by Thomas Moore
Which sanctifies his last and worst.
I may be cold; — may want that glow
Of high romance which bards should know;
That holy homage which is felt
In treading where the great have dwelt;
This reverence, whatsoe’er it be,
I fear, I feel, I have it not: —
For here at this still hour, to me
The charms of this delightful spot,
Its calm seclusion from the throng,
From all the heart would fain forget,
This narrow valley and the song
Of its small murmuring rivulet,
The flitting to and fro of birds,
Tranquil and tame as they were once
In Eden ere the startling words
Of man disturbed their orisons,
Those little, shadowy paths that wind
Up the hillside, with fruit-trees lined
And lighted only by the breaks
The gay wind in the foliage makes,
Or vistas here and there that ope
Thro’ weeping willows, like the snatches
Of far-off scenes of light, which Hope
Even tho’ the shade of sadness catches! —
All this, which — could I once but lose
The memory of those vulgar ties
Whose grossness all the heavenliest hues
Of Genius can no more disguise
Than the sun’s beams can do away
The filth of fens o’er which they play —
This scene which would have filled my heart
With thoughts of all that happiest is; —
Of Love where self hath only part,
As echoing back another’s bliss;
Of solitude secure and sweet.
Beneath whose shade the Virtues meet.
Which while it shelters never chills
Our sympathies with human woe,
But keeps them like sequestered rills
Purer and fresher in their flow;
Of happy days that share their beams
‘Twixt quiet mirth and wise employ;
Of tranquil nights that give in dreams
The moonlight of the morning’s joy! —
All this my heart could dwell on here,
But for those gross mementoes near;
Those sullying truths that cross the track
Of each sweet thought and drive them back
Full into all the mire and strife
And vanities of that man’s life,
Who more than all that e’er have glowed
With fancy’s flame (and it was his,
In fullest warmth and radiance) showed
What an impostor Genius is;
How with that strong, mimetic art
Which forms its life and soul, it takes
All shapes of thought, all hues of heart,
Nor feels itself one throb it wakes;
How like a gem its light may smile
O’er the dark path by mortals trod,
Itself as mean a worm the while
As crawls at midnight o’er the sod;
What gentle words and thoughts may fall
From its false lip, what zeal to bless,
While home, friends, kindred, country, all,
Lie waste beneath its selfishness;
How with the pencil hardly dry
From coloring up such scenes of love
And beauty as make young hearts sigh
And dream and think thro’ heaven they rove,
They who can thus describe and move,
The very workers of these charms,
Nor seek nor know a joy above
Some Maman’s or Theresa’s arms!
How all in short that makes the boast
Of their false tongues they want the most;
And while with freedom on their lips,
Sounding their timbrels, to set free
This bright world, laboring in the eclipse
Of priestcraft and of slavery, —
They may themselves be slaves as low
As ever Lord or Patron made
To blossom in his smile or grow
Like stunted brushwood in his shade.
Out on the craft! — I’d rather be
One of those hinds that round me tread,
With just enough of sense to see
The noonday sun that’s o’er his head,
Than thus with high-built genius curst,
That hath no heart for its foundation,
Be all at once that’s brightest, worst,
Sublimest, meanest in creation!
CORRUPTION, AND INTOLERANCE.
TWO POEMS.
ADDRESSED TO AN ENGLISHMAN BY AN IRISHMAN.
PREFACE.
The practice which has been lately introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me a rather happy invention, as it supplies us with a mode of turning dull poetry to account; and as horses too heavy for the saddle may yet serve well enough to draw lumber, so Poems of this kind make excellent beasts of burden and will bear notes though they may not bear reading. Besides, the comments in such cases are so little under the necessity of paying any servile deference to the text, that they may even adopt that Socratic, “quod supra nos nihil ad nos.”
In the first of the two following Poems, I have ventured to speak of the Revolution of 1688, in language which has sometimes been employed by Tory writers and which is therefore neither very new nor popular. But however an Englishman might be reproached with ingratitude for depreciating the merits and results of a measure which he is taught to regard as the source of his liberties — however ungrateful it might appear in Alderman Birch to question for a moment the purity of that glorious era to which he is indebted for the seasoning of so many orations — yet an Irishman who has none of these obligations to acknowledge, to whose country the Revolution brought nothing but injury and insult, and who recollects that the book of Molyneux was burned by order of William’s Whig Parliament for daring to extend to unfortunate Ireland those principles on which the Revolution was professedly founded — an Irishman may be allowed to criticise freely the measures of that period without exposing himself either to the imputation of ingratitude or to the suspicion of being influenced by any Popish remains of Jacobitism. No nation, it is true, was ever blessed with a more golden opportunity of establishing and securing its liberties for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the people of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character. The bold notions of popular right which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament were gradually supplanted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord Hawkesbury eulogizes the churchmen of that period, and as the Reformation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise of Prerogative, — that unwieldy power which cannot move a step without alarm, — it diminished the only interference of the Crown, which is singly and independently exposed before the people, and whose abuses therefore are obvious to their senses and capabilities. Like the myrtle over a celebrated statue in Minerva’s temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from the public eye the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time, however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In the disposal of an immense revenue and the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were laid; the innovation of a standing army at once increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settlement opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed during the Whiggish reigns that succeeded; till
at length this spirit of influence has become the vital principle of the state, — an agency, subtle and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution, lurks under all its forms and regulates all its movements, and, like the invisible sylph or grace which presides over the motions of beauty,
“illam, quicquid agit, quoquo westigia flectit, componit furlim subsequiturque.”
The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in the minds of Englishmen that probably in objecting to the latter I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former. But assuredly nothing could be more unjust than such a suspicion. The very object indeed which my humble animadversions would attain is that in the crisis to which I think England is now hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 should be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform, so she may now endeavor to accomplish a Reform without Revolution.
In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England. There is one name indeed connected with Whiggism, of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation as the sanction of that name be monopolized by any party whatsoever. Mr. Fox belonged to mankind and they have lost in him their ablest friend.
With respect to the few lines upon Intolerance, which I have subjoined, they are but the imperfect beginning of a long series of Essays with which I here menace my readers upon the same important subject. I shall look to no higher merit in the task than that of giving a new form to claims and remonstrances which have often been much more eloquently urged and which would long ere now have produced their effect, but that the minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light is shed upon them.
CORRUPTION, AN EPISTLE.
Boast on, my friend — tho’ stript of all beside,
Thy struggling nation still retains her pride:
That pride which once in genuine glory woke
When Marlborough fought and brilliant St. John spoke;
That pride which still, by time and shame unstung,
Outlives even Whitelocke’s sword and Hawkesbury’s tongue!
Boast on, my friend, while in this humbled isle1
Where Honor mourns and Freedom fears to smile,
Where the bright light of England’s fame is known
But by the shadow o’er our fortunes thrown;
Where, doomed ourselves to naught but wrongs and slights,2
We hear you boast of Britain’s glorious rights,
As wretched slaves that under hatches lie
Hear those on deck extol the sun and sky!
Boast on, while wandering thro’ my native haunts,
I coldly listen to thy patriot vaunts;
And feel, tho’ close our wedded countries twine,
More sorrow for my own than pride from thine.
Yet pause a moment — and if truths severe
Can find an inlet to that courtly ear,
Which hears no news but Ward’s gazetted lies,
And loves no politics in rhyme but Pye’s, —
If aught can please thee but the good old saws
Of “Church and State,” and “William’s matchless laws,”
And “Acts and Rights of glorious Eighty-eight,” —
Things which tho’ now a century out of date
Still serve to ballast with convenient words,
A few crank arguments for speeching lords, —
Turn while I tell how England’s freedom found,
Where most she lookt for life, her deadliest wound;
How brave she struggled while her foe was seen,
How faint since Influence lent that foe a screen;
How strong o’er James and Popery she prevailed,
How weakly fell when Whigs and gold assailed.
While kings were poor and all those schemes unknown
Which drain the people to enrich the throne;
Ere yet a yielding Commons had supplied
Those chains of gold by which themselves are tied,
Then proud Prerogative, untaught to creep
With bribery’s silent foot on Freedom’s sleep,
Frankly avowed his bold enslaving plan
And claimed a right from God to trample man!
But Luther’s schism had too much roused mankind
For Hampden’s truths to linger long behind;
Nor then, when king-like popes had fallen so low,
Could pope-like kings escape the levelling blow.3
That ponderous sceptre (in whose place we bow
To the light talisman of influence now),
Too gross, too visible to work the spell
Which modern power performs, in fragments fell:
In fragments lay, till, patched and painted o’er
With fleurs-de-lis, it shone and scourged once more.
’Twas then, my friend, thy kneeling nation quaft
Long, long and deep, the churchman’s opiate draught
Of passive, prone obedience — then took flight
All sense of man’s true dignity and right;
And Britons slept so sluggish in their chain
That Freedom’s watch-voice called almost in vain.
Oh England! England! what a chance was thine,
When the last tyrant of that ill-starred line
Fled from his sullied crown and left thee free
To found thy own eternal liberty!
How nobly high in that propitious hour
Might patriot hands have raised the triple tower4
Of British freedom on a rock divine
Which neither force could storm nor treachery mine!
But no — the luminous, the lofty plan,
Like mighty Babel, seemed too bold for man;
The curse of jarring tongues again was given
To thwart a work which raised men nearer heaven.
While Tories marred what Whigs had scarce begun,
While Whigs undid what Whigs themselves had done.
The hour was lost and William with a smile
Saw Freedom weeping o’er the unfinisht pile!
Hence all the ills you suffer, — hence remain
Such galling fragments of that feudal chain5
Whose links, around you by the Norman flung,
Tho’ loosed and broke so often, still have clung.
Hence sly Prerogative like Jove of old
Has turned his thunder into showers of gold,
Whose silent courtship wins securer joys,
Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise.
While parliaments, no more those sacred things
Which make and rule the destiny of kings.
Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown,
And each new set of sharpers cog their own.
Hence the rich oil that from the Treasury steals
Drips smooth o’er all the Constitution’s wheels,
Giving the old machine such pliant play6
That Court and Commons jog one joltless way,
While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car,
So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far;
And the duped people, hourly doomed to pay
The sums that bribe their liberties away,7 —
Like a young eagle who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom, —
See their own feathers pluckt, to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart!
But soft! methinks I hear thee proudly say,
“What! shall I listen to the impious lay
“That dares with Tory license to profane
“The bright bequests of William’s glorious reign?
“Shall the great wisdom of our patriot sires,
“Whom Hawkesbury quotes and savory Birch admires,
“Be slandered thus? shall honest Steele agree
“With virtuous Rose to call us pure and free,
“Yet fail to prove it? Shall our patent pair
“Of wise state-poets waste their words in air,
“And Pye unheeded breathe his prosperous strain,
“And Canning take the people’s sense in vain?”
The people! — ah! that Freedom’s form should stay
Where Freedom’s spirit long hath past away!
That a false smile should play around the dead
And flush the features when the soul hath fled!8
When Rome had lost her virtue with her rights,
When her foul tyrant sat on Capreae’s heights,9
Amid his ruffian spies and doomed to death
Each noble name they blasted with their breath, —
Even then, (in mockery of that golden time,
When the Republic rose revered, sublime,
And her proud sons, diffused from zone to zone,
Gave kings to every nation but their own,)
Even then the senate and the tribunes stood,
Insulting marks, to show how high the flood
Of Freedom flowed, in glory’s bygone day,
And how it ebbed, — for ever ebbed away!10
Look but around — tho’ yet a tyrant’s sword
Nor haunts our sleep nor glitters o’er our board,
Tho’ blood be better drawn, by modern quacks,
With Treasury leeches than with sword or axe;
Yet say, could even a prostrate tribune’s power
Or a mock senate in Rome’s servile hour
Insult so much the claims, the rights of man,
As doth that fettered mob, that free divan,
Of noble tools and honorable knaves,
Of pensioned patriots and privileged slaves; —
That party-colored mass which naught can warm
But rank corruption’s heat — whose quickened swarm
Spread their light wings in Bribery’s golden sky,
Buzz for a period, lay their eggs and die; —
That greedy vampire which from Freedom’s tomb
Comes forth with all the mimicry of bloom
Upon its lifeless cheek and sucks and drains
A people’s blood to feel its putrid veins!
Thou start’st, my friend, at picture drawn so dark —
