Who is in truth the friend of no man there?
Can he be ftrenuous in his country's cause,
Who flights the charities, for whose dear fake
That country, if at all, must be beloved?
'Tis therefore fober and good men are fad For England's glory, seeing it was pale And fickly, while her champions wear their hearts So loose to private duty, that no brain,
Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes,. Can dream them trufty to the general weal.
Such were not they of old, whofe tempered blades
Difperfed the fhackles of ufurped control,
And hewed them link from link: then Albion's fons
Were fons indeed; they felt a filial heart:
Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs;
And, fhining each in his domeftic sphere,
Shone brighter ftill, once called to public view.
'Tis therefore many, whose fequestered lot
Forbids their interference, looking on,
Anticipate perforce fome dire event;
And, feeing the old caftle of the state,
That promised once more firmness, so affailed
That all its tempeft-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 duft, 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 diftant age afks where the fabric ftood;
And in the duft, fifted and fearched in vain,
The undiscoverable fecret fleeps.
But there is yet a liberty, unfung
By poets, and by fenators unpraised,
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the
Of earth and hell confederate take away:
A liberty, which perfecution, fraud,
Oppreffion, prifons, have no power to bind;
Which whofo taftes can be enslaved no more.
'Tis liberty of heart derived from heaven,
Bought with His blood, who gave it to mankind,
And fealed with the fame token. It is held
By charter, and that charter fanctioned fure
By the unimpeachable and awful oath
And promife of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal ftamp, that speaks them his,
And are auguft; but this tranfcends them all.
His other works, the 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 fo 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 fuppofe the artificer divine
Meant it eternal, had he not himself
Pronounced it tranfient, glorious as it is,
And ftill defigning a more glorious far,
Doomed it as infufficient for his praise.
These therefore are occafional, and pass;
Formed for the confutation of the fool,
Whofe lying heart difputes against a God;
That office ferved, they must be swept away.
Not fo the labours of his love: they fhine
In other heavens than these that we behold,
And fade not. There is paradife that fears
No forfeiture, and of its fruits he fends
Large prelibation oft to faints below.
Of these the firft in order, and the pledge
And confident affurance of the rest,
Is liberty. A flight into his arms
Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way,
A clear escape from tyrannizing luft,
And full immunity from penal woe.
Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes and a dungeon; and his body ferves
The triple purpofe. In that fickly, foul,
Opprobrious refidence he finds them all.
Propenfe his heart to idols, he is held
In filly dotage on created things,
Careless of their Creator. And that low
And fordid gravitation of his powers
To a vile clod fo draws him, with fuch force
Refiftless from the centre he should feek,
That he at laft forgets it. All his hopes
Tend downward; his ambition is to fink,
To reach a depth profounder ftill, and ftill
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.
But ere he gain the comfortless repose
He feeks, and acquiefcenee of his foul
In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures-
What does he not? from lufts oppofed in vain,
And felf-reproaching confcience. He forefees
The fatal iffue to his health, fame, peace,
Fortune, and dignity; the lofs of all,
That can ennoble man, and make frail life,
Short as it is, fupportable. Still worse,
Far worse than all the plagues, with which his fins
Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes
Ages of hopeless mifery. Future death,
And death ftill future. Not an hafty ftroke,
Like that which fends him to the dufty grave;
But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is ftill a trumpet to his fears:
What none can prove a forgery may be true;
What none but bad men with exploded muft.
That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud,
Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midft
Of laughter his compunctions are fincere;
And he abhors the jeft by which he shines.
Remorfe begets reform. His mafter-luft
Falls firft before his refolute rebuke,
And feems dethroned and vanquished. Peace enfues,
But spurious and fhort-lived; the puny child
|