The best of ev’ry man’s performance here,
Is to discharge the duties of his sphere.
A lawyer’s dealing should be just and fair,
Honesty shines with great advantage there;
Fasting and pray’r sit well upon a priest,
A decent caution and reserve at least.
A soldier’s best is courage in the field,
With nothing here that wants to be conceal’d,
Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay,
An hand as lib’ral as the light of day,
The soldier thus endow’d, who never shrinks,
Nor closets up his thought what’er he thinks,
Who scorns to do an injury by stealth,
Must go to heav’n — and I must drink his health.
Sir Smug! he cries (for lowest at the board,
Just made fifth chaplain of his patron lord,
His shoulders witnessing by many a shrug,
How much his feelings suffered, sat Sir Smug)
Your office is to winnow false from true,
Come, prophet, drink, and tell us what think you.
Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass,
Which they that wooe preferment, rarely pass,
Fallible man, the church-bred youth replies,
Is still found fallible, however wise,
And differing judgments serve but to declare
That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
Of all it ever was my lot to read
Of critics now alive or long since dead,
The book of all the world that charm’d me most
Was, well-a-day, the title-page was lost.
The writer well remarks, an heart that knows
To take with gratitude what heav’n bestows,
With prudence always ready at our call,
To guide our use of it, is all in all.
Doubtless it is — to which of my own store
I superadd a few essentials more;
But these, excuse the liberty I take,
I wave just now, for conversation sake. —
Spoke like an oracle, they all exclaim,
And add Right Rev’rend to Smug’s honour’d name,
And yet our lot is giv’n us in a land
Where busy arts are never at a stand,
Where science points her telescopic eye,
Familiar with the wonders of the sky,
Where bold enquiry diving out of sight,
Brings many a precious pearl of truth to light,
Where nought eludes the persevering quest,
That fashion, taste, or luxury suggest.
But above all, in her own light array’d,
See mercy’s grand apocalypse display’d!
The sacred book no longer suffers wrong,
Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue,
But speaks with plainness art could never mend,
What simplest minds can soonest comprehend.
God gives the word, the preachers throng around,
Live from his lips, and spread the glorious sound:
That sound bespeaks salvation on her way,
The trumpet of a life-restoring day;
’Tis heard where England’s eastern glory shines,
And in the gulphs of her Cornubian mines.
And still it spreads. See Germany send forth
Her * sons to pour it on the farthest north:
Fir’d with a zeal peculiar, they defy
The rage and rigor of a polar sky,
And plant successfully sweet Sharon’s rose,
On icy plains and in eternal snows.
Oh blest within th’ inclosure of your rocks,
Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks,
No fertilizing streams your fields divide,
That show revers’d the villas on their side,
No groves have ye; no cheerful sound of bird,
Or voice of turtle in your land is heard,
Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell
Of those that walk at ev’ning where ye dwell —
But winter arm’d with terrors, here unknown,
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne,
Piles up his stores amid’st the frozen waste,
And bids the mountains he has built, stand fast,
Beckons the legions of his storms away
From happier scenes, to make your land a prey,
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won,
And scorns to share it with the distant sun.
— Yet truth is yours, remote, unenvied isle,
And peace, the genuine offspring of her smile,
The pride of letter’d ignorance that binds
In chains of error, our accomplish’d minds,
That decks with all the splendor of the true
A false religion, is unknown to you.
Nature indeed vouchsafes for our delight
The sweet vicissitudes of day and night,
Soft airs and genial moisture, feed and cheer
Field, fruit and flow’r, and ev’ry creature here,
But brighter beams than his who fires the skies,
Have ris’n at length on your admiring eyes,
That shoot into your darkest caves the day
From which our nicer optics turn away.
Here see th’ encouragement grace gives to vice,
The dire effect of mercy without price!
What were they? — what some fools are made by
They were by nature, atheists, head and heart.
The gross idolatry blind heathens teach
Was too refin’d for them, beyond their reach;
Not ev’n the glorious sun, though men revere
The monarch most that seldom will appear,
And though his beams that quicken where they shine▪
May claim some right to be esteem’d divine,
Not ev’n the sun, desirable as rare,
Could bend one knee, engage one vot’ry there;
They were what base credulity believes
True Christians are, dissemblers, drunkards, thieves▪
The full-gorged savage at his nauseous feast
Spent half the darkness, and snor’d out the rest,
Was one, whom justice on an equal plan
Denouncing death upon the sins of man,
Might almost have indulg’d with an escape,
Chargeable only with an human shape.
What are they now? — morality may spare
Her grave concern, her kind suspicions there.
The wretch that once sang wildly, danc’d and laugh’d,
And suck’d in dizzy madness with his draught,
Has wept a silent flood, revers’d his ways,
Is sober, meek, benevolent, and prays;
Feeds sparingly, communicates his store,
Abhors the craft he boasted of before,
And he that stole has learn’d to steal no more.
Well spake the prophet, let the desart sing,
Where sprang the thorn, the spiry fir shall spring,
And where unsightly and rank thistles grew,
Shall grow the myrtle and luxuriant yew.
Go now, and with important tone demand
On what foundation virtue is to stand,
If self-exalting claims be turn’d adrift,
And grace be grace indeed, and life a gift;
The poor reclaim’d inhabitant, his eyes
Glist’ning at once with pity and surprise,
Amaz’d that shadows should obscure the sight
Of one whose birth was in a land of light,
Shall answer, Hope, sweet Hope, has set me free,
And made all pleasures else mere dross to me.
These amidst scenes as waste as if denied
The common care that waits on all beside,
Wild as if nature there, void of all good,
Play’d only gamb
ols in a frantic mood;
Yet charge not heav’nly skill with having plann’d
A play-thing world unworthy of his hand,
Can see his love, though secret evil lurks
In all we touch, stamp’d plainly on his works,
Deem life a blessing with its num’rous woes,
Nor spurn away a gift a God bestows.
Hard task indeed, o’er arctic seas to roam!
Is hope exotic? grows it not at home?
Yes, but an object bright as orient morn,
May press the eye too closely to be borne,
A distant virtue we can all confess,
It hurts our pride and moves our envy less.
Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek
I slur a name a poet must not speak)
Stood pilloried on infamy’s high stage,
And bore the pelting scorn of half an age,
The very butt of slander, and the blot
For ev’ry dart that malice ever shot.
The man that mentioned him, at once dismiss’d
All mercy from his lips, and sneer’d and hiss’d;
His crimes were such as Sodom never knew,
And perjury stood up to swear all true;
His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence,
His speech rebellion against common sense,
A knave when tried on honesty’s plain rule,
And when by that of reason, a mere fool,
The world’s best comfort was, his doom was pass’d,
Die when he might, he must be damn’d at last.
Now truth perform thine office, waft aside
The curtain drawn by prejudice and pride,
Reveal (the man is dead) to wond’ring eyes,
This more than monster in his proper guise.
He lov’d the world that hated him: the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere.
Assail’d by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life,
And he that forged and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother’s interest in his heart.
Paul’s love of Christ, and steadiness unbrib’d,
Were copied close in him, and well transcrib’d;
He followed Paul: his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same,
Like him cross’d chearfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease;
Like him he labour’d, and like him, content
To bear it, suffer’d shame where’er he went.
Blush calumny! and write upon his tomb,
If honest eulogy can spare thee room,
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies,
Which aim’d at him, have pierc’d th’ offended skies,
And say, blot out my sin, confess’d, deplor’d,
Against thine image in thy saint, oh Lord!
No blinder bigot, I maintain it still,
Than he that must have pleasure, come what will;
He laughs, whatever weapon truth may draw,
And deems her sharp artillery mere straw.
Scripture indeed is plain, but God and he
On scripture-ground, are sure to disagree;
Some wiser rule must teach him how to live,
Than that his Maker has seen fit to give,
Supple and flexible as Indian cane,
To take the bend his appetites ordain,
Contriv’d to suit frail nature’s crazy case,
And reconcile his lusts with saving grace.
By this, with nice precision of design,
He draws upon life’s map a zig-zag line,
That shows how far ’tis safe to follow sin,
And where his danger and God’s wrath begin.
By this he forms, as pleas’d he sports along,
His well pois’d estimate of right and wrong,
And finds the modish manners of the day,
Though loose, as harmless as an infant’s play.
Build by whatever plan caprice decrees,
With what materials, on what ground you please,
Your hope shall stand unblam’d, perhaps admir’d,
If not that hope the scripture has requir’d:
The strange conceits, vain projects and wild dreams,
With which hypocrisy for ever teems,
(Though other follies strike the public eye,
And raise a laugh) pass unmolested by;
But if unblameable in word and thought,
A man arise, a man whom God has taught,
With all Elijah’s dignity of tone,
And all the love of the beloved John,
To storm the citadels they build in air,
And smite th’ untemper’d wall, ’tis death to spare.
To sweep away all refuges of lies,
And place, instead of quirks themselves devise,
LAMA SABACTHANI, before their eyes,
To prove that without Christ, all gain is loss,
All hope, despair, that stands not on his cross,
Except the few his God may have impress’d,
A tenfold frenzy seizes all the rest.
Throughout mankind, the Christian kind at least,
There dwells a consciousness in ev’ry breast,
That folly ends where genuine hope begins,
And he that finds his heav’n must lose his sins:
Nature opposes with her utmost force,
This riving stroke, this ultimate divorce,
And while religion seems to be her view,
Hates with a deep sincerity, the true;
For this of all that ever influenced man,
Since Abel worshipp’d, or the world began,
This only spares no lust, admits no plea,
But makes him, if at all, completely free,
Sounds forth the signal, as she mounts her car,
Of an eternal, universal war,
Rejects all treaty, penetrates all wiles,
Scorns with the same indiff’rence frowns and smiles,
Drives through the realms of sin, where riot reels,
And grinds his crown beneath her burning wheels!
Hence all that is in man, pride, passion, art,
Powr’s of the mind, and feelings of the heart,
Insensible of truth’s almighty charms,
Starts at her first approach, and sounds to arms!
While bigotry with well-dissembled fears,
His eyes shut fast, his fingers in his ears,
Mighty to parry, and push by God’s word
With senseless noise, his argument the sword,
Pretends a zeal for godliness and grace,
And spits abhorrence in the Christian’s face.
Parent of hope, immortal truth, make known
Thy deathless wreaths, and triumphs all thine own:
The silent progress of thy pow’r is such,
Thy means so feeble, and despis’d so much,
That few believe the wonders thou hast wrought,
And none can teach them but whom thou hast taught.
Oh see me sworn to serve thee, and command
A painter’s skill into a poet’s hand,
That while I trembling trace a work divine,
Fancy may stand aloof from the design,
And light and shade and ev’ry stroke be thine.
If ever thou hast felt another’s pain,
If ever when he sigh’d, hast sigh’d again,
If ever on thine eye-lid stood the tear
That pity had engender’d, drop one here.
This man was happy — had the world’s good word,
And with it ev’ry joy it can afford;
Friendship and love seem’d tenderly at strife,
Which most should sweeten his untroubl’d life;
Politely learn’d, and of a gentle race,
Good-breeding and good sense gave al
l a grace,
And whether at the toilette of the fair
He laugh’d and trifled, made him welcome there;
Or, if in masculine debate he shar’d,
Insur’d him mute attention and regard.
Alas how chang’d! expressive of his mind,
His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclind,
Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin,
Though whisper’d, plainly tell what works within,
That conscience there performs her proper part,
And writes a doomsday sentence on his heart;
Forsaking, and forsaken of all friends,
He now perceives where earthly pleasure ends,
Hard task! for one who lately knew no care,
And harder still as learnt beneath despair:
His hours no longer pass unmark’d away,
A dark importance saddens every day,
He hears the notice of the clock, perplex’d,
And cries, perhaps eternity strikes next:
Sweet music is no longer music here,
And laughter sounds like madness in his ear,
His grief the world of all her pow’r disarms,
Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms:
God’s holy word, once trivial in his view,
Now by the voice of his experience, true,
Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone
Must spring that hope he pants to make his own.
Now let the bright reverse be known abroad,
Say, man’s a worm, and pow’r belongs to God.
As when a felon whom his country’s laws
Have justly doom’d for some atrocious cause,
Expects in darkness and heart-chilling fears,
The shameful close of all his mispent years,
If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne,
A tempest usher in the dreaded morn,
Upon his dungeon walls the lightnings play,
The thunder seems to summon him away,
The warder at the door his key applies,
Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies:
If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost,
When Hope, long ling’ring, at last yields the ghost,
The sound of pardon pierce his startled ear,
He drops at once his fetters and his fear,
A transport glows in all he looks and speaks,
And the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks.
Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs
The comfort of a few poor added days,
Invades, possesses, and o’erwhelms the soul
Of him whom hope has with a touch made whole:
’Tis heav’n, all heav’n descending on the wings
Of the glad legions of the King of Kings;
’Tis more— ’tis God diffus’d through ev’ry part,
’Tis God himself triumphant in his heart.
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 11
