O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms;
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own,
When I beheld a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law:
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bear my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers bright'ning as they waste:
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her charms around,
And Niagára stuns the thund'ring sound?
Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways; Where beasts with man divided empire claim, And the brown Indian marks with murd'rous aim; There, while above the giddy tempest flies, And all around distressful yells arise, The pensive exile, bending with his wo, To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, Casts a long look where England's glories shine, And bids his bosom sympathise with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, will no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted ax, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damein's bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Love, reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.
AT the close of the day when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove;
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove;
"Twas thus by the cave of a mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began;
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, tho' he felt as a man.
2. "Ah! why, all abandon'd to darkness and wo;
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral.
But if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to
O sooth him whose pleasures like thine pass away; Full quickly they pass-but they never return.
3. "Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, The moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays : But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in the blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again : But man's faded glory what change shall renew? Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!
4. ""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, Perfum'd with fresh fragrance, and glitt'ring with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save: But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn! O when shall day dawn on the night of the grave!
5. "Twas thus by the glare of false science betray'd, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind; My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.
O pity, great Father of light, then I cry'd,
Thy creature who fain would not wander from thee!
Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride;
From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.
6. "And darkness and doubt are now flying away ;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn :
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See truth, love, and mercy, in triumph descending, And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blend
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."
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