From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal,
But above all (or let the wretch refrain,
Nor touch the page he cannot but profane)
Free from the domineering power of lust ;
A lewd interpreter is never just.
How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,
Thou god of our idolatry, the Press?
By thee, religion, liberty, and laws
Exert their influence, and advance their cause;
By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell,
Diffused, make earth the vestibule of hell:
Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise,
Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies,
Like Eden's dread probationary tree,
Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.
No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possessed.
Philosophers, who darken and put out
Eternal truth by everlasting doubt,
Church quacks, with passions under no command,
Who fill the world with doctrines contraband,
Discoverers of they know not what, confined
Within no bounds, the blind that lead the blind,
To streams of popular opinion drawn,
Deposit in those shallows all their spawn.
The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around,
Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound;
Scorned by the nobler tenants of the flood,
Minnows and gudgeons gorge the unwholesome food.
The propagated myriads spread so fast,
Even Leuwenhoek himself would stand aghast,
Employed to calculate the enormous sum,
And own his crab-computing powers o'ercome.
Is this hyperbole? The world well known,
Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one.
Fresh confidence the speculatist takes
From every hare-brained proselyte he makes,
And therefore prints :-himself but half deceived,
Till others have the soothing tale believed.
Hence comment after comment, spun as fine
As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line;
Hence the same word that bids our lusts obey,
Is misapplied to sanctify their sway.
If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend,
Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend ;
If languages and copies all cry “No!”
Somebody proved it centuries ago.
Like trout pursued, the critic in despair
Darts to the mud and finds his safety there.
Women, whom custom has forbid to fly
The scholar's pitch (the scholar best knows why),
With all the simple and unlettered poor,
Admire his learning, and almost adore.
Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong,
With such fine words familiar to his tongue.
Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause,
I should deserve to forfeit all applause,)
Whatever shocks, or gives the least offence
To virtue, delicacy, truth, or sense
(Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide),
Nor has, nor can have, Scripture on its side.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
Committed once into the public arms,
The baby seems to smile with added charms:
Like something precious ventured far from shore,
'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more. He views it with complacency supreme,
Solicits kind attention to his dream,
And daily, more enamoured of the cheat,
Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear deceit.
So one, whose story serves at least to show
Men loved their own productions long ago,
Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife,
Nor rested till the gods had given it life.
If some mere driveller suck the sugared fib,
One that still needs his leading-string and bib,
And praise his genius, he is soon repaid
In praise applied to the same part, his head :
For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true,
Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.
Patient of contradiction as a child,
Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke;
Affable, humble, diffident, and mild,
Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock :
The creature is so sure to kick and bite,
A muleteer's the man to set him right.
First appetite enlists him truth's sworn foe,
Then obstinate self-will confirms him so.
Tell him he wanders, that his error leads
To fatal ills, that though the path he treads
Be flowery, and he see no cause of fear,
Death and the pains of hell attend him there;
In vain the slave of arrogance and pride,
He has no hearing on the prudent side.
His still refuted quirks he still repeats,
New raised objections with new quibbles meets,
Till sinking in the quicksand he defends,
He dies disputing, and the contest ends;
But not the mischiefs: they, still left behind,
Like thistle-seeds are sown by every wind.
Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill,
Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will,
And with a clear and shining lamp supplied,
First put it out, then take it for a guide.
Halting on crutches of unequal size,
One leg by truth supported, one by lies,
They sidle to the goal with awkward pace,
Secure of nothing, but to lose the race.
Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,
And these, reciprocally, those again.
The mind and conduct mutually imprint
And stamp their image in each other's mint ;
Each sire and dam of an infernal race
Begetting and conceiving all that's base.
None sends his arrow to the mark in view,
Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue;
For though ere yet the shaft is on the wing,
Or when it first forsakes the elastic string,
It err but little from the intended line,
It falls at last far wide of his design:
So he who seeks a mansion in the sky
Must watch his purpose with a steadfast eye;
That prize belongs to none but the sincere,
The least obliquity is fatal here.
With caution taste the sweet Circæan cup :
He that sips often, at last drinks it up.
Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.
Called to the temple of impure delight,
He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home,
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
But if you pass the threshold, you are caught;
Die then, if power Almighty save you not!
There hardening by degrees, till double steeled,
Take leave of nature's God, and God revealed;
Then laugh at all you trembled at before,
And joining the freethinkers' brutal roar,
Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense,
That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense;
If clemency revolted by abuse
Be damnable, then damned without excuse.
Some dream that they can silence when they will The storm of passion, and say, "Peace, be still;
But Thus far and no farther," when addressed
To the wild wave, or wilder human breast,
Implies authority that never can,
That never ought, to be the lot of man.
But, Muse, forbear! long flights forebode a fall,
Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all.
Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies:
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies
And he that will be cheated to the last,
Delusions strong as hell, shall bind him fast.
But if the wanderer his mistake discern,
Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return,
Bewildered once, must he bewail his loss
For ever and for ever? No-the Cross !
There and there only (though the deist rave,
And atheist, if earth bear so base a slave),
There, and there only, is the power to save;
There no delusive hope invites despair,
No mockery meets you, no deception there:
The spells and charms that blinded you before,
All vanish there, and fascinate no more.
I am no preacher; let this hint suffice,
The Cross once seen is death to every vice:
Else He that hung there suffered all His pain,
Bled, groaned and agonized, and died, in vain.
Pensantur trutinâ,-HOR. lib. ii. ep. i.
MAN, on the dubious waves of error tossed,
His ship half foundered, and his compass lost,
Sees, far as human optics may command,
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land:
Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;
Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies.
Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes,
His well-built systems, philosophic dreams,
Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell!
He reads his sentence at the flames of Hell.
Hard lot of man! to toil for the reward
Of virtue, and yet lose it !-Wherefore hard?
He that would win the race, must guide his hors?
Obedient to the customs of the course;
Else, though unequalled to the goal he flies,
A meaner than himself shall gain the prize.
Grace leads the right way,-if you choose the wrong,
Take it and perish, but restrain your tongue;
Charge not, with light sufficient, and left free,
Your wilful suicide on God's decree.
Oh how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;
From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands like the cærulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.
Inscribed above the portal, from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only by the light they give,
Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE AND LIVE.
Too many, shocked at what should charm them most,
Despise the plain direction and are lost.
Heaven on such terms! they cry with proud disdain,
Incredible, impossible, and vain !—
Rebel because 'tis easy to obey,
And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way.
These are the sober, in whose cooler brains
Some thought of immortality remains;
The rest too busy, or too gay, to wait
On the sad theme, their everlasting state,
Sport for a day and perish in a night,
The foam upon the waters not so light.
Who judged the Pharisee? What odious cause
Exposed him to the vengeance of the laws?
Had he seduced a virgin, wronged a friend,
Or stabbed a man to serve some private end?
Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he stray
From the strict duties of the sacred day?
Sit long and late at the carousing board?
(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.)
No-the man's morals were exact; what then?
'Twas his ambition to be seen of men;
His virtues were his pride! and that one vice
Made all his virtues gewgaws of no price;
He wore them as fine trappings for a show,
A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau.
The self-applauding bird, the peacock see,-
Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he!
Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold
His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:
He treads as if, some solemn music near,
His measured step were governed by his ear,
And seems to say, "Ye meaner fowl, give place!
I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!"
Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,
Though he too has a glory in his plumes.
He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien
To the close copse or far sequestered green,
And shines without desiring to be seen.
The plea of works, as arrogant and vain,
Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain ;
Not more affronted by avowed neglect
Than by the mere dissembler's feigned respect.
What is all righteousness that men devise,
What, but a sordid bargain for the skies?
But Christ as soon would abdicate His own
As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.
His dwelling a recess in some rude rock,
Book, beads, and maple dish his meagre stock,
In shirt of hair, and weeds of canvas dressed,
Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has blessed,
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