The Task. Book V. The Winter Morning Walk.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb     Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,     That crowd away before the driving wind,     More ardent as the disk emerges more,     Resemble most some city in a blaze,     Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray     Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,     And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue,     From every herb and every spiry blade     Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field,     Mine, spindling into longitude immense,     In spite of gravity, and sage remark     That I myself am but a fleeting shade,     Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance     I view the muscular proportioned limb     Transformed to a lean shank; the shapeless pair,     As they designed to mock me, at my side     Take step for step, and, as I near approach     The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,     Preposterous sight, the legs without the man.     The verdure of the plain lies buried deep     Beneath the dazzling deluge, and the bents     And coarser grass upspearing o'er the rest,     Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine     Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad,     And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.     The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence     Screens them, and seem, half petrified, to sleep     In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait     Their wonted fodder, not, like hungering man,     Fretful if unsupplied, but silent, meek,     And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.     He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,     Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft     His broad keen knife into the solid mass:     Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,     With such undeviating and even force     He severs it away: no needless care,     Lest storms should overset the leaning pile     Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.     Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned     The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe     And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,     From morn to eve his solitary task.     Shaggy and lean and shrewd, with pointed ears     And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,     His dog attends him. Close behind his heel     Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk,     Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow     With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;     Then shakes his powdered coat and barks for joy.     Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl     Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,     But now and then, with pressure of his thumb,     To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,     That fumes beneath his nose; the trailing cloud     Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.     Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale,     Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam     Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side,     Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call     The feathered tribes domestic; half on wing,     And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,     Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge.     The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves     To seize the fair occasion; well they eye     The scattered grain, and, thievishly resolved     To escape the impending famine, often scared     As oft return, a pert, voracious kind.     Clean riddance quickly made, one only care     Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,     Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned     To sad necessity the cock foregoes     His wonted strut, and, wading at their head     With well-considered steps, seems to resent     His altered gait, and stateliness retrenched.     How find the myriads, that in summer cheer     The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,     Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?     Earth yields them naught: the imprisoned worm is safe     Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs     Lie covered close, and berry-bearing thorns     That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose),     Afford the smaller minstrel no supply.     The long-protracted rigour of the year     Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes     Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,     As instinct prompts, self-buried ere they die.     The very rooks and daws forsake the fields,     Where neither grub nor root nor earth-nut now     Repays their labour more; and perched aloft     By the way-side, or stalking in the path,     Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track,     Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them,     Of voided pulse, or half-digested grain.     The streams are lost amid the splendid blank,     O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood     Indurated and fixed the snowy weight     Lies undissolved, while silently beneath     And unperceived the current steals away;     Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps     The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,     And wantons in the pebbly gulf below.     No frost can bind it there. Its utmost force     Can but arrest the light and smoky mist     That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.     And see where it has hung the embroidered banks     With forms so various, that no powers of art,     The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene!     Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high     (Fantastic misarrangement) on the roof     Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees     And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops     That trickle down the branches, fast congealed,     Shoot into pillars of pellucid length     And prop the pile they but adorned before.     Here grotto within grotto safe defies     The sunbeam. There imbossed and fretted wild,     The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes     Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain     The likeness of some object seen before.     Thus nature works as if to mock at art,     And in defiance of her rival powers;     By these fortuitous and random strokes     Performing such inimitable feats,     As she with all her rules can never reach.     Less worthy of applause though more admired,     Because a novelty, the work of man,     Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,     Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,     The wonder of the North. No forest fell     When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its stores     To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,     And make thy marble of the glassy wave.     In such a palace Aristaeus found     Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale     Of his lost bees to her maternal ear.     In such a palace poetry might place     The armoury of winter, where his troops,     The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet,     Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,     And snow that often blinds the traveller's course,     And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.     Silently as a dream the fabric rose.     No sound of hammer or of saw was there.     Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts     Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked     Than water interfused to make them one.     Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues,     Illumined every side. A watery light     Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed     Another moon new-risen, or meteor fallen     From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene.     So stood the brittle prodigy, though smooth     And slippery the materials, yet frost-bound     Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within     That royal residence might well befit,     For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths     Of flowers, that feared no enemy but warmth,     Blushed on the panels. Mirror needed none     Where all was vitreous, but in order due     Convivial table and commodious seat     (What seemed at least commodious seat) were there,     Sofa and couch and high-built throne august.     The same lubricity was found in all,     And all was moist to the warm touch; a scene     Of evanescent glory, once a stream,     And soon to slide into a stream again.     Alas, 'twas but a mortifying stroke     Of undesigned severity, that glanced     (Made by a monarch) on her own estate,     On human grandeur and the courts of kings     'Twas transient in its nature, as in show     'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seemed     Intrinsically precious; to the foot     Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.     Great princes have great playthings. Some have played     At hewing mountains into men, and some     At building human wonders mountain high.     Some have amused the dull sad years of life     (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad)     With schemes of monumental fame, and sought     By pyramids and mausoleum pomp,     Short-lived themselves, to immortalise their bones.     Some seek diversion in the tented field,     And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.     But war's a game which, were their subjects wise,     Kings should not play at. Nations would do well     To extort their truncheons from the puny hands     Of heroes whose infirm and baby minds     Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil,     Because men suffer it, their toy the world.     When Babel was confounded, and the great     Confederacy of projectors wild and vain     Was split into diversity of tongues,     Then, as a shepherd separates his flock,     These to the upland, to the valley those,     God drave asunder and assigned their lot     To all the nations. Ample was the boon     He gave them, in its distribution fair     And equal, and he bade them dwell in peace.     Peace was a while their care. They ploughed and sowed,     And reaped their plenty without grudge or strife,     But violence can never longer sleep     Than human passions please. In every heart     Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war,     Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.     Cain had already shed a brother's blood:     The Deluge washed it out; but left unquenched     The seeds of murder in the breast of man.     Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line     Of his descending progeny was found     The first artificer of death; the shrewd     Contriver who first sweated at the forge,     And forced the blunt and yet unblooded steel     To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.     Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times,     The sword and falchion their inventor claim,     And the first smith was the first murderer's son.     His art survived the waters; and ere long,     When man was multiplied and spread abroad     In tribes and clans, and had begun to call     These meadows and that range of hills his own,     The tasted sweets of property begat     Desire of more; and industry in some     To improve and cultivate their just demesne,     Made others covet what they saw so fair.     Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil,     And those in self-defence. Savage at first     The onset, and irregular. At length     One eminent above the rest, for strength,     For stratagem, or courage, or for all,     Was chosen leader. Him they served in war,     And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds     Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare?     Or who so worthy to control themselves     As he, whose prowess had subdued their foes?     Thus war, affording field for the display     Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace,     Which have their exigencies too, and call     For skill in government, at length made king.     King was a name too proud for man to wear     With modesty and meekness, and the crown,     So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,     Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.     It is the abject property of most,     That being parcel of the common mass,     And destitute of means to raise themselves,     They sink and settle lower than they need.     They know not what it is to feel within     A comprehensive faculty, that grasps     Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields,     Almost without an effort, plans too vast     For their conception, which they cannot move.     Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunk     With gazing, when they see an able man     Step forth to notice; and besotted thus     Build him a pedestal and say--Stand there,     And be our admiration and our praise.     They roll themselves before him in the dust,     Then most deserving in their own account     When most extravagant in his applause,     As if exalting him they raised themselves.     Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound     And sober judgment that he is but man,     They demi-deify and fume him so     That in due season he forgets it too.     Inflated and astrut with self-conceit     He gulps the windy diet, and ere long,     Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks     The world was made in vain if not for him.     Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, born     To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,     And sweating in his service. His caprice     Becomes the soul that animates them all.     He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,     Spent in the purchase of renown for him     An easy reckoning, and they think the same.     Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings     Were burnished into heroes, and became     The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;     Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and died.     Strange that such folly, as lifts bloated man     To eminence fit only for a god,     Should ever drivel out of human lips,     Even in the cradled weakness of the world!     Still stranger much, that when at length mankind     Had reached the sinewy firmness of their youth,     And could discriminate and argue well     On subjects more mysterious, they were yet     Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear     And quake before the gods themselves had made.     But above measure strange, that neither proof     Of sad experience, nor examples set     By some whose patriot virtue has prevailed,     Can even now, when they are grown mature     In wisdom, and with philosophic deeps     Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest!     Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone     To reverence what is ancient, and can plead     A course of long observance for its use,     That even servitude, the worst of ills,     Because delivered down from sire to son,     Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.     But is it fit, or can it bear the shock     Of rational discussion, that a man,     Compounded and made up like other men     Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust     And folly in as ample measure meet,     As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,     Should be a despot absolute, and boast     Himself the only freeman of his land?     Should when he pleases, and on whom he will,     Wage war, with any or with no pretence     Of provocation given, or wrong sustained,     And force the beggarly last doit, by means     That his own humour dictates, from the clutch     Of poverty, that thus he may procure     His thousands, weary of penurious life,     A splendid opportunity to die?     Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old     Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees     In politic convention) put your trust     I' th' shadow of a bramble, and recline     In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch,     Rejoice in him and celebrate his sway,     Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs     Your self-denying zeal that holds it good     To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang     His thorns with streamers of continual praise?     We too are friends to loyalty; we love     The king who loves the law, respects his bounds.     And reigns content within them; him we serve     Freely and with delight, who leaves us free;     But recollecting still that he is man,     We trust him not too far. King though he be,     And king in England, too, he may be weak     And vain enough to be ambitious still,     May exercise amiss his proper powers,     Or covet more than freemen choose to grant:     Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours,     To administer, to guard, to adorn the state,     But not to warp or change it. We are his,     To serve him nobly in the common cause     True to the death, but not to be his slaves.     Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love     Of kings, between your loyalty and ours.     We love the man; the paltry pageant you:     We the chief patron of the commonwealth;     You the regardless author of its woes:     We, for the sake of liberty, a king;     You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake.     Our love is principle, and has its root     In reason, is judicious, manly, free;     Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod,     And licks the foot that treads it in the dust.     Were kingship as true treasure as it seems,     Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish,     I would not be a king to be beloved     Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise,     Where love is more attachment to the throne,     Not to the man who fills it as he ought.     Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will     Of a superior, he is never free.     Who lives, and is not weary of a life     Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.     The state that strives for liberty, though foiled     And forced to abandon what she bravely sought,     Deserves at least applause for her attempt,     And pity for her loss. But that's a cause     Not often unsuccessful; power usurped     Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong,     'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.     But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought     Of freedom, in that hope itself possess     All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,     The scorn of danger, and united hearts,     The surest presage of the good they seek. *     * The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unnecessary warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware that it is become almost fashionable to stigmatise such sentiments as no better than empty declamation. But it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern times.-C.     Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more     To France than all her losses and defeats,     Old or of later date, by sea or land,     Her house of bondage worse than that of old     Which God avenged on Pharaoh--the Bastille!     Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts,     Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,     That monarchs have supplied from age to age     With music such as suits their sovereign ears,     The sighs and groans of miserable men!     There's not an English heart that would not leap     To hear that ye were fallen at last, to know     That even our enemies, so oft employed     In forging chains for us, themselves were free.     For he that values liberty, confines     His zeal for her predominance within     No narrow bounds; her cause engages him     Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man.     There dwell the most forlorn of humankind,     Immured though unaccused, condemned untried,     Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape.     There, like the visionary emblem seen     By him of Babylon, life stands a stump,     And filleted about with hoops of brass,     Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone.     To count the hour bell and expect no change;     And ever as the sullen sound is heard,     Still to reflect that though a joyless note     To him whose moments all have one dull pace,     Ten thousand rovers in the world at large     Account it music; that it summons some     To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball;     The wearied hireling finds it a release     From labour, and the lover, that has chid     Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke     Upon his heart-strings trembling with delight;--     To fly for refuge from distracting thought     To such amusements as ingenious woe     Contrives, hard-shifting and without her tools;--     To read engraven on the mouldy walls,     In staggering types, his predecessor's tale,     A sad memorial, and subjoin his own;--     To turn purveyor to an overgorged     And bloated spider, till the pampered pest     Is made familiar, watches his approach,     Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend;--     To wear out time in numbering to and fro     The studs that thick emboss his iron door,     Then downward and then upward, then aslant     And then alternate, with a sickly hope     By dint of change to give his tasteless task     Some relish, till the sum, exactly found     In all directions, he begins again:--     Oh comfortless existence! hemmed around     With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel     And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?     That man should thus encroach on fellow-man,     Abridge him of his just and native rights,     Eradicate him, tear him from his hold     Upon the endearments of domestic life     And social, nip his fruitfulness and use,     And doom him for perhaps a heedless word     To barrenness and solitude and tears,     Moves indignation; makes the name of king     (Of king whom such prerogative can please)     As dreadful as the Manichean god,     Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.     'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower     Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,     And we are weeds without it. All constraint,     Except what wisdom lays on evil men,     Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes     Their progress in the road of science; blinds     The eyesight of discovery, and begets,     In those that suffer it, a sordid mind     Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit     To be the tenant of man's noble form.     Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,     With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed     By public exigence, till annual food     Fails for the craving hunger of the state,     Thee I account still happy, and the chief     Among the nations, seeing thou art free,     My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,     Replete with vapours, and disposes much     All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine;     Thine unadulterate manners are less soft     And plausible than social life requires.     And thou hast need of discipline and art     To give thee what politer France receives     From Nature's bounty--that humane address     And sweetness, without which no pleasure is     In converse, either starved by cold reserve,     Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl;     Yet, being free, I love thee; for the sake     Of that one feature, can be well content,     Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,     To seek no sublunary rest beside.     But once enslaved, farewell! I could endure     Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,     Where I am free by birthright, not at all.     Then what were left of roughness in the grain     Of British natures, wanting its excuse     That it belongs to freemen, would disgust     And shock me. I should then with double pain     Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime;     And, if I must bewail the blessing lost     For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled,     I would at least bewail it under skies     Milder, among a people less austere,     In scenes which, having never known me free,     Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.     Do I forebode impossible events,     And tremble at vain dreams? Heaven grant I may,     But the age of virtuous politics is past,     And we are deep in that of cold pretence.     Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,     And we too wise to trust them. He that takes     Deep in his soft credulity the stamp     Designed by loud declaimers on the part     Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,     Incurs derision for his easy faith     And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough.     For when was public virtue to be found,     Where private was not? Can he love the whole     Who loves no part? he be a nation's friend     Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there?     Can he be strenuous in his country's cause,     Who slights the charities for whose dear sake     That country, if at all, must be beloved?     --'Tis therefore sober and good men are sad     For England's glory, seeing it wax pale     And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts     So loose to private duty, that no brain,     Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes,     Can dream them trusty to the general weal.     Such were not they of old whose tempered blades     Dispersed the shackles of usurped control,     And hewed them link from link. Then Albion's sons     Were sons indeed. They felt a filial heart     Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs,     And shining each in his domestic sphere,     Shone brighter still once called to public view.     'Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lot     Forbids their interference, looking on,     Anticipate perforce some dire event;     And seeing the old castle of the state,     That promised once more firmness, so assailed     That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake,     Stand motionless expectants of its fall.     All has its date below. The fatal hour     Was registered in heaven ere time began.     We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works     Die too. The deep foundations that we lay,     Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.     We build with what we deem eternal rock;     A distant age asks where the fabric stood;     And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain,     The undiscoverable secret sleeps.     But there is yet a liberty unsung     By poets, and by senators unpraised,     Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power     Of earth and hell confederate take away;     A liberty, which persecution, fraud,     Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind,     Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more:     'Tis liberty of heart, derived from heaven,     Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind,     And sealed with the same token. It is held     By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure     By the unimpeachable and awful oath     And promise of a God. His other gifts     All bear the royal stamp that speaks them His,     And are august, but this transcends them all.     His other works, this visible display     Of all-creating energy and might,     Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the Word     That, finding an interminable space     Unoccupied, has filled the void so well,     And made so sparkling what was dark before.     But these are not His glory. Man, 'tis true,     Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene,     Might well suppose the Artificer Divine     Meant it eternal, had He not Himself     Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is,     And still designing a more glorious far,     Doomed it, as insufficient for His praise.     These, therefore, are occasional, and pass;     Formed for the confutation of the fool     Whose lying heart disputes against a God;     That office served, they must be swept away.     Not so the labours of His love; they shine     In other heavens than these that we behold,     And fade not. There is Paradise that fears     No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends     Large prelibation oft to saints below.     Of these the first in order, and the pledge     And confident assurance of the rest,     Is liberty; a flight into His arms     Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way,     A clear escape from tyrannising lust,     And fill immunity from penal woe.     Chains are the portion of revolted man,     Stripes and a dungeon; and his body serves     The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,     Opprobrious residence, he finds them all.     Propense his heart to idols, he is held     In silly dotage on created things     Careless of their Creator. And that low     And sordid gravitation of his powers     To a vile clod, so draws him with such force     Resistless from the centre he should seek,     That he at last forgets it. All his hopes     Tend downward, his ambition is to sink,     To reach a depth profounder still, and still     Profounder, in the fathomless abyss     Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.     But ere he gain the comfortless repose     He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul,     In heaven renouncing exile, he endures     What does he not? from lusts opposed in vain,     And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees     The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace,     Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all     That can ennoble man, and make frail life,     Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,     Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins     Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes     Ages of hopeless misery; future death,     And death still future; not a hasty stroke,     Like that which sends him to the dusty grave,     But unrepealable enduring death.     Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:     What none can prove a forgery, may be true;     What none but bad men wish exploded, must.     That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud     Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst     Of laughter his compunctions are sincere,     And he abhors the jest by which he shines.     Remorse begets reform. His master-lust     Falls first before his resolute rebuke,     And seems dethroned and vanquished. Peace ensues,     But spurious and short-lived, the puny child     Of self-congratulating Pride, begot     On fancied Innocence. Again he falls,     And fights again; but finds his best essay,     A presage ominous, portending still     Its own dishonour by a worse relapse,     Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foiled     So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt,     Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now     Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause,     Perversely, which of late she so condemned;     With shallow shifts and old devices, worn     And tattered in the service of debauch,     Covering his shame from his offended sight.     "Hath God indeed given appetites to man,     And stored the earth so plenteously with means     To gratify the hunger of His wish,     And doth He reprobate and will He damn     The use of His own bounty? making first     So frail a kind, and then enacting laws     So strict, that less than perfect must despair?     Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth,     Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man.     Do they themselves, who undertake for hire     The teacher's office, and dispense at large     Their weekly dole of edifying strains,     Attend to their own music? have they faith     In what, with such solemnity of tone     And gesture, they propound to our belief?     Nay--conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice     Is but an instrument on which the priest     May play what tune he pleases. In the deed,     The unequivocal authentic deed,     We find sound argument, we read the heart."     Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong     To excuses in which reason has no part)     Serve to compose a spirit well inclined     To live on terms of amity with vice,     And sin without disturbance. Often urged     (As often as, libidinous discourse     Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes     Of theological and grave import),     They gain at last his unreserved assent,     Till, hardened his heart's temper in the forge     Of lust and on the anvil of despair,     He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves,     Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;     Vain tampering has but fostered his disease,     'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death.     Haste now, philosopher, and set him free.     Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear     Of rectitude and fitness: moral truth     How lovely, and the moral sense how sure,     Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps     Directly to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR.     Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers     Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise,     Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,     And with poetic trappings grace thy prose     Till it outmantle all the pride of verse.--     Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass     Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm     The eclipse that intercepts truth's heavenly beam,     And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul.     The still small voice is wanted. He must speak,     Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect,     Who calls for things that are not, and they come.     Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change     That turns to ridicule the turgid speech     And stately tone of moralists, who boast,     As if, like him of fabulous renown,     They had indeed ability to smooth     The shag of savage nature, and were each     An Orpheus and omnipotent in song.     But transformation of apostate man     From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,     Is work for Him that made him. He alone,     And He, by means in philosophic eyes     Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves     The wonder; humanising what is brute     In the lost kind, extracting from the lips     Of asps their venom, overpowering strength     By weakness, and hostility by love.     Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause     Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve,     Receive proud recompense. We give in charge     Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse,     Proud of the treasure, marches with it down     To latest times; and sculpture, in her turn,     Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass,     To guard them, and to immortalise her trust.     But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,     To those who, posted at the shrine of truth,     Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood     Well spent in such a strife may earn indeed,     And for a time ensure to his loved land,     The sweets of liberty and equal laws;     But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,     And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed     In confirmation of the noblest claim,     Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,     To walk with God, to be divinely free,     To soar, and to anticipate the skies!     Yet few remember them. They lived unknown,     Till persecution dragged them into fame     And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew     --No marble tells us whither. With their names     No bard embalms and sanctifies his song,     And history, so warm on meaner themes,     Is cold on this. She execrates indeed     The tyranny that doomed them to the fire,     But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.     He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,     And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain     That hellish foes confederate for his harm     Can wind around him, but he casts it off     With as much ease as Samson his green withes.     He looks abroad into the varied field     Of Nature, and, though poor perhaps compared     With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,     Calls the delightful scenery all his own.     His are the mountains, and the valleys his,     And the resplendent river's. His to enjoy     With a propriety that none can feel,     But who, with filial confidence inspired,     Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,     And smiling say--My Father made them all!     Are they not his by a peculiar right,     And by an emphasis of interest his,     Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,     Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind     With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love     That planned, and built, and still upholds a world     So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?     Yes--ye may fill your garners, ye that reap     The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good     In senseless riot; but ye will not find     In feast or in the chase, in song or dance,     A liberty like his, who, unimpeached     Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,     Appropriates nature as his Father's work,     And has a richer use of yours, than you.     He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth     Of no mean city, planned or e'er the hills     Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea     With all his roaring multitude of waves.     His freedom is the same in every state;     And no condition of this changeful life     So manifold in cares, whose every day     Brings its own evil with it, makes it less.     For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,     Nor penury, can cripple or confine.     No nook so narrow but he spreads them there     With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds     His body bound, but knows not what a range     His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain;     And that to bind him is a vain attempt,     Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells.     Acquaint thyself with God if thou wouldst taste     His works. Admitted once to His embrace,     Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before;     Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart,     Made pure, shall relish, with divine delight     Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.     Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone,     And eyes intent upon the scanty herb     It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,     Ruminate, heedless of the scene outspread     Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away     From inland regions to the distant main.     Man views it and admires, but rests content     With what he views. The landscape has his praise,     But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed     The paradise he sees, he finds it such,     And such well pleased to find it, asks no more.     Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven,     And in the school of sacred wisdom taught     To read His wonders, in whose thought the world,     Fair as it is, existed ere it was.     Nor for its own sake merely, but for His     Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise;     Praise that from earth resulting as it ought     To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once     Its only just proprietor in Him.     The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimed     New faculties or learns at least to employ     More worthily the powers she owned before;     Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze     Of ignorance, till then she overlooked,     A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms     Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute     The unambiguous footsteps of the God     Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing     And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.     Much conversant with heaven, she often holds     With those fair ministers of light to man     That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp     Sweet conference; inquires what strains were they     With which heaven rang, when every star, in haste     To gratulate the new-created earth,     Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God     Shouted for joy.--"Tell me, ye shining hosts     That navigate a sea that knows no storms,     Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,     If from your elevation, whence ye view     Distinctly scenes invisible to man     And systems of whose birth no tidings yet     Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race     Favoured as ours, transgressors from the womb     And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise     And to possess a brighter heaven than yours?     As one who, long detained on foreign shores,     Pants to return, and when he sees afar     His country's weather-bleached and battered rocks,     From the green wave emerging, darts an eye     Radiant with joy towards the happy land;     So I with animated hopes behold,     And many an aching wish, your beamy fires,     That show like beacons in the blue abyss,     Ordained to guide the embodied spirit home     From toilsome life to never-ending rest.     Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires     That give assurance of their own success,     And that, infused from heaven, must thither tend."     So reads he Nature whom the lamp of truth     Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word!     Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost     With intellect bemazed in endless doubt,     But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built,     With means that were not till by Thee employed,     Worlds that had never been, hadst Thou in strength     Been less, or less benevolent than strong.     They are Thy witnesses, who speak Thy power     And goodness infinite, but speak in ears     That hear not, or receive not their report.     In vain Thy creatures testify of Thee     Till Thou proclaim Thyself. Theirs is indeed     A teaching voice; but 'tis the praise of Thine     That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn,     And with the boon gives talents for its use.     Till Thou art heard, imaginations vain     Possess the heart, and fables, false as hell,     Yet deemed oracular, lure down to death     The uninformed and heedless souls of men.     We give to chance, blind chance, ourselves as blind,     The glory of Thy work, which yet appears     Perfect and unimpeachable of blame,     Challenging human scrutiny, and proved     Then skilful most when most severely judged.     But chance is not; or is not where Thou reign'st:     Thy providence forbids that fickle power     (If power she be that works but to confound)     To mix her wild vagaries with Thy laws.     Yet thus we dote, refusing, while we can,     Instruction, and inventing to ourselves     Gods such as guilt makes welcome--gods that sleep,     Or disregard our follies, or that sit     Amused spectators of this bustling stage.     Thee we reject, unable to abide     Thy purity, till pure as Thou art pure,     Made such by Thee, we love Thee for that cause     For which we shunned and hated Thee before.     Then we are free: then liberty, like day,     Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heaven     Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.     A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not     Till Thou hast touched them; 'tis the voice of song,     A loud Hosanna sent from all Thy works,     Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,     And adds his rapture to the general praise.     In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wide     Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile     The Author of her beauties, who, retired     Behind His own creation, works unseen     By the impure, and hears His power denied.     Thou art the source and centre of all minds,     Their only point of rest, eternal Word!     From Thee departing, they are lost and rove     At random, without honour, hope, or peace.     From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,     His high endeavour, and his glad success,     His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.     But, oh, Thou Bounteous Giver of all good,     Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown!     Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor,     And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.