That monarchs have supplied from age to age With mufic, fuch as fuits their fovereign ears, The fighs 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 ev'n our enemies, fo oft employed
In forging chains for us, themselves were free. For he, who values liberty, confines
His zeal for her predominance within
No narrow bounds; her caufe engages him Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man.
There dwell the most forlorn of human kind, Immured though unaccused, condemned untried, Cruelly fpared, and hopeless of escape. There, like the vifionary emblem seen By him of Babylon, life ftands a stump,
And filletted about with hoops of brass
Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone. To count the hour-bell and expect no change; And ever, as the fullen found 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 mufic; that it fummons fome
To theatre, or jocund feast or ball:
The wearied hireling finds it a release
From labour; and the lover, who has chid
Its long delay, feels every welcome ftroke Upon his heart-ftrings, trembling with delight- To fly for refuge from diftracting thought To fuch amufements, as ingenious woe Contrives, hard-fhifting, and without her tools- To read engraven on the mouldy walls, In ftaggering types, his predeceffor's tale, A fad memorial, and fubjoin 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 ferves him for a friend- To wear out time in numbering to and fro The ftuds, that thick emboss his iron door; Then downward and then upward, then aflant And then alternate; with a fickly hope
By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish; till the fum, exactly found In all directions, he begins again-
Oh comfortless exiftence! hemmed around
With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel
And beg for exile, pr the pangs of death?
That man fhould thus encroach on fellow man, Abridge him of his juft and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And focial, nip his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps an heedless word To barrennefs, and folitude, and tears, Moves indignation; makes the name of king (Of king whom fuch prerogative can pleafe) As dreadful as the Manichean god, Adored through fear, ftrong only to deftroy.
'Tis liberty alone, that gives the flower Of fleeting life its luftre 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 eyefight of discovery; and begets
In those that fuffer it a fordid mind
Beftial, a meagre intellect, unfit
To be the tenant of man's noble form.
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy lofs of empire, and though squeezed By public exigence till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account ftill happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free; My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, and difposes much
All hearts to fadness, and none more than mine: Thine unadulterate manners are lefs foft And plaufible than focial life requires, And thou haft need of difcipline 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 ftarved by cold referve, Or flushed with fierce difpute, a senseless brawl: Yet being free I love thee: for the fake
Of that one feature can be well content,
Disgraced as thou haft been, poor as thou art, To feek no fublunary rest beside.
But once enflaved, farewell! I could endure
Chains no where 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 fhock me. I fhould then with double pain Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime; And, if I muft bewail the bleffing loft,
For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people lefs auftere;
In scenes, which having never known me free, Would not reproach me with the lofs I felt. Do I forebode impoffible 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 fhrewd to be fincere, And we too wife to truft them. He that takes Deep in his foft credulity the stamp Defigned by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the flaves of luft, Incurs derifion for his eafy 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
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