, and the worst.
ANOTHER MORE CONCISE.
I was destroyed by Wellington and Grey.They both succeeded. Each has had his day.
Both tried to govern, each in his own way;
And both repent of it—as well they may!
LINES INSCRIBED IN ROYDON CHURCH
[_]
In Memory of his nephews, Temple and Griffith Frere, the eldest and the youngest son of Temple and Jane Frere. The elder was drowned when saving the life of a fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge; and the younger died in the fire which consumed the Vicarage House, at Warfield, Berks.
A manly tender heart, a form and frame
Heroical, the pride of all his race,
Their pride and hope in early youth he came
An unexpected inmate of the place
Ordain'd for all that breathe on earth below.
Exempted from the common ills of life,
Heroical, the pride of all his race,
Their pride and hope in early youth he came
An unexpected inmate of the place
Ordain'd for all that breathe on earth below.
Exempted from the common ills of life,
314
No wearisome disease, painful and slow,
No wild excess, nor youthful hasty strife,
Consigned him to the tomb. The prompt endeavour
Of a kind heart to succour and to save,
Darkened our dawn of hope, and closed for ever
His rising worth in an untimely grave.
No wild excess, nor youthful hasty strife,
Consigned him to the tomb. The prompt endeavour
Of a kind heart to succour and to save,
Darkened our dawn of hope, and closed for ever
His rising worth in an untimely grave.
Deem them not unprepared, nor overtaken
At unawares, whose daily life is pure.
God's chosen children never are forsaken:
His mercies and his promises are sure.
At unawares, whose daily life is pure.
God's chosen children never are forsaken:
His mercies and his promises are sure.
TABLET IN ROYDON CHURCH.
[_]
Richard Edward Frere, sixth son of Edward and Mary Anne Frere, born at Llanelly, Brecknockshire, 28th February, 1817, died at Rawul Pindee Punjab, 18th November, 1842, Lieùtenant in H.M. 13th Regiment Light Infantry.
Sends forth to distant enterprise and strife
Her daring offspring: we must not repine
If, from the frozen circle to the line,
Our graves lie scattered: and the sole relief
For kindred sorrow and parental grief
Is, to record upon an empty tomb
Honour and worth, and their untimely doom.
LINES ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD EDWARD FRERE.
WRITTEN FOR A MONUMENT PROPOSED TO BE ERECTED BY HIS BROTHER OFFICERS.
In early youth, with a determined heart,I sought to study war's tremendous art;
Thence all that studious hours or busy thought,
Or rudimental discipline had taught,
To the true test of practice was applied,
For daily scenes of action proved and tried.
315
I placed our colours on the citadel;
Thence other toils and hardships were essayed,
An unexampled siege and marches made
Twice to Cabool and homewards in a line
Of inexpugnable defiles—in fine,
We visited again that Indian flood
Improvidently passed, and gladly stood
In a secure and peaceable domain,
When a severer foe, disease and pain,
Approach'd, and in that hard assault I fell,
A soldier! having served and suffer'd well;
My duties all discharged, with a firm mind,
Tranquil and pure, and peaceably resigned,
My course is closed; and if I leave a name
Unregister'd upon the rolls of fame,
Still my kind comrades' care may make it known,
Recording on a monumental stone
A gentle, generous spirit like their own.
LINES
DESCRIBING THE ALTERED FEELINGS AND CHARACTER OF THE APOSTLES BEFORE AND AFTER THE EFFUSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
—“And he took------the twelve, and began to tell them what things should
happen unto him.”—
Mark x. 32.
Alas, what words are these! we vainly thought
When Israel's redemption should be wrought,
And David's ancient dynasty restored,
That we—the first disciples of the Lord,
Whom his own wise and understanding heart
Had chosen for himself, and classed apart
From the promiscuous giddy multitude,
The gazing, empty crowd, fickle and rude,
Taught in his secret hours to feel the force
And unsuspected depth of his discourse:
On whose behalf, vouchsafing to perform
His mightiest miracle, he rebuked the storm—
On the lone waves, and at the midnight hour
That wondrous act of elemental power
Was wrought; and the presumptuous challenge given
(The challenge to produce a sign from heaven)
Was answered—for our comfort and behoof!
To fix our faith affording us a proof
Of his assured divinity, denied
To the demand of Pharisaic pride!—
Ordain'd in pairs, on his own errand sent,
For works of love and mercy forth we went,
When, as our faith availed us, the distrest
Were healed, and evil spirits dispossest,
And our kind Lord, unused to show concern,
Rejoiced in spirit at our glad return.
Thus therefore, as distinguish'd and preferr'd
To the proud learned and the vulgar herd—
—We deem'd that his disciples and his friends
Might look in cheerful hope to loftier ends;
That when the promised kingdom was his own,
With a deputed power, each on his throne,
We might preside, sitting in humble state
With our great Chief, gravely subordinate.
When Israel's redemption should be wrought,
And David's ancient dynasty restored,
That we—the first disciples of the Lord,
Whom his own wise and understanding heart
Had chosen for himself, and classed apart
From the promiscuous giddy multitude,
The gazing, empty crowd, fickle and rude,
Taught in his secret hours to feel the force
And unsuspected depth of his discourse:
On whose behalf, vouchsafing to perform
316
On the lone waves, and at the midnight hour
That wondrous act of elemental power
Was wrought; and the presumptuous challenge given
(The challenge to produce a sign from heaven)
Was answered—for our comfort and behoof!
To fix our faith affording us a proof
Of his assured divinity, denied
To the demand of Pharisaic pride!—
Ordain'd in pairs, on his own errand sent,
For works of love and mercy forth we went,
When, as our faith availed us, the distrest
Were healed, and evil spirits dispossest,
And our kind Lord, unused to show concern,
Rejoiced in spirit at our glad return.
Thus therefore, as distinguish'd and preferr'd
To the proud learned and the vulgar herd—
—We deem'd that his disciples and his friends
Might look in cheerful hope to loftier ends;
That when the promised kingdom was his own,
With a deputed power, each on his throne,
We might preside, sitting in humble state
With our great Chief, gravely subordinate.
And must it end in this? must we behold
The sad result so fatally foretold?
Our promised Saviour, our expected King,
Reduced to a rejected, abject thing!
Must we behold him baffled and defied,
Insulted and tormented—crucified?
The sad result so fatally foretold?
Our promised Saviour, our expected King,
Reduced to a rejected, abject thing!
Must we behold him baffled and defied,
Insulted and tormented—crucified?
Far other thoughts were ours, of happy days,
Of peaceful empire, glory, power, and praise,
Of all the nations of the world combined
Beneath the rule of an harmonious mind,
A divine spirit affable and kind.
Of peaceful empire, glory, power, and praise,
Of all the nations of the world combined
Beneath the rule of an harmonious mind,
A divine spirit affable and kind.
Must we behold him thus? we that have seen
His tender and compassionating mien
When witnessing in others the distress
Of griefs in daily life lighter and less!
His tender and compassionating mien
When witnessing in others the distress
Of griefs in daily life lighter and less!
All vanishes at once! the long delusion
Of our mistaken hopes—fears and confusion
Must haunt our future years! where shall we find
The firm support of his celestial mind,
For exhortation, comfort, or reproof;
Dispersed, pursued, and scattered wide aloof
Without a master and without a friend,
Sinking in shame for his opprobrious end;
Outcasts of every synagogue—the scorn
Of Jews and heathen—hated and forlorn!
Of our mistaken hopes—fears and confusion
Must haunt our future years! where shall we find
317
For exhortation, comfort, or reproof;
Dispersed, pursued, and scattered wide aloof
Without a master and without a friend,
Sinking in shame for his opprobrious end;
Outcasts of every synagogue—the scorn
Of Jews and heathen—hated and forlorn!
Such were the thoughts the poor apostles had,
Communing in their hearts, cheerless, and sad,
Weakness and faith united! grief and love!
Till strengthened by the Spirit from above.
Communing in their hearts, cheerless, and sad,
Weakness and faith united! grief and love!
Till strengthened by the Spirit from above.
“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty
wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”—
Acts
ii. 2, 3.
The promise is fulfilled; we see and own
The force and action of a power unknown.
What in a thousand forms our weary mind
And feeble spirit, ignorant and blind,
In vain imaginings had turn'd and cast,
That mighty blessing is conferred at last:
(Dimly conceived as an expected good
Now thankfully received and understood)
That spirit which inures us to behold
With a collected mind, tranquil and cold,
All that alarmed us or allured of old:
Prospective rank and power, the public breath,
Censuring or applauding, chains or death;
That Spirit which enables us to stand
In presence of the rulers of the land,
Aweless and unabash'd, with confidence
Unshaken, and spontaneous eloquence
Infused and prompted at the present hour;
Or in the public place with the like power
To quell the raving, giddy multitude,
Pierced to the quick, dejected, and subdued,
With self-conviction of their past offence:
Thence eager all with ready penitence,
Imploring consolation and advice,
Pledged in remorse and shame to pay the price
Of their announced redemption; to discard
Their former hopes and fears; to disregard
Their ancient fixed adherence to the rules
Of Pharisaic hypocritic schools,
Emancipated from the vulgar awe
Of subtle formalists and priestly law.
Nor these alone, but other gifts and powers,
Our Lord's bequests, are attributes of ours,
Authentic warrants of a power Divine
Confirmed by many a wonder, many a sign
Wrought in His name and in the public view,
Proving our faith and testimony true.
The force and action of a power unknown.
What in a thousand forms our weary mind
And feeble spirit, ignorant and blind,
In vain imaginings had turn'd and cast,
That mighty blessing is conferred at last:
(Dimly conceived as an expected good
Now thankfully received and understood)
That spirit which inures us to behold
With a collected mind, tranquil and cold,
All that alarmed us or allured of old:
Prospective rank and power, the public breath,
Censuring or applauding, chains or death;
That Spirit which enables us to stand
In presence of the rulers of the land,
Aweless and unabash'd, with confidence
Unshaken, and spontaneous eloquence
Infused and prompted at the present hour;
Or in the public place with the like power
To quell the raving, giddy multitude,
Pierced to the quick, dejected, and subdued,
With self-conviction of their past offence:
Thence eager all with ready penitence,
Imploring consolation and advice,
318
Of their announced redemption; to discard
Their former hopes and fears; to disregard
Their ancient fixed adherence to the rules
Of Pharisaic hypocritic schools,
Emancipated from the vulgar awe
Of subtle formalists and priestly law.
Nor these alone, but other gifts and powers,
Our Lord's bequests, are attributes of ours,
Authentic warrants of a power Divine
Confirmed by many a wonder, many a sign
Wrought in His name and in the public view,
Proving our faith and testimony true.
The beggar crouching at the temple gate,
A cripple from the cradle that had sate
With hand outstretching and imploring eye,
And an unvaried customary cry,
Known and habitual to the passers-by;
Him (for he saw the power of inward faith
Lodged in his heart) Peter accosts and saith—
“Of gold or silver or the coin you crave,
“Nought we possess—we give you what we have:
“Through faith in Christ our Lord, and in His name
“Stand forth upon thy feet—cease to be lame.”
'Twas done! (Such miracles are witness'd still
Of a free grace adjuring a free will.
The cripples rise with an obedient start,
With a strong effort and believing heart).
The great Apostle, with an outstretch'd hand,
Rears and assists, and teaches him to stand,
Plying his ignorant unpractised feet:
While—not to leave the blessing incomplete,
The loved disciple at his other side
Attends the novice to support and guide
Within the temple, where he never stood,
With heart elate, leaping and praising God.
Nor are there wanting to the later law
Severer signs such as our fathers saw
Quelling their rebel hearts with fear and awe:
The perjured hypocrite bereft of life,
With his prevaricating, sordid wife,
Firm and erect in steady perjury
They stand, and in the twinkling of an eye
Struck by the deadly sentence, there they lie.
A cripple from the cradle that had sate
With hand outstretching and imploring eye,
And an unvaried customary cry,
Known and habitual to the passers-by;
Him (for he saw the power of inward faith
Lodged in his heart) Peter accosts and saith—
“Of gold or silver or the coin you crave,
“Nought we possess—we give you what we have:
“Through faith in Christ our Lord, and in His name
“Stand forth upon thy feet—cease to be lame.”
'Twas done! (Such miracles are witness'd still
Of a free grace adjuring a free will.
The cripples rise with an obedient start,
With a strong effort and believing heart).
The great Apostle, with an outstretch'd hand,
Rears and assists, and teaches him to stand,
Plying his ignorant unpractised feet:
While—not to leave the blessing incomplete,
The loved disciple at his other side
Attends the novice to support and guide
Within the temple, where he never stood,
With heart elate, leaping and praising God.
Nor are there wanting to the later law
Severer signs such as our fathers saw
Quelling their rebel hearts with fear and awe:
319
With his prevaricating, sordid wife,
Firm and erect in steady perjury
They stand, and in the twinkling of an eye
Struck by the deadly sentence, there they lie.
Such are the powers conferr'd; and for their use
Thus gifted and endow'd—can we refuse
Danger or toil or pain or hardship? No!
With a fix'd faith and purpose forth we go,
In face of a vain world, bound to proclaim
His mission, and atonement in His name.
Secure of our reward, sure to succeed,
And well content to suffer and to bleed.
Thus gifted and endow'd—can we refuse
Danger or toil or pain or hardship? No!
With a fix'd faith and purpose forth we go,
In face of a vain world, bound to proclaim
His mission, and atonement in His name.
Secure of our reward, sure to succeed,
And well content to suffer and to bleed.
Malta, 2nd April, 1840.
A FRAGMENT.
Our fancies figure a Divinity,
Like Fielding's squire, a Mr. Alworthy:
Easy, benignant, equitable, kind—
A sort of patron, suited to our mind;
(A kind of character we should revere
For an estated neighbour or a peer);
The qualities by fellow mortals praised,
Ad infinitum multiplied and raised,
Become our graven image in effect
By mortal handicraft advanced and deck'd.
Imagination, ever poor and blind,
Frames its own idol, after its own kind,
In its own likeness. We construct on high
A mighty form of human quality,
And worship the colossal effigy;
We puzzle and confuse our puny wits
To build an infinite with endless bits
As silly children use—we strive to fill
A mimic fountain of eternal will,
And form a puddle with our idle skill.
Like Fielding's squire, a Mr. Alworthy:
Easy, benignant, equitable, kind—
A sort of patron, suited to our mind;
(A kind of character we should revere
For an estated neighbour or a peer);
The qualities by fellow mortals praised,
Ad infinitum multiplied and raised,
Become our graven image in effect
By mortal handicraft advanced and deck'd.
Imagination, ever poor and blind,
Frames its own idol, after its own kind,
In its own likeness. We construct on high
A mighty form of human quality,
And worship the colossal effigy;
We puzzle and confuse our puny wits
To build an infinite with endless bits
As silly children use—we strive to fill
A mimic fountain of eternal will,
And form a puddle with our idle skill.
But deem not of the Deity as is meant
In daily phrase—good, wise, omnipotent:
No; nor all-wise, all-good; nor hope to span
That mighty compass with the speech of man.
Not entity, but essence, such is He
Beyond all measure, quality, or degree—
Power, wisdom, goodness in infinity,
In abstract. He, the Centre and the Source
Of the attributes of good, which vain discourse
Collects, concentrates—and, when all is done,
Reflects its idle mirror to the sun.
In daily phrase—good, wise, omnipotent:
320
That mighty compass with the speech of man.
Not entity, but essence, such is He
Beyond all measure, quality, or degree—
Power, wisdom, goodness in infinity,
In abstract. He, the Centre and the Source
Of the attributes of good, which vain discourse
Collects, concentrates—and, when all is done,
Reflects its idle mirror to the sun.
With Him the past abides—the eternal past—
The future is fulfill'd—and first and last
Stand obvious to the immeasurable sense,
Mere digits in the vast circumference.
Thro' chinks and crevices we dimly trace
Existence in the forms of time and place;
Predicamental loopholes, poor and small,
That bound our vision through the dungeon-wall:
The future, or the present, or the past,
The there or here—a simultaneous, vast
Infinite omnipresence—First and last
Centre in Him, the ineffably sublime,
Beyond all thought or language. If a crime—
I feel it or I fear it even thus,
In words of human usage to discuss
The Eternal Essence, and delineate
Infinitude—Shall the puny prate
Be suffer'd, which would limit and confine,
In an imaginary moral line,
The compass of eternal power and law?
Shall human reason frame a rule to draw
Before its puny court the cognizance
Of a Divine eternal ordinance
With warrants of its own? Not more uncouth
The fines or forfeits in a barber's booth,
Or regulations in a billiard-room—
If quoted and applied to guide the doom
Of ermined judges in the learned hall
Bent on a serious plea—than those you call
Your axioms absolute and general.
The future is fulfill'd—and first and last
Stand obvious to the immeasurable sense,
Mere digits in the vast circumference.
Thro' chinks and crevices we dimly trace
Existence in the forms of time and place;
Predicamental loopholes, poor and small,
That bound our vision through the dungeon-wall:
The future, or the present, or the past,
The there or here—a simultaneous, vast
Infinite omnipresence—First and last
Centre in Him, the ineffably sublime,
Beyond all thought or language. If a crime—
I feel it or I fear it even thus,
In words of human usage to discuss
The Eternal Essence, and delineate
Infinitude—Shall the puny prate
Be suffer'd, which would limit and confine,
In an imaginary moral line,
The compass of eternal power and law?
Shall human reason frame a rule to draw
Before its puny court the cognizance
Of a Divine eternal ordinance
With warrants of its own? Not more uncouth
The fines or forfeits in a barber's booth,
Or regulations in a billiard-room—
If quoted and applied to guide the doom
Of ermined judges in the learned hall
Bent on a serious plea—than those you call
Your axioms absolute and general.
Or wilt thou call for archives and records,
Thy charter of existence, and the words
Which qualify the grant—with curious eye
Decyphering obsolete eternity?
Canst thou peruse the content and declare
No covenant exists recited there
Of older date? No former forfeit due—
Mere affirmation? Can you prove it true?
The Apostle shall reply—“Nay, what art thou,
“Oh man, that with a bold and hardy brow
“Arraign'd, and pleading in thine own defence,
“Question and cross-examine Providence?
Thy charter of existence, and the words
Which qualify the grant—with curious eye
321
Canst thou peruse the content and declare
No covenant exists recited there
Of older date? No former forfeit due—
Mere affirmation? Can you prove it true?
The Apostle shall reply—“Nay, what art thou,
“Oh man, that with a bold and hardy brow
“Arraign'd, and pleading in thine own defence,
“Question and cross-examine Providence?
To be considered as a fellow-creature
Seems a pretension of a modest nature,
But fails you when address'd to the Creator:
Justice you call for—justice let it be,
Such as inferior life receives from thee:
Your justice slays your vermin, and the fly
In pity saved, or left to drown or die,
Is the true pattern of a sinking spirit,
(In thorough parallel) its works and merit,
Of equal worth, whatever claims arise
Of just demeanour with his fellow flies,
Moral effort, or struggling to be free,
And to crawl out by mere congruity—
Your aidance is gratuitously given;
Gratuitously,—like the grace of Heaven.
Seems a pretension of a modest nature,
But fails you when address'd to the Creator:
Justice you call for—justice let it be,
Such as inferior life receives from thee:
Your justice slays your vermin, and the fly
In pity saved, or left to drown or die,
Is the true pattern of a sinking spirit,
(In thorough parallel) its works and merit,
Of equal worth, whatever claims arise
Of just demeanour with his fellow flies,
Moral effort, or struggling to be free,
And to crawl out by mere congruity—
Your aidance is gratuitously given;
Gratuitously,—like the grace of Heaven.
Pietà, November, 1824.
| The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose | |