Book II: The Timepiece

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,Some boundless contiguity of shade,Where rumour of oppression and deceit,Of unsuccessful or successful war,Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,My soul is sick with every day's reportOf wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,It does not feel for man. The natural bondOf brotherhood is severed as the flaxThat falls asunder at the touch of fire.He finds his fellow guilty of a skinNot coloured like his own, and having powerTo enforce the wrong, for such a worthy causeDooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.Lands intersected by a narrow frithAbhor each other. Mountains interposedMake enemies of nations, who had elseLike kindred drops been mingled into one.Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;And worse than all, and most to be deplored,As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweatWith stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,And having human feelings, does not blushAnd hang his head, to think himself a man?I would not have a slave to till my ground,To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,And tremble when I wake, for all the wealthThat sinews bought and sold have ever earned.No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart'sJust estimation prized above all price,I had much rather be myself the slaveAnd wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.We have no slaves at home--then why abroad?And they themselves, once ferried o'er the waveThat parts us, are emancipate and loosed.Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungsReceive our air, that moment they are free,They touch our country and their shackles fall.That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proudAnd jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,And let it circulate through every veinOf all your empire; that where Britain's powerIs felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

Sure there is need of social intercourse,Benevolence and peace and mutual aid,Between the nations, in a world that seemsTo toll the death-bell to its own decease;And by the voice of all its elementsTo preach the general doom. When were the windsLet slip with such a warrant to destroy?When did the waves so haughtily o'erleapTheir ancient barriers, deluging the dry?Fires from beneath and meteors from above,Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,Have kindled beacons in the skies, and the oldAnd crazy earth has had her shaking fitsMore frequent, and foregone her usual rest.Is it a time to wrangle, when the propsAnd pillars of our planet seem to fail,And nature with a dim and sickly eyeTo wait the close of all? But grant her endMore distant, and that prophecy demandsA longer respite, unaccomplished yet;Still they are frowning signals, and bespeakDispleasure in His breast who smites the earthOr heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserveAnd stand exposed by common peccancyTo what no few have felt, there should be peace,And brethren in calamity should love.

Alas for Sicily, rude fragments nowLie scattered where the shapely column stood.Her palaces are dust. In all her streetsThe voice of singing and the sprightly chordAre silent. Revelry and dance and showSuffer a syncope and solemn pause,While God performs, upon the trembling stageOf His own works, His dreadful part alone.How does the earth receive Him?--With what signsOf gratulation and delight, her King?Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad,Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums,Disclosing paradise where'er He treads?She quakes at His approach. Her hollow womb,Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deepsAnd fiery caverns roars beneath His foot.The hills move lightly and the mountains smoke,For He has touched them. From the extremest pointOf elevation down into the abyss,His wrath is busy and His frown is felt.The rocks fall headlong and the valleys rise,The rivers die into offensive pools,And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a grossAnd mortal nuisance into all the air.What solid was, by transformation strangeGrows fluid, and the fixed and rooted earthTormented into billows, heaves and swells,Or with vortiginous and hideous whirlSucks down its prey insatiable. ImmenseThe tumult and the overthrow, the pangsAnd agonies of human and of bruteMultitudes, fugitive on every side,And fugitive in vain. The sylvan sceneMigrates uplifted, and, with all its soilAlighting in far-distant fields, finds outA new possessor, and survives the change.Ocean has caught the frenzy, and upwroughtTo an enormous and o'erbearing height,Not by a mighty wind, but by that voiceWhich winds and waves obey, invades the shoreResistless. Never such a sudden flood,Upridged so high, and sent on such a charge,Possessed an inland scene. Where now the throngThat pressed the beach and hasty to departLooked to the sea for safety? They are gone,Gone with the refluent wave into the deep,A prince with half his people. Ancient towers,And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenesWhere beauty oft and lettered worth consumeLife in the unproductive shades of death,Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth,And, happy in their unforeseen releaseFrom all the rigours of restraint, enjoyThe terrors of the day that sets them free.Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast,Freedom! whom they that lose thee so regret,That even a judgment, making way for thee,Seems in their eyes a mercy, for thy sake.

Such evil sin hath wrought; and such a flameKindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth,And, in the furious inquest that it makesOn God's behalf, lays waste His fairest works.The very elements, though each be meantThe minister of man to serve his wants,Conspire against him. With his breath he drawsA plague into his blood; and cannot useLife's necessary means, but he must die.Storms rise to o'erwhelm him: or, if stormy windsRise not, the waters of the deep shall rise,And, needing none assistance of the storm,Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there.The earth shall shake him out of all his holds,Or make his house his grave; nor so content,Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs.What then--were they the wicked above all,And we the righteous, whose fast-anchored isleMoved not, while theirs was rocked like a light skiff,The sport of every wave? No: none are clear,And none than we more guilty. But where allStand chargeable with guilt, and to the shaftsOf wrath obnoxious, God may choose His mark,May punish, if He please, the less, to warnThe more malignant. If He spared not them,Tremble and be amazed at thine escape,Far guiltier England, lest He spare not thee!

Happy the man who sees a God employedIn all the good and ill that chequer life!Resolving all events, with their effectsAnd manifold results, into the willAnd arbitration wise of the Supreme.Did not His eye rule all things, and intendThe least of our concerns (since from the leastThe greatest oft originate), could chanceFind place in His dominion, or disposeOne lawless particle to thwart His plan,Then God might be surprised, and unforeseenContingence might alarm Him, and disturbThe smooth and equal course of His affairs.This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyedIn nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;And, having found His instrument, forgetsOr disregards, or, more presumptuous still,Denies the power that wields it. God proclaimsHis hot displeasure against foolish menThat live an Atheist life: involves the heavenIn tempests, quits His grasp upon the windsAnd gives them all their fury; bids a plagueKindle a fiery boil upon the skin,And putrefy the breath of blooming health.He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiendBlows mildew from between his shrivelled lips,And taints the golden ear. He springs His mines,And desolates a nation at a blast.Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tellsOf homogeneal and discordant springsAnd principles; of causes how they workBy necessary laws their sure effects;Of action and reaction. He has foundThe source of the disease that nature feels,And bids the world take heart and banish fear.Thou fool! will thy discovery of the causeSuspend the effect, or heal it? Has not GodStill wrought by means since first He made the world,And did He not of old employ His meansTo drown it? What is His creation lessThan a capacious reservoir of meansFormed for His use, and ready at His will?Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve, ask of Him,Or ask of whomsoever He has taught,And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--My country! and while yet a nook is left,Where English minds and manners may be found,Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy climeBe fickle, and thy year most part deformedWith dripping rains, or withered by a frost,I would not yet exchange thy sullen skiesAnd fields without a flower, for warmer FranceWith all her vines; nor for Ausonia's grovesOf golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers.To shake thy senate, and from heights sublimeOf patriot eloquence to flash down fireUpon thy foes, was never meant my task;But I can feel thy fortune, and partakeThy joys and sorrows with as true a heartAs any thunderer there. And I can feelThy follies too, and with a just disdainFrown at effeminates, whose very looksReflect dishonour on the land I love.How, in the name of soldiership and sense,Should England prosper, when such things, as smoothAnd tender as a girl, all essenced o'erWith odours, and as profligate as sweet,Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,And love when they should fight; when such as thesePresume to lay their hand upon the arkOf her magnificent and awful cause?Time was when it was praise and boast enoughIn every clime, and travel where we might,That we were born her children. Praise enoughTo fill the ambition of a private man,That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.Farewell those honours, and farewell with themThe hope of such hereafter. They have fallenEach in his field of glory; one in arms,And one in council;--Wolfe upon the lapOf smiling victory that moment won,And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame.They made us many soldiers. Chatham, stillConsulting England's happiness at home,Secured it by an unforgiving frownIf any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,Put so much of his heart into his act,That his example had a magnet's force,And all were swift to follow whom all loved.Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!Or all that we have left is empty talkOf old achievements, and despair of new.

Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers floatUpon the wanton breezes. Strew the deckWith lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets,That no rude savour maritime invadeThe nose of nice nobility. Breathe soft,Ye clarionets, and softer still, ye flutes,That winds and waters lulled by magic soundsMay bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore.True, we have lost an empire--let it pass.True, we may thank the perfidy of FranceThat picked the jewel out of England's crown,With all the cunning of an envious shrew.And let that pass--'twas but a trick of state.A brave man knows no malice, but at onceForgets in peace the injuries of war,And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace.And shamed as we have been, to the very beardBraved and defied, and in our own sea provedToo weak for those decisive blows that onceInsured us mastery there, we yet retainSome small pre-eminence, we justly boastAt least superior jockeyship, and claimThe honours of the turf as all our own.Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek,And show the shame ye might conceal at home,In foreign eyes!--be grooms, and win the plate,Where once your nobler fathers won a crown!--'Tis generous to communicate your skillTo those that need it. Folly is soon learned,And, under such preceptors, who can fail?

There is a pleasure in poetic painsWhich only poets know. The shifts and turns,The expedients and inventions multiformTo which the mind resorts, in chase of termsThough apt, yet coy, and difficult to win--To arrest the fleeting images that fillThe mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,And force them sit, till he has pencilled offA faithful likeness of the forms he views;Then to dispose his copies with such artThat each may find its most propitious light,And shine by situation, hardly lessThan by the labour and the skill it cost,Are occupations of the poet's mindSo pleasing, and that steal away the thoughtWith such address from themes of sad import,That, lost in his own musings, happy man!He feels the anxieties of life, deniedTheir wonted entertainment, all retire.Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.Fastidious, or else listless, or perhapsAware of nothing arduous in a taskThey never undertook, they little noteHis dangers or escapes, and haply findThere least amusement where he found the most.But is amusement all? studious of songAnd yet ambitious not to sing in vain,I would not trifle merely, though the worldBe loudest in their praise who do no more.Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?It may correct a foible, may chastiseThe freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;But where are its sublimer trophies found?What vice has it subdued? whose heart reclaimedBy rigour, or whom laughed into reform?Alas, Leviathan is not so tamed.Laughed at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,That fear no discipline of human hands.

The pulpit therefore--and I name it, filledWith solemn awe, that bids me well bewareWith what intent I touch that holy thing--The pulpit, when the satirist has at last,Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,Spent all his force, and made no proselyte--I say the pulpit, in the sober useOf its legitimate peculiar powers,Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,The most important and effectual guard,Support, and ornament of virtue's cause.There stands the messenger of truth; there standsThe legate of the skies; his theme divine,His office sacred, his credentials clear.By him, the violated Law speaks outIts thunders, and by him, in strains as sweetAs angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.He stablishes the strong, restores the weak,Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,And, armed himself in panoply completeOf heavenly temper, furnishes with armsBright as his own, and trains, by every ruleOf holy discipline, to glorious war,The sacramental host of God's elect.Are all such teachers? would to heaven all were!But hark--the Doctor's voice--fast wedged betweenTwo empirics he stands, and with swollen cheeksInspires the news, his trumpet. Keener farThan all invective is his bold harangue,While through that public organ of reportHe hails the clergy, and, defying shame,Announces to the world his own and theirs,He teaches those to read whom schools dismissed,And colleges, untaught; sells accents, tone,And emphasis in score, and gives to prayerThe adagio and andante it demands.He grinds divinity of other daysDown into modern use; transforms old printTo zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyesOf gallery critics by a thousand arts.--Are there who purchase of the Doctor's ware?Oh name it not in Gath!--it cannot be,That grave and learned Clerks should need such aid.He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll,Assuming thus a rank unknown before,Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the Church.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm,Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,Coincident, exhibit lucid proofThat he is honest in the sacred cause.To such I render more than mere respect,Whose actions say that they respect themselves.But, loose in morals, and in manners vain,In conversation frivolous, in dressExtreme, at once rapacious and profuse,Frequent in park with lady at his side,Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes,But rare at home, and never at his booksOr with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;Constant at routs, familiar with a roundOf ladyships, a stranger to the poor;Ambitions of preferment for its gold,And well prepared by ignorance and sloth,By infidelity and love o' the world,To make God's work a sinecure; a slaveTo his own pleasures and his patron's pride.--From such apostles, O ye mitred heads,Preserve the Church! and lay not careless handsOn skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul,Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own,Paul should himself direct me. I would traceHis master-strokes, and draw from his design.I would express him simple, grave, sincere;In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,And natural in gesture; much impressedHimself, as conscious of his awful charge,And anxious mainly that the flock he feedsMay feel it too; affectionate in lookAnd tender in address, as well becomesA messenger of grace to guilty men.Behold the picture!--Is it like?--Like whom?The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,And then skip down again; pronounce a text,Cry--Hem; and reading what they never wrote,Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

In man or woman, but far most in man,And most of all in man that ministersAnd serves the altar, in my soul I loatheAll affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;Object of my implacable disgust.What!--will a man play tricks, will he indulgeA silly fond conceit of his fair formAnd just proportion, fashionable mien,And pretty face, in presence of his God?Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,As with the diamond on his lily hand,And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,When I am hungry for the Bread of Life?He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shamesHis noble office, and, instead of truth,Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!Therefore, avaunt, all attitude and stareAnd start theatric, practised at the glass.I seek divine simplicity in himWho handles things divine; and all beside,Though learned with labour, and though much admiredBy curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,To me is odious as the nasal twangHeard at conventicle, where worthy men,Misled by custom, strain celestial themesThrough the prest nostril, spectacle-bestrid.Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,That task performed, relapse into themselves,And having spoken wisely, at the closeGrow wanton, and give proof to every eye--Whoe'er was edified themselves were not.Forth comes the pocket mirror. First we strokeAn eyebrow; next compose a straggling lock;Then with an air, most gracefully performed,Fall back into our seat; extend an arm,And lay it at its ease with gentle care,With handkerchief in hand, depending low:The better hand, more busy, gives the noseIts bergamot, or aids the indebted eyeWith opera glass to watch the moving scene,And recognise the slow-retiring fair.Now this is fulsome, and offends me moreThan in a Churchman slovenly neglectAnd rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mindMay be indifferent to her house of clay,And slight the hovel as beneath her care.But how a body so fantastic, trim,And quaint in its deportment and attire,Can lodge a heavenly mind--demands a doubt.

He that negotiates between God and man,As God's ambassador, the grand concernsOf judgment and of mercy, should bewareOf lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitifulTo court a grin, when you should woo a soul;To break a jest, when pity would inspirePathetic exhortation; and to addressThe skittish fancy with facetious tales,When sent with God's commission to the heart.So did not Paul. Direct me to a quipOr merry turn in all he ever wrote,And I consent you take it for your text,Your only one, till sides and benches fail.No: he was serious in a serious cause,And understood too well the weighty termsThat he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoopTo conquer those by jocular exploits,Whom truth and soberness assailed in vain.

Oh, popular applause! what heart of manIs proof against thy sweet seducing charms?The wisest and the best feel urgent needOf all their caution in thy gentlest gales;But swelled into a gust--who then, alas!With all his canvas set, and inexpert,And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power?Praise from the riveled lips of toothless, baldDecrepitude, and in the looks of leanAnd craving poverty, and in the bowRespectful of the smutched artificer,Is oft too welcome, and may much disturbThe bias of the purpose. How much more,Poured forth by beauty splendid and polite,In language soft as adoration breathes?Ah, spare your idol! think him human still;Charms he may have, but he has frailties too;Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.

All truth is from the sempiternal sourceOf light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and RomeDrew from the stream below. More favoured, weDrink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.To them it flowed much mingled and defiledWith hurtful error, prejudice, and dreamsIllusive of philosophy, so called,But falsely. Sages after sages strove,In vain, to filter off a crystal draughtPure from the lees, which often more enhancedThe thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bredIntoxication and delirium wild.In vain they pushed inquiry to the birthAnd spring-time of the world; asked, Whence is man?Why formed at all? and wherefore as he is?Where must he find his Maker? With what ritesAdore Him? Will He hear, accept, and bless?Or does He sit regardless of His works?Has man within him an immortal seed?Or does the tomb take all? If he surviveHis ashes, where? and in what weal or woe?Knots worthy of solution, which aloneA Deity could solve. Their answers vague,And all at random, fabulous and dark,Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life,Defective and unsanctioned, proved too weakTo bind the roving appetite, and leadBlind nature to a God not yet revealed.'Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts,Explains all mysteries, except her own,And so illuminates the path of life,That fools discover it, and stray no more.Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,My man of morals, nurtured in the shadesOf Academus, is this false or true?Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools?If Christ, then why resort at every turnTo Athens or to Rome for wisdom shortOf man's occasions, when in Him resideGrace, knowledge, comfort, an unfathomed store?How oft when Paul has served us with a text,Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached!Men that, if now alive, would sit contentAnd humble learners of a Saviour's worth,Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth,Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too.

And thus it is. The pastor, either vainBy nature, or by flattery made so, taughtTo gaze at his own splendour, and to exaltAbsurdly, not his office, but himself;Or unenlightened, and too proud to learn,Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach,Perverting often, by the stress of lewdAnd loose example, whom he should instruct,Exposes and holds up to broad disgraceThe noblest function, and discredits muchThe brightest truths that man has ever seen.For ghostly counsel, if it either fallBelow the exigence, or be not backedWith show of love, at least with hopeful proofOf some sincerity on the giver's part;Or be dishonoured in the exterior formAnd mode of its conveyance, by such tricksAs move derision, or by foppish airsAnd histrionic mummery, that let downThe pulpit to the level of the stage;Drops from the lips a disregarded thing.The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught,While prejudice in men of stronger mindsTakes deeper root, confirmed by what they see.A relaxation of religion's holdUpon the roving and untutored heartSoon follows, and the curb of conscience snapt,The laity run wild.--But do they now?Note their extravagance, and be convinced.

As nations, ignorant of God, contriveA wooden one, so we, no longer taughtBy monitors that Mother Church supplies,Now make our own. Posterity will ask(If e'er posterity sees verse of mine),Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence,What was a monitor in George's days?My very gentle reader, yet unborn,Of whom I needs must augur better things,Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a worldProductive only of a race like us,A monitor is wood--plank shaven thin.We wear it at our backs. There, closely bracedAnd neatly fitted, it compresses hardThe prominent and most unsightly bones,And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its useSovereign and most effectual to secureA form, not now gymnastic as of yore,From rickets and distortion, else, our lot.But thus admonished we can walk erect,One proof at least of manhood; while the friendSticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.Our habits costlier than Lucullus wore,And, by caprice as multiplied as his,Just please us while the fashion is at full,But change with every moon. The sycophant,That waits to dress us, arbitrates their date,Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye;Finds one ill made, another obsolete,This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived;And, making prize of all that he condemns,With our expenditure defrays his own.Variety's the very spice of life,That gives it all its flavour. We have runThrough every change that fancy, at the loomExhausted, has had genius to supply,And, studious of mutation still, discardA real elegance, a little used,For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.We sacrifice to dress, till household joysAnd comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires,And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,Where peace and hospitality might reign.What man that lives, and that knows how to live,Would fail to exhibit at the public showsA form as splendid as the proudest there,Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?A man o' the town dines late, but soon enough,With reasonable forecast and despatch,To ensure a side-box station at half-price.You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress,His daily fare as delicate. Alas!He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seemsWith an old tavern quill, is hungry yet.The rout is folly's circle which she drawsWith magic wand. So potent is the spell,That none decoyed into that fatal ring,Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape.There we grow early gray, but never wise;There form connections, and acquire no friend;Solicit pleasure hopeless of success;Waste youth in occupations only fitFor second childhood, and devote old ageTo sports which only childhood could excuse.There they are happiest who dissemble bestTheir weariness; and they the most polite,Who squander time and treasure with a smile,Though at their own destruction. She that asksHer dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,And hates their coming. They (what can they less?)Make just reprisals, and, with cringe and shrugAnd bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace,Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,To her who, frugal only that her thriftMay feed excesses she can ill afford,Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; who, in hasteAlighting, turns the key in her own door,And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives,On Fortune's velvet altar offering upTheir last poor pittance--Fortune, most severeOf goddesses yet known, and costlier farThan all that held their routs in Juno's heaven.--So fare we in this prison-house the world.And 'tis a fearful spectacle to seeSo many maniacs dancing in their chains.They gaze upon the links that hold them fastWith eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,Then shake them in despair, and dance again.

Now basket up the family of plaguesThat waste our vitals. Peculation, saleOf honour, perjury, corruption, fraudsBy forgery, by subterfuge of law,By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keenAs the necessities their authors feel;Then cast them, closely bundled, every bratAt the right door. Profusion is its sire.Profusion unrestrained, with all that's baseIn character, has littered all the land,And bred within the memory of no fewA priesthood such as Baal's was of old,A people such as never was till now.It is a hungry vice:--it eats up allThat gives society its beauty, strength,Convenience, and security, and use;Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trappedAnd gibbeted, as fast as catchpole clawsCan seize the slippery prey; unties the knotOf union, and converts the sacred bandThat holds mankind together to a scourge.Profusion, deluging a state with lustsOf grossest nature and of worst effects,Prepares it for its ruin; hardens, blinds,And warps the consciences of public menTill they can laugh at virtue; mock the foolsThat trust them; and, in the end, disclose a faceThat would have shocked credulity herself,Unmasked, vouchsafing this their sole excuse;--Since all alike are selfish, why not they?This does Profusion, and the accursed causeOf such deep mischief has itself a cause.

In colleges and halls, in ancient days,When learning, virtue, piety, and truthWere precious, and inculcated with care,There dwelt a sage called Discipline. His head,Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,But strong for service still, and unimpaired.His eye was meek and gentle, and a smilePlayed on his lips, and in his speech was heardPaternal sweetness, dignity, and love.The occupation dearest to his heartWas to encourage goodness. He would strokeThe head of modest and ingenuous worth,That blushed at its own praise, and press the youthClose to his side that pleased him. Learning grewBeneath his care, a thriving, vigorous plant;The mind was well informed, the passions heldSubordinate, and diligence was choice.If e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must,That one among so many overleapedThe limits of control, his gentle eyeGrew stern, and darted a severe rebuke;His frown was full of terror, and his voiceShook the delinquent with such fits of aweAs left him not, till penitence had wonLost favour back again, and closed the breach.But Discipline, a faithful servant long,Declined at length into the vale of years;A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eyeWas quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrungGrew tremulous, and moved derision moreThan reverence in perverse, rebellious youth.So colleges and halls neglected muchTheir good old friend, and Discipline at length,O'erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died.Then study languished, emulation slept,And virtue fled. The schools became a sceneOf solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts,His cap well lined with logic not his own,With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part,Proceeding soon a graduated dunce.Then compromise had place, and scrutinyBecame stone-blind, precedence went in truck,And he was competent whose purse was so.A dissolution of all bonds ensued,The curbs invented for the mulish mouthOf headstrong youth were broken; bars and boltsGrew rusty by disuse, and massy gatesForgot their office, opening with a touch;Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade;The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest,A mockery of the world. What need of theseFor gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure,Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seenWith belted waist, and pointers at their heels,Than in the bounds of duty? What was learned,If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot,And such expense as pinches parents blueAnd mortifies the liberal hand of love,Is squandered in pursuit of idle sportsAnd vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name,That sits a stigma on his father's house,And cleaves through life inseparably closeTo him that wears it. What can after-gamesOf riper joys, and commerce with the world,The lewd vain world that must receive him soon,Add to such erudition thus acquired,Where science and where virtue are professed?They may confirm his habits, rivet fastHis folly, but to spoil him is a taskThat bids defiance to the united powersOf fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews.Now, blame we most the nurselings, or the nurse?The children crooked and twisted and deformedThrough want of care, or her whose winking eyeAnd slumbering oscitancy mars the brood?The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge,She needs herself correction; needs to learnThat it is dangerous sporting with the world,With things so sacred as a nation's trust;The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.

All are not such. I had a brother once--Peace to the memory of a man of worth,A man of letters and of manners too--Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles.He graced a college in which order yetWas sacred, and was honoured, loved, and wept,By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.Some minds are tempered happily, and mixtWith such ingredients of good sense and tasteOf what is excellent in man, they thirstWith such a zeal to be what they approve,That no restraints can circumscribe them moreThan they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake.Nor can example hurt them. What they seeOf vice in others but enhancing moreThe charms of virtue in their just esteem.If such escape contagion, and emergePure, from so foul a pool, to shine abroad,And give the world their talents and themselves,Small thanks to those whose negligence or slothExposed their inexperience to the snare,And left them to an undirected choice.

See, then, the quiver broken and decayed,In which are kept our arrows. Rusting thereIn wild disorder and unfit for use,What wonder if discharged into the worldThey shame their shooters with a random flight,Their points obtuse and feathers drunk with wine.Well may the Church wage unsuccessful warWith such artillery armed. Vice parries wideThe undreaded volley with a sword of straw,And stands an impudent and fearless mark.

Have we not tracked the felon home, and foundHis birthplace and his dam? The country mourns--Mourns, because every plague that can infestSociety, that saps and worms the baseOf the edifice that Policy has raised,Swarms in all quarters; meets the eye, the ear,And suffocates the breath at every turn.Profusion breeds them. And the cause itselfOf that calamitous mischief has been found,Found, too, where most offensive, in the skirtsOf the robed pedagogue. Else, let the arraignedStand up unconscious and refute the charge.So, when the Jewish leader stretched his armAnd waved his rod divine, a race obscene,Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forthPolluting Egypt. Gardens, fields, and plainsWere covered with the pest. The streets were filled;The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook,Nor palaces nor even chambers 'scaped,And the land stank, so numerous was the fry.