Complete Works of Matthew Prior

by Matthew Prior

  Haply at night he does with honour shun

  A widow’d daughter, or a dying son;

  His neighbour’s offspring he to-morrow sees,

  And doubly feels his want in their increase:

  The next day, and the next, he must attend

  His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.

  In every act and turn of life he feels

  Public calamities, or household ills;

  The due reward to just desert refused,

  The trust betray’d, the nuptial bed abused:

  The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,

  And doubtful issue of misconstrued laws:

  The crafty turns of a dishonest state,

  And violent will of the wrong-doing great;

  The venom’d tongue, injurious to his fame,

  Which nor can wisdom shun nor fair advice reclaim.

  Esteem we these, my friend, event and chance,

  Produced as atoms form their fluttering dance?

  Or higher yet their essence may we draw

  From destined order and eternal law?

  Again, my Muse, the cruel doubt repeat?

  Spring they, I say, from accident or fate?

  Yet such we find they are, as can control

  The servile actions of our wavering soul;

  Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;

  Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

  O fatal search! in which the labouring mind,

  Still press’d with weight of wo, still hopes to find

  A shadow of delight, a dream of peace,

  From years of pain one moment of release;

  Hoping, at least, she may herself deceive,

  Against experience willing to believe,

  Desirous to rejoice, condemn’d to grieve,

  Happy the mortal man who now at last

  Has through this doleful vale of misery pass’d,

  Who to his destined stage has carried on

  The tedious load, and laid his burden down;

  Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows

  Victor o’er Life, and all her train of woes:

  He happier yet, who privileged by Fate

  To shorter labour and a lighter weight,

  Received but yesterday the gift of breath,

  Order’d to-morrow to return to death:

  But, O! beyond description happiest he

  Who ne’er must roll on life’s tumultuous sea;

  Exempt, must never force the teeming womb,

  Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb.

  Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn!

  And he alone is bless’d who ne’er was born.

  ‘Yet in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear;

  Are not these general maxims too severe?

  Say, cannot power secure its owner’s bliss?

  Are victors bless’d with fame, or kings with ease?’

  I tell thee, life is but one common care,

  And man was born to suffer and to fear.

  ‘But is no rank, no station, no degree,

  From this contagious taint of sorrow free?’

  None, mortal, none: yet in a bolder strain

  Let me this melancholy truth maintain:

  But hence, ye worldly and profane, retire,

  For I adapt my voice and raise my lyre

  To notions not by vulgar ear received;

  Yet still must covet life, and be deceived;

  Your very fear of death shall make you try

  To catch the shade of immortality,

  Wishing on earth to linger, and to save

  Part of its prey from the devouring grave;

  To those who may survive ye to bequeath

  Something entire, in spite of time and death;

  A fancied kind of being to retrieve,

  And in a book, or from a building live.

  False hope! vain labour! let some ages fly,

  The dome shall moulder, and the volume die.

  Wretches, still taught! still will ye think it strange

  That all the parts of this great fabric change.

  Quit their high station and primeval frame,

  And lose their shape, their essence and their name?

  Reduce the song; our hopes, our joys, are vain;

  Our lot is sorrow, and our portion pain.

  What pause from wo, what hopes of comfort bring

  The name of wise or great, of judge or king?

  What is a king? a man condemn’d to bear

  The public burden of the nation’s care;

  Now crown’d, some angry faction to appease,

  Now falls a victim to the people’s ease;

  From the first blooming of his ill-taught youth

  Nourish’d flattery, and estranged from truth:

  At home surrounded by a servile crowd,

  Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud;

  Abroad begirt with men, and swords and spears,

  His very state acknowledging his fears;

  Marching amidst a thousand guards, he shows

  His secret terror of a thousand foes;

  In war, however prudent, great, or brave,

  To blind events and fickle chance a slave;

  Seeking to settle what for ever flies,

  Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.

  But he returns with conquest on his brow,

  Brings up the triumph, and absolves the vow:

  The captive generals to his car are tied;

  The joyful citizens, tumultuous tide,

  Echoing his glory, gratify his pride.

  What is this triumph? madness, shouts, and noise,

  One great collection of the people’s voice.

  The wretches he brings back, in chains relate

  What may to-morrow be the victor’s fate.

  The spoils and trophies borne before him show

  National loss and epidemic wo,

  Various distress which he and his may know.

  Does he not mourn the valiant thousands slain,

  The heroes, once the glory of the plain,

  Left in the conflict of the fatal day,

  Or the wolf’s portion, or the vulture’s prey?

  Does he not weep the laurel which he wears,

  Wet with the soldiers’ blood and widows tears?

  See where he comes, the darting of the war!

  See millions crowding round the gilded car!

  In the vast joys of this ecstatic hour,

  And full fruition of successful power,

  One moment and one thought might let him scan

  The various turns of life, and fickle state of man.

  Are the dire images of sad distrust,

  And popular change, obscured amid the dust

  That rises from the victor’s rapid wheel?

  Can the loud clarion or shrill life repel

  The inward cries of Care? can Nature’s voice,

  Plaintive, be drown’d, or lessen’d in the noise,

  Though shouts, as thunder loud, afflict the air,

  Stun the birds, now released, and shake the ivory chair?

  Yon crowd, (he might reflect) yon joyful crowd,

  Pleased with my honours, in my praise loud,

  (Should fleeting victory to the vanquish’d go,

  Should she depress my arms and raise the foe)

  Would for that foe with equal ardour wait,

  At the high palace or the crowded gate,

  With restless rage would pull my statues down,

  And cast the brass anew to his renown.

  O impotent desire of worldly sway!

  That I who make the triumph of to-day,

  May of to-morrow’s pomp one part appear,

  Ghastly with wounds, and lifeless on the bier!

  Then, (vileness of mankind!) then of all these

  Whom my dilated eye with labour sees,

  Would one, alas! repeat me good
or great,

  Wash my pale body, or bewail my fate?

  Or, march’d I chain’d behind the hostile car,

  The victor’s pastime, and the sport of war,

  Would one, would one his pitying sorrow lend,

  Or be so poor to own he was my friend?

  Avails it then, O Reason, to be wise?

  To see this cruel scene with quicker eyes?

  To know with more distinction to complain,

  And have superior sense in feeling pain?

  Let us resolve, that roll with strictest eye,

  Where safe from time distinguish’d actions lie,

  And judge if greatness be exempt from pain,

  Or pleasure ever may with power remain.

  Adam, great type, for whom the world was made,

  The fairest blessing to his arms convey’d,

  A charming wife; and air, and sea, and land,

  And all that move therein, to his command

  Render’d obedient: say, my pensive Muse,

  What did these golden promises produce?

  Scarce tasting life he was of joy bereaved;

  One day I think in Paradise he lived,

  Destined the next his journey to pursue

  Where wounding thorns and cursed thistles grew.

  Ere yet he earns his bread, adown his brow,

  Inclined to earth, his labouring sweat must flow;

  His limbs must ache, with daily toils oppress’d,

  Ere long-wish’d night brings necessary rest:

  Still viewing with regret his darling Eve,

  He for her follies and his own must grieve.

  Bewailing still afresh their hapless choice,

  His ear oft frighted with the imaged voice,

  Of Heaven when first it thundere’d, oft his view,

  Aghast, as when the infant lightning flew,

  And the stern cherub stopp’d the fatal road,

  Arm’d with the flames of an avenging God,

  His younger son on the polluted ground,

  First fruit of death, lies plaintive of a wound

  Given by a brother’s hand; his eldest birth

  Flies, mark’d by Heaven, a fugitive o’er earth:

  Yet why these sorrows heap’d upon the sire,

  Becomes nor man nor angel to inquire.

  Each age sinn’d on, and guild advanced with time;

  The son still added to the father’s crime;

  Till God arose, and, great in anger, said,

  Lo! it repenteth me that man was made.

  And from your deep abyss, ye waters, rise!

  The frighted angels heard th’ Almighty Lord,

  And o’er the earth from wrathful vials pour’d

  Tempests and storm, obedient to his word.

  Meantime his providence to Noah gave

  The guard of all that he design’d to save:

  Exempt from general doom the patriarch stood,

  Contemn’d the waves, and triumph’d o’er the flood.

  The winds fall silent and the waves decrease;

  The dove brings quiet, and the clive peace;

  Yet still his heart does inward sorrow feel,

  Which faith alone forbids him to reveal.

  If on the backward world his views are cast,

  ’Tis death diffused, and universal waste.

  Present, (sad prospect!) can he ought descry

  But (what affects his melancholy eye)

  The beauties of the ancient fabric lost,

  In chains of craggy hill, or lengths of dreary coast?

  While to high heaven his pious breathings turn’d,

  Weeping he hoped, and sacrificing mourn’d;

  When of God’s image only eight he found

  Snatch’d from the watery grave, and saved from nations drown’d;

  And of three sons, the future hopes of earth,

  The seed whence empires must receive their birth,

  One he foresees excluded heavenly grace,

  And mark’d with curses fatal to his race.

  Abraham, potent prince, the friend of God,

  Of human ills must bear the destined load,

  By blood and battles must his power maintain,

  And slay the monarchs ere he rules the plain;

  Must deal just portions of a servile life

  To a proud handmaid and a peevish wife;

  Must with the mother leave the weeping son,

  In want to wander and in wilds to groan;

  Must take his other child, his age’s hope,

  To trembling Moriah’s melancholy top,

  Order’d to drench his knife in filial blood,

  Destroy his heir, or disobey his God.

  Moses beheld that God; but how beheld

  The Deity, in radiant beams conceal’d,

  And clouded in a deep abyss of light!

  While present too severe for human sight,

  Nor staying longer than one swift-wing’d night

  The following days, and months, and years, decreed

  To fierce encounter, and to toilsome deed:

  His youth with wants and hardships must engage,

  Plots and rebellions must disturb his age:

  Some Corah still arose, some rebel slave,

  Prompter to sink the state than he to save,

  And Israel did his rage so far provoke,

  That what the Godhead wrote the prophet broke.

  His voice scarce heard, his dictates scarce believed,

  In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, he lived,

  And died obedient to severest law,

  Forbid to tread the Promised land he saw.

  My father’s life was one long line of care,

  A scene of danger and a state of war.

  The bear’s rough gripe and foaming lion’s rage,

  By various turns his threaten’d youth must fear

  Goliath’s lifted sword and Saul’s emitted spear.

  Forlorn he must, and persecuted, fly,

  Climb the steep mountain, in the cavern lie,

  And often ask, and be refused to die.

  For ever from his manly toils are known

  The weight of power and anguish of a crown.

  What tongue can speak the restless monarch’s woes,

  When God and Nathan were declared his foes?

  When every object his offence reviled,

  The husband murder’d and the wife defiled,

  The parent’s sins impress’d upon the dying child!

  What heart can think the grief which he sustain’,d

  When the King’s crime brought vengeance on the land,

  And the inexorable prophet’s voice

  Give famine, plague, or war, and bid him fix his choice?

  He died; and, oh! may no reflection shed

  Its poisonous venom on the royal dead:

  Yet the unwilling truth must be express’d

  Which long has labour’d in this pensive breast;

  Dying he added to my weight of care;

  He made me to his crimes undoubted heir;

  Left his unfinish’d murder to his son,

  And Joab’s blood entail’d on Judah’s crown.

  Young as I was, I hasted to fulfil

  The cruel dictates of my parent’s will:

  Of his fair deeds a distant view I took,

  But turn’d the tube upon his faults to look;

  Forgot his youth spent in his country’s cause,

  His care of right, his reverence to the laws,

  But could with joy his years of folly trace,

  Broken and old in Bathsheba’s embrace

  Could follow him where’er he stray’d from good,

  And cite his sad example, whilst I trod

  Paths open to deceit, and track’d with blood.

  With smiles I could betray, with temper kill;

  Soon in a brother could a rival view,

  Watch all his acts, and all his ways pursue:

 
In vain for life he to the altar fled;

  Ambition and Revenge have certain speed.

  Even there, my soul, even there he should have fell,

  But that my interest did my rage conceal:

  Doubling my crime I promise and deceive,

  Purpose to slay, whilst swearing to forgive.

  Treaties, persuasions, sighs, and tears, are vain

  With a mean lie cursed vengeance I sustain.

  Join fraud to force, and policy to power,

  Till of the destined fugitive secure,

  In solemn state to parricide I rise,

  And, as God lives, this day my brother dies.

  Be witness to my tears, celestial Muse!

  In vain I would forget, in vain excuse,

  Fraternal blood by my direction spilt;

  In vain on Joab’s head transfer the guilt:

  The deed was acted by the subject’s hand,

  The sword was pointed by the King’s command:

  Mine was the murder; it was mine alone;

  Years of contrition must the crime atone:

  Nor can my guilty soul expect relief

  But from a long sincerity of grief.

  With an imperfect hand and trembling heart,

  Her love of truth superior to her art,

  Already the reflecting Muse has traced

  The mournful figures of my actions past,

  The pensive goddess has already taught

  How vain is hope, and how vexatious thought;

  From growing childhood to declining age,

  How tedious every step, how gloomy every stage,

  This course of vanity almost complete,

  Tired in the field of life, I hope retreat

  In the still shades of death; for dread, and pain,

  And grief, will find their shafts elanced in vain,

  And their points broke, retorted from the head,

  Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.

  Yet tell me, frighted reason! what is death?

  Blood only stopp’d, and interrupted breath?

  The utmost limit of a narrow span,

  And end of motion, which with life began?

  As smoke that rises from the kindling fires

  Is seen this moment, and the next expires;

  As empty clouds by rising winds are lost,

  Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost,

  So vanishes our state, so pass our days,

  So life but opens now, and now decays;

  The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,