These are the sons that hem Britannia round
From sudden innovation;-awe the shores,
And make their drooping pendants hail her queen
And mistress of the globe. They guard our beds,
While fearless we enjoy secure repose,
And all the blessings of a bounteous sky.
To them in feverous adoration bend,
Ye fashion'd macaronies! whose bright blades
Were never dimm'd or stain'd with hostile blood,
But still hang dangling on your feeble thigh,
While through the Mall or Park you show away,
Or through the drawing-room on tiptoe steal.
On poop aloft, to messmates laid along,
Some son of Neptune, whose old wrinkled brow
Has brav'd the rattling thunder, tells his tale
Of dangers, sieges, and of battles dire,
While they, as fortune favours, greet with smiles,
Or heave the bitter sympathetic sigh,
As the capricious fickle goddess frowns.
Ah! how unstable are the joys of life!
The pleasures, ah! how few!-Now smile the skies
With aspect mild; and now the thunders shake,
And all the radiance of the heavens deflower.
Through the small op'ning of the mainsail broad,
Lo, Boreas steals, and tears him from the yard,
Where long and lasting he has play'd his part!
So suffers virtue. When in her fair form
The smallest flaw is found, the whole decays.
In vain she may implore with piteous eye,
And spread her naked pinions to the blast:
A reputation maim'd finds no repair,
Till Death, the ghastly monarch, shuts the scene.
And now we gain the May, whose midnight light,
Like vestal virgins' offerings undecay'd,
To mariners bewilder'd acts the part
Of social friendship, guiding those that err
With kindly radiance to their destin'd port.
Thanks, kindest nature! for those floating gems, Those green-grown isles, with which you, lavish,
Great Neptune's empire. But for thee, the main Were an uncomfortable mazy flood.
No guidance, then, would bless the steersman's skill,
No resting-place would crown the mariner's wish,
When he to distant gales his canvass spreads,
To search new wonders.-Here the verdant shores
Teem with new freshness, and regale our sight
With caves, that ancient time, in days of yore,
Sequester'd for the haunt of Druid lone,
There to remain in solitary cell,
Beyond the power of mortals to disjoin
From holy meditation.-Happy now
To cast our eyes around from shore to shore,
While by the oozy caverns on the beach
We wander wild, and listen to the roar
Of billows murmuring with incessant noise.
And now, by fancy led, we wander wild
Where o'er the rugged steep the buried dead
Remote lie anchor'd in their parent mould;
Where a few fading willows point the state
Of man's decay. Ah, Death! where'er we fly,
Whether we seek the busy and the gay,
The mourner or the joyful, there art thou!
No distant isle, no surly swelling surge,
E'er aw'd thy progress, or controll'd thy sway,
To bless us with that comfort, length of days,
By all aspir'd at, but by few attain'd.
To Fife we steer; of all beneath the sun
The most unhallow'd 'mid the Scotian plains!
And here (sad emblem of deceitful times!)
Hath sad hypocrisy her standard borne.
Mirth knows no residence; but ghastly fear
Stands trembling and appall'd at airy sights.
Once, only once! Reward it, gracious Powers!
Did hospitality, with open face,
And winning smile, cheer the deserted sight,
That else had languish'd for the bless'd return
Of beauteous day, to dissipate the clouds
Of endless night, and superstition wild,
That constant hover o'er the dark abode.
O happy Lothian! happy thrice thy sons!
Who ne'er yet ventur'd from the southern shore
To tempt misfortune on the Fifan coast:
Again with thee we dwell, and taste thy joys,
Where sorrow reigns not, and where every gale
Is fraught with fulness, bless'd with living hope,
That fears no canker from the year's decay.
BENEATH What cheerful region of the sky
Shall wit, shall humour, and the Muses fly?
For ours, a cold, inhospitable clime,
Refuses quarter to the Muse and rhyme.
If on her brows an envied laurel springs,
They shake its foliage, crop her growing wings,
That with the plumes of virtue wisely soar,
And all the follies of the age explore.
But should old Grub her rankest venom pour,
And every virtue with a vice deflower,
Her verse is sacred, Justices agree;
Even Justice Fielding signs the wise decree.
Let fortune-dealers, wise predictors! tell
From what bright planet Justice Fielding fell.
Augusta trembles at the awful name;
The darling tongue of liberty is tame,
Basely confin'd by him in Newgate chains,
Nor dare exclaim how harshly Fielding reigns.
In days when every mercer has his scale,
To tell what pieces lack, how few prevail !
I wonder not the low-born menial trade
By partial justice has aside been laid;
For she no discount gives for virtue worn ;
Her aged joints are without mercy torn.
In vain, O Gay! thy Muse explor'd the way, Of yore, to banish the Italian lay;
Gave homely numbers sweet, though warmly strong;
The British chorus bless'd the happy song;
Thy manly voice, and Albion's, then were heard,
Felt by her sons, and by her sons rever'd:
Eunuchs, not men, now bear aloft the palm,
And o'er our senses pour lethargic balm.
The stage the truest mirror is of life:
Our passions there revolve in active strife;
Each character is there display'd to view ;
Each hates his own, though well assur'd 'tis true.
No marvel, then, that all the world should own
In Peachum's treachery Justice Fielding known;
Since thieves so common are, and, Justice, you
Thieves to the gallows for reward pursue.
Had Gay, by writing, rous'd the stealing trade,
You'd been less active to suppress your bread :
For, trust me! when a robber loses ground,
You lose your living with your forty pound.
'Twas woman first that snatch'd the luring bait, The tempter taught her to transgress and eat : Though wrong the deed, her quick compunction told,
She banish'd Adam from an age of gold.
When women now transgress fair virtue's rules, Men are their pupils, and the stews their schools. From simple whoredom greater sins began To shoot, to bloom, to centre all in man: Footpads on Hounslow flourish here to-day; The next, old Tyburn sweeps them all away. For woman's faults, the cause of every wrong, Men robb'd and murder'd, thieves at Tyburn strung. In panting breasts to raise the fond alarm; Make females in the cause of virtue warm; Gay has compar'd them to the summer flower, The boast and glory of an idle hour:
When cropp'd, it falls, shrinks, withers, and decays, And to oblivion dark consigns its days.
Hath this a power to win the female heart
Back from its vice, from virtue ne'er to part?
If so, the wayward virgin 'twill restore ;
And murders, robberies, rapes, will be no more.
These were the lays of him who virtue knew ;
Her dictates who rever'd, and practis'd too;
No idle theorist in her guiltless ways,
He gave the spotless goddess all his days.
O Queensberry! his best and earliest friend,
All that his wit or learning could command;
Thou best of patrons! of his Muse the pride!
Still in her pageant shalt thou first preside;—
No idle pomp that riches can procure,
Sprung in a moment, faded in an hour,
But pageant lasting as the uncropp'd bay,
That verdant triumphs with the Muse of Gay.
|