He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms :
He steps right onward, martial in his air,

New to my taste, his Paradise surpass'd
His form, and movement; is as smart above The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue
As meal and larded locks can make him ; wears To speak its excellence. I danc'd for joy.
His hat, or his plum'd helmet, with a grace ;

I marvell'd much that at so ripe an age
And, his three years of heroship expir'd,

As twice seven years, his beauties had then first
Returns indignant to the slighted plow.

Engag'd my wonder; and admiring still,
He hates the field, in which no fife or drum And still admiring, with regret suppos'd
Attends him ; drives his cattle to a march; The joy half lost, because not sooner found.
And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. There, too, enamourd of the life I lovd,
"T were well if his exterior change were all- Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit
But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost Determin'd, and possessing it at last
His ignorance and harmless manners too.

With transports, such as favor'd lovers seel,
To swear, to game, to drink; to show at home I studied, priz'd, and wish'd that I had known,
By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach, Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaim'd
The great proficiency he made abroad;

By modern lights from an erroneous taste,
T' astonish and to grieve his gazing friends ; I cannot but lament thy splendid wit
To break some maiden's and his mother's heart; Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
To be a pest where he was useful once ;

I still revere thee, courtly though retir'd;
Are his sole aim, and all his glory, now.

Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's silent bow'rs Man in society is like a flow'r

Not unemploy'd ; and finding rich amends Blown in its native bed : 'tis there alone

For a lost world in solitude and verse. His faculties, expanded in full bloom,

'Tis born with all: the love of Nature's works Shine out; there only reach their proper use.

Is an ingredient in the compound man, But man, associated and leagu'd with man

Infus'd at the creation of the kind. By regal warrant, or self-join'd by bond

And, though th' Alınighty Maker has throughout For int'rest-sake, or swarming into clans

Discriminated each from each, by strokes Beneath one head for purposes of war,

And touches of his hand, with so much art Like flow'rs selected from the rest, and bound

Diversified, that two were never found And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Twins at all points—yet this obtains in all, Fades rapidly, and, by compression marr’d,

That all discern a beauty in his works, Contracts defilement not to be endur'd.

And all can taste them: minds that have been form'd Hence charter'd boroughs are such public plagues ; And tutor’d, with a relish more exact, And burghers, men immaculate perhaps

But none without some relish, none unmov'd. In all their private functions, once combin'd,

It is a flame, that dies not even there, Become a lothesome body, only fit

Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds, For dissolution, hurtful to the main.

Nor habits of luxurious city life,
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin

Whatever else they smother of true worth
Against the charities of domestic life,

In human bosoms, quench it or abate.
Incorporated seem at once to lose

The villas, with which London stands begirt,
Their nature; and, disclaiming all regard

Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,
For mercy and the common rights of man,

Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air,
Build factories with blood, conducting trade

The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer At the sword's point, and dying the white robe

The citizen, and brace his languid frame! of innocent commercial Justice red.

Ev'n in the stifling bosom of the town,
Hence too the field of glory, as the world A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms
Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,

That soothe the rich possessor; much consolid,
With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp,

That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,
Enchanting music, and immortal wreaths,

Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
Is but a school, where thoughtlessness is taught

He cultivates. These serve him with a hint,
On principle, where foppery atones

That Nature lives; that sight-refreshing green
For folly, gallantry for ev'ry vice.

Is still the liv'ry she delights to wear,
Bui slighted as it is, and by the great

Though sickly samples of th' exub'rant whole.
Abandon'd, and, which still I more regret,

What are the casements lin'd with creeping herbs,
Infected with the manners and the modes

The prouder sashes fronted with a range
It knew not once, the country wins me still. Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan

The Frenchman’s darling ?* Are they not all proofs
That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss, That man, immur'd in cities, still retains
But there I laid the scene. There early stray'd

His inborn inextinguishable thirst
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice

Of rural scenes, compensating his loss
Had found me, or the hope of being free.

By supplemental shifts, the best he may ?
My very dreams were rural; rural too

The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,
The first-born efforts of my youthful Muse, Are they, that never pass their brick-wall bounds,
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells,

To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air,
Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs. Yet feel the burning instinct : over-head
No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick,
To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats And water'd duly. There the pitcher stands
Fatigu'd me, never weary of the pipe

A fragment, and the spoutless tea-put there;
of Tilyrus, assembling, as he sang,
The rustic throng beneath his fav'rite beech.

* Mignonette.

Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets Prepost'rous sight! the legs without the man.
The country, with what ardor he contrives The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
A peep at Nature, when he can no more.

Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
And contemplation, heart-consoling joys,

Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine And harmless pleasures, in the throng'd abode Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, Of multitudes unknown; hail, rural life!

And, fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb. Address himself who will to the pursuit

The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Of honors, or emolument, or fame;

Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep I shall not add myself to such a chase,

In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Thwart his attempts, or envy his success. Their wonted fodder; not like hung'ring man, Some must be great. Great offices will have Fretful if unsupplied ; but silent, meek, Great talents. And God gives to ev'ry man And patient of the slow-pac'd swain's delay. The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,

He from the stack carves out th' accustom'd load. That lifts him into life, and lets bim fall

Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft, Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.

His broad keen knife into the solid mass : To the deliv'rer of an injur'd land

Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, He gives a tongue t' enlarge upon, a heart With such undeviating and even force To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs; He severs it away: no heedless care, To monarchs dignity; to judges sense ;

Lest storms should overset the leaning pile To artists ingenuity and skill;

Deciduous, or its own unbalanc'd weight. To me an unambitious mind, content

Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd In the low vale of life, that early felt

The cheerful haunts of man ; to wield the ax, A wish for ease and leisure, and ere-long

And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear,
Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd. From morn to eve his solitary task.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears,
And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur,

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Book V.

Now ereeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk

Wide-scamp’ring, snatches up the drifted snow THE WINTER-MORNING WALK.

With iv'ry teeth, or plows it with his snout;

Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Argument.

Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl A frosty morning. The foddering of cattle. The Moves right toward the mark ; nor stops for aogh

woodman and his dog. The poultry. Whimsical But now and then with pressure of his thumb effects of frost at a waterfall. The Empress of T adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, Russia's palace of ice. Amusements of monarchs. That sumes beneath his nose ; the trailing cloud War, one of them. Wars, whence; and whence Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. monarchy. The evils of it. English and French Now from the roost, or from the neighb'ring pale loyalty contrasted. The Bastile, and a prisoner Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam there. Liberty the chief recommendation of this Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side, country. Modern patriotism questionable, and Come trooping at the housewife's well-known ca. why. The perishable nature of the best human The feather'd trihes domestic. Half on wing, institutions. Spiritual liberty not perishable. The And half on foot, they brush the fieecy flood. slavish state of man by nature. Deliver him, Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. Deist, if you can. Grace must do it. The re- The sparrow's peep, and quit the shelt'ring ea res spective merits of patriots and martyrs stated. To seize the fair occasion; well they eye Their different treatment. Happy freedom of the The scatter'd grain, and, thievishly resolvid man whom grace makes free. His relish of the T'escape th' impending famine, often scard works of God. Address to the Creator.

As oft return, a pert voracious kind.

Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
"Tis morning; and the Sun, with ruddy orb Remains to each, ihe search of sunny nook,
Ascending, fires th' horizon; while the clouds, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign'd
That crowd away before the driving wind, To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
More ardent as the disk emerges more,

His wonted strut; and, wading at their head
Resemble most some city in a blaze,

With well-consider'd steps, seems to resent Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd. Siides ineffectual down the snowy vale,

How find the myriads, that in summer cheer And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,

The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade

Due sustenance, or where subsist they now! Siretches a length of shadow o'er the field. Earth yields them nought; th'imprison'd worm is safe Mine, spindling into longitude immense,

Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs In spite of gravity, and sage remark

Lie cover'd close ; and berry-bearing thorns, That I myself am but a fleeting shade,

Thai feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose,) Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance Afford the smaller minstrels no supply, , view the muscular proportion'd limb

The long.protracted rigor of the year,
Transform d w a lean shank. The shapeless pair, Thins all their num'rous focks. in chinks and holes
As they design'd to mock me, at my side

Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
Take step for step; and, as I near approach As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die.
The collage, walk along the plaster'd wall, The very rooks and daws forsake the fields,

Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now Blush'd on the panels. Mirror needed none
Repays their labor more; and perch'd aloft

Where all was vitreous; but in order due
By the wayside, or stalking in the path,

Convivial table and commodious seat
Lean pensioners upon the trav'ller's track, (What seem'd at least commodious seat) were there
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them, Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august.
Of voided pulse or half-digested grain.

The same lubricity was found in all,
The streams are lost amid the splendid blank, And all was moist to the warm touch ; a scene
O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, Of evanescent glory, once a stream,
Indurated and fix’d, the snowy weight

And soon to slide into a stream again.
Lies undissolv'd ; while silently beneath,

Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke
And unperceiv'd, the current steals away. Of undesign'd severity, that glanc'd
Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps (Made by a monarch) on her own estate,
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, Of human grandeur and the courts of kings.
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below :

'Twas transient in its nature, as in show No frost can bind it there ; its utmost force 'Twas durable ; as worthless, as it seem'd Can but arrest the light and smoky mist,

Intrinsically precious ; to the foot
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. Treach'rous and false ; it smild, and it was cold.
And see where it has hung th' embroider'd banks | Great princes have great playthings. Some have
With forms so various, that no pow'rs of art,

play'd
'the pencil or the pen, may trace the scene ! At hewing mountains into men, and some
Here glitt'ring turrets rise, upbearing high At building human wonders mountain-high.
(Fantastic mis-arrangement !) on the roof

Some have amus'd the dull, sad years of life,
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad,)
And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops, With schemes of monumental fame; and sought
That trickle down the branches, fast congeal'd, By pyramids and mausolean pomp,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,

Short-liv'd themselves, t' immortalize their bones.
And prop the pile they but adorn'd before. Some seek diversion in the tented field,
Here grotto within grotto safe defies

And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
The sunbeam ; there, emboss'd and fretted wild, But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes Kings would not play at. Nations would do well
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain

T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands
The likeness of some object seen before. Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Thus Nature works as if to mock Art

Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil,
And in defiance of her rival pow'rs;

Because men suffer it, their loy the World. By these fortuitous and random strokes

When Babel was confounded, and the great Performing such inimitable feats,

Confed'racy of projectors wild and vain As she with all her rules can never reach.

Was split into diversity of tongues, Less worthy of applause, though more admir'd, Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, Because a novelty, the work of man,

These to the upland, to the valley those, Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,

God drave asunder, and assign'd their lot Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,

To all the nations. Ample was the boon
The wonder of the North. No forest fell,

He gave them, in its distribution fair
When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its stores And equal; and he bade them dwell in peace.
T'enrich thy walls: but thou didst hew the floods, Peace was awhile their care: they plow'd and
And make thy marble of the glassy wave.

sow'd, In such a palace Aristæus found

And reap'd their plenty without grudge or strife. Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale

But violence can never longer sleep Of his lost bees to her maternal ear:

Than human passions please. In ev'ry heart
In such a palace Poetry might place

Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war;
The armory of Winter; where his troops, Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.
The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, Cain had already shed a brother's blood :
Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, The deluge wash'd it out; but left unguench'd
And snow, that often blinds the trav'ller's course, The seeds of murder in the breast of man.
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.

Soon by a righteous judgment in the line
Silently as a dream the fabric rose;

Of his descending progeny was found No sound of hammer nor of saw was there : The first artificer of death; the shrewd Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts

Contriver, who first sweated at the forge, Were soon conjoin'd, nor other cement ask'd And forc'd the blunt and yet unbloodied steel Than water interfus'd to make them one.

To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. Lamps gracefully dispos'd, and of all hues, Him, Tubal nam'd, the Vulcan of old times, Illumin'd ev'ry side: a wat’ry light

The sword and falchion their inventor claims ;
Gleam'd through the clear transparency, that seem'd And the first smith was the first murd'rer's son
Another moon new ris'n, or meteor fallin

His art surviv'd the waters; and ere-long,
From Heaven to Earth, of lambent fame serene. When man was multiplied and spread abroad
So stood the brittle prodigy; though smooth In tribes and clans, and had begun to call
And slipp'ry the materials, yet frost-bound These meadows and that range of hills his own,
Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within, The tasted sweets of property begat
That royal residence might well befit,

Desire of more; and industry in some,
For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths T' improve and cultivate their just demesne,
Of dow'rs, that fear'd no enemy but warmth, | Made others covet what they saw so fair.

Thus war began on Earth : these fought for spoil, Familiar, serve t' emancipate the rest!
And those in self-defence. Savage at first

Such dupes are men to custom; and so prone
The onset, and irregular. At length

To rev’rence what is ancient, and can plead One eminent above the rest for strength,

A course of long observance for its use,
For stratagem, or courage, or for all,

That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Was chosen leader; him they serv'd in war, Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
And him in peace, for sake of warlike deeds Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
Rev'renc'd no less. Who could with him compare? But is it fit, or can it bear the shock
Or who so worthy to control themselves,

Of rational discussion, that a man,
As he, whose prowess bad subdu'd their foes ? Compounded and made up like other men
Thus war, affording field for their display Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, And folly in as ample measure meet,
Which have their exigencies too, and call

As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules
For skill in government, at length made king. Should be a despot absolute, and boast
King was a name too proud for man to wear Himself the only freeman of his land ?
With modesty and meekness; and the crown, Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will
So dazzling in their eyes, who set it on,

Wage war, with any or with no pretence Was sure t'intoxicate the brows it bound.

Of provocation giv'n, or wrong sustain'd, It is the abject property of most,

And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That, being parcel of the common mass,

That his own humor dictates, from the clutch
And destitute of means to raise themselves, of Poverty, that thus he may procure
They sink, and settle lower than they need. His thousands, weary of penurious life,
They know not what it is to feel within

A splendid opportunity to die?
A comprehensive faculty, that grasps

Say, ye, who (with less prudence than of old
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, Jotham ascrib'd to his assembled trees
Almost without an effort, plans too vast

In politic convention) put your trust
For their conception, which they cannot move. l'th' shadow of a bramble, and, reclin'd
Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk In fancied peace beneath his dang'rous branch,
With gazing, when they see an able man

Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway, Step forth to notice ; and, besotted thus,

Where find ye passive fortitude ? Whence springs Build him a pedestal, and say, “Stand there, Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good And be our admiration and our praise."

To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang They roll themselves before him in the dust, His thorns with streamers of continual praise ? Then most deserving in their own account, We, too, are friends to loyalty. We love When most extra vagant in his applause,

The king who loves the law, respects his bounds As if, exalting him, they rais'd themselves. And reigns content within them: him we serve Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound Freely and with delight, who leaves us free; And sober judgment, that he is but man,

But recollecting still, that he is man, They demi-deify and fume him so,

We trust him not too far. King though he be, That in due season he forgets it too.

And king in England too, he may be weak, Inflated and astrut with self-conceit,

And vain enough to be ambitious still ;
He gulps the windy diet; and ere-long,

May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs,
Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks Or covet more than freemen choose to grant:
'The world was made in vain, if not for him. Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours,
Thenceforth they are his cattle; drudges, born T'administer, to guard, t'adorn the state,
To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears, But not to warp or change it. We are his,
And sweating in his service, his caprice

To serve him nobly in the common cause,
Becoines the soul, that animates them all.

True to the death, but not to be his slaves. He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Spent in the purchase of renown for him, Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. An easy reckoning; and they think the same. We love the man, the paltry pageant you : 'Thus kings were first invented, thus kings We the chief patron of the commonwealth, Were burnish'd into heroes, and became

You the regardless author of its woes :
The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;

We for the sake of liberty a king,
Storks among frogs, that have but croak’d and died. You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake.
Strange, that such folly, as lists bloated man Our love is principle, and has its root
To eminence fit only for a god,

In reason, is judicious, manly, free;
Should ever drivel out of human lips,

Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, Ev'n in the cradled weakness of the World : And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. Still stranger much, that when at length mankind Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, Had reach'd the sinewy firmness of their youth, Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, And could discriminate and argue well

I would not be a king to be beloved
On subjects more mysterious, they were yet Causeless, and daub'd with undiscerning praise
Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear Where love is mere attachment to the throne,
And quake before the gods themselves had made; Not to the man who fills it as he ought.
But above measure strange, that neither proof Whose freedom is by sufr'rance, and at will
Of sad experience, nor example set

Of a superior, he is never free.
By some, whose patriot virtue has prevailid, Who lives, and is not weary of a life
Can even now, when they are grown mature Expos’d to manacles, deserves them well.
In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds

The state that strives for liberty, though foil'd

And forc'd lo abandon what she bravely sought, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold
Deserves at least applause for her attempt,

Upon th' endearments of domestic life
And pity for her loss. But that's a cause

And social, nip his fruitfulness and use,
Not often unsuccessful : pow'r usurp'd,

And doom him for perhaps a heedless word
Is weakness when oppos'd ; conscious of wrong, To barrenness, and solitude, and tears,
Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.

Moves indignation, makes the name of king But slaves, that once conceive the glowing thought of king whom such prerogative can please) of freedom, in that hope itself possess

As dreadful as the Manichean god,
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, Ador'd through fear, strong only to destroy.
The scorn of danger, and united hearts;

"Tis liberty alone, that gives the flow'r The surest presage of the good they seek.

or fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more And we are weeds without it. All constraint, To France than all her losses and defeats,

Except what wisdom lays on evil men,
Old or of later date, by sea or land,

Is evil: hurts the faculties, impedes
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old Their progress in the road of science; blinds
Which God aveng'd on Pharaoh-the Bastile. The eyesight of Discov'ry; and begets,
Ye horrid tow'rs, th' abode of broken hearts; In those that suffer it, a sordid mind,
Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,

Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit
That monarchs have supplied from age to age To be the tenant of man's noble form.
With music, such as suits their sov'reign ears, Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,
The sighs and groans of miserable men!

With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd
There's not an English heart, that would not leap, By public exigence, till annual food
To hear that ye were fallin at last; to know Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
That ev'n our enemies, so oft employ'd

Thee I account still happy, and the chief In forging chains for us, themselves were free. Among the nations, seeing thou art free, For he, who values Liberty, confines

My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude, His zeal for her predominance within

Replete with vapors, and disposes much No narrow bounds; her cause engages him All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine : Wherever pleaded. "Tis the cause of man. Thine unadulterate manners are less soft There dwell the most forlorn of human-kind, And plausible than social life requires, Immur'd, though unaccus’d, condemn'd untried, And thou hast need of discipline and art, Cruelly spar'd, and hopeless of escape.

To give thee what politer France receives There, like the visionary emblem seen

From nature's bounty—that humane address By him of Babylon, life stands a stump,

And sweetness, without which no pleasure is And, filleted about with hoops of brass,

In converse, either starv'd by cold reserve,
Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone. Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl.
To count the hour-bell and expect no change ; Yet being free, I love thee: for the sake
And ever, as the sullen sound is heard,

Of that one feature, can be well content,
Still to reflect, that, though a joyless note Disgrac'd as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To him, whose moments all have one dull pace, To seek no sublunary rest beside.
Ten thousand rovers in the World at large

But once enslav'd, farewell! I could endure
Account it music; that it summons some

Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home, To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball :

Where I am free by birthright, not at all. The wearied hireling finds it a release

Then what were left of roughness in the grain From labor; and the lover, who has chid

Of British natures, wanting its excuse Its long delay, feels ev'ry welcome stroke That it belongs to freemen, would disgust Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight And shock me. I should then with double pain To fly for refuge from distracting thought

Feel all the rigor of thy fickle clime; To such amusements, as ingenious woe

And, if I must bewail the blessing lost, Contrives, hard-shifting, and without her tools- For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, To read engraven on the mouldy walls,

I would at least bewail it under skies In stagg'ring types, his predecessor's tale,

Milder, among a people less austere ; A sad memorial, and subjoin his own

In scenes, which having never known me free, To turn purveyor to an overgorg’d

Would not reproach me with the loss I felt. And bloated spider, till the pamper'd pest

Do I forbode impossible events, Is made familiar, watches his approach,

And tremble at vain dreams? Heav'n grant I may! Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend But th' age of virtuous politics is past, To wear out time in numb'ring to and fro

And we are deep in that of cold pretence. The studs, that thick emboss his iron door;

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere, Then downward and then upward, then aslant, And we too wise to trust them. He that takes And then alternate; with a sickly hope

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp
By dint of change to give his tasteless task Design'd by loud declaimers on the part
Some relish : till the sum, exactly found

Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,
In all directions, he begins again.

Incurs derision for his easy faith, Oh comfortless existence! hemm'd around

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough : With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel For when was public virtue to be found, And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?

Where private was not? Can he love the whole, That man should thus encroach on fellow-man, Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend, Abridge him of his just and native rights,

Who is in truth the friend of no man there?