NO. II. THE CAR OF JUGGERNAUT.
ON plains beneath the morning star,
Lo! Juggernaut's stupendous car;
So high and menacing its size,
The Tower of Babel seems to rise;
Darkening the air, its shadow spreads
O'er thrice an hundred thousand heads;
Darkening the soul, it strikes a gloom,
Dense as the night beyond the tomb.
Full in mid-heaven, when mortal eye
Up this huge fabric climbs the sky,
The Idol scowls, in dragon-pride,
Like Satan's conscience deified;
-Satan himself would scorn to ape
Divinity in such a shape..
Breaking the billows of the crowd,
As countless, turbulent, and loud
As surges on the windward shore,
That madly foam, and idly roar;
Th' unwieldy wain compels its course,
Crushing resistance down by force;
It creaks, and groans, and grinds along,
Midst shrieks and prayers,-midst dance and song;
With orgies in the eye of noon,
Such as would turn to blood the moon;
Impieties so bold, so black,
The stars to shun them would reel back;
And secret horrors, which the Sun
Would put on sackcloth to see done.
Thrice happy they, whose headlong souls,
Where'er th' enormous ruin rolls,
Cast their frail bodies on the stones,
Pave its red track with crashing bones,
And pant and struggle for the fate
-To die beneath the sacred weight. "O fools and mad!" your Christians Yet wise, methinks, are those who die
For me, if Juggernaut were God,
Rather than writhe beneath his rod :
Rather than live his devotee,
And bow to such a brute the knee;
Rather than be his favourite priest,
Wallow in wantonness, and feast
On tears and blood, on groans and cries,
The fume and fat of sacrifice;
Rather than share his love,-or wrath;
I'd fling my carcass in his path,
And almost bless his name, to feel
The murdering mercy of his wheel.
NO. III.-THE INQUISITION.
THERE was in Christendom, of yore,
-And would to heaven it were no more!-
There was an Inquisition-Court,
Where priestcraft made the demons sport:
-Priestcraft,-in form a giant monk,
With wine of Rome's pollutions drunk,
Like captive Samson, bound and blind,
In chains and darkness of the mind,
There show'd such feats of strength and skill
As made it charity to kill,
And well the blow of death might pass
For what he call'd it-coup de grace;
While in his little hell on earth,
The foul fiends quaked amidst their mirth :
But not like him, who to the skies
Turn'd the dark embers of his eyes,
(Where lately burn'd a fire divine,
Where still it burn'd, but could not shine,)
And won by violence of prayer,
(Hope's dying accents in despair,)
Power to demolish, from its base,
Dagon's proud fane, on Dagon's race;
Not thus like Samson ;-false of heart,
The tonsured juggler play'd his part,
God's law in God's own name made void,
Men for their Saviour's sake destroy'd,
Made pure religion his pretence
To rid the earth of innocence;
While Spirits from th' infernal flood
Cool'd their parch'd tongues in martyrs' blood,
And half forgot their stings and flames
In conning, at those hideous games,
Lessons,—which he who taught should know
How well they had been learn'd below.
Among the engines of his power
Most dreaded in the trying hour,
When impotent were fire and steel,
All but almighty was the Wheel,
Whose harrowing revolution wrung
Confession from the slowest tongue;
From joints unlock'd made secrets start,
Twined with the cordage of the heart;
From muscles in convulsion drew
Knowledge the sufferer never knew;
From failing flesh, in Nature's spite,
Brought deeds that ne'er were done to light;
From snapping sinews wrench'd the lie,
That gain'd the victim leave to die;
When self-accused,-condemn'd at length,
His only crime was want of strength;
From holy hands with joy he turn'd,
And kiss'd the stake at which he burn'd.
But from the man of soul sublime,
Who lived above the world of time,
Fervent in faith, in conscience clear,
Who knew to love,-but not to fear;
When every artifice of pain
Was wasted on his limbs in vain,
And baffled cruelty could find
No hidden passage to his mind,
The Wheel extorted naught in death,
Except-forgiveness, and his breath.
Such a victorious death to die
Were prompt translation to the sky:
-Yet with the weakest, I would meet
Racks, scourges, flames, and count them sweet;
Nay, might I choose, I would not 'scape
"The question," put in any shape,
Rather than sit in judgment there,
Where the stern bigot fills the chair:
-Rather than turn his torturing Wheel,
Give me its utmost stretch to feel.
NO. IV. THE STATE LOTTERY.
ESCAPED from ancient battle-field,
Though neither with nor on my shield:
Escaped-how terrible the thought
Even of escape!-from Juggernaut;
Escaped from tenfold worse perdition
In dungeons of the Inquisition;
Oh with what ecstasy I stand
Once more on Albion's refuge-land!
Oh with what gratitude I bare
My bosom to that island-air,
Which tyrants gulp and cease to be,
Which slaves inhale and slaves are free!
For though the wheels, behind my back,
Still seem to rumble in my track,
Their sound is music on the breeze;
I dare them all to cross the seas:
-Nay, should they reach our guarded coast, Like Pharaoh's chariots and his host,
Monks, Brahmins, warriors, swoln and dead,
Axles and orbs in wrecks were spread.
And are there on this holy ground
No wheels to trail the vanquish'd found?
None, framed the living bones to break,
Or rend the nerves for conscience-sake?
No:-Britons scorn th' unhallow'd touch,
They will not use, nor suffer such;
Alike they shun, with fearless heart,
The victim's and tormentor's part.
Yet here are wheels of feller kind,
To drag in chains the captive mind;
To crush, beneath their horrid load,
Hearts panting prostrate on the road;
To wind desire from spoke to spoke,
And break the spirit stroke by stroke.
Where Gog and Magog, London's pride,
O'er city bankruptcies preside;
Stone-blind at nisi prius sit,
Hearken stone-deaf to lawyers' wit;
Or scowl on men, that play the beasts
At Common Halls and Lord Mayors' feasts,
When venison or the public cause,
Taxes or turtle, stretch their jaws :
There, in a whisper be it said,
Lest honest Beckford shake his head;
Lest Chatham, with indignant cheek,
Start from his pedestal and speak;
Lest Chatham's son in marble groan,
As if restored to skin and bone ;*
There,-speak,-speak out,-abandon fear;
Let both the dead and living hear;
-The dead, that they may blush for shame
Amidst their monumental fame;
-The living, that, forewarn'd of fate,
Conscience may force them, ere too late,
*These lines refer to the statues of British worthies which adorn the Guildhall of London.
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