Oh welcome now, the sun’s once hated light,
His noon-day beams were never half so bright,
Not kindred minds alone are call’d t’ employ
Their hours, their days in list’ning to his joy,
Unconscious nature, all that he surveys,
Rocks, groves and streams must join him in his praise.
These are thy glorious works, eternal truth,
The scoff of wither’d age and beardless youth,
These move the censure and illib’ral grin
Of fools that hate thee and delight in sin:
But these shall last when night has quench’d the pole▪
And heav’n is all departed as a scroll:
And when, as justice has long since decreed,
This earth shall blaze, and a new world succeed,
Then these thy glorious works, and they that share▪
That Hope which can alone exclude despair,
Shall live exempt from weakness and decay,
The brightest wonders of an endless day.
Happy the bard, (if that fair name belong
To him that blends no fable with his song)
Whose lines uniting, by an honest art,
The faithful monitors and poets part,
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind,
And while they captivate, inform the mind.
Still happier, if he till a thankful soil,
And fruit reward his honorable toil:
But happier far who comfort those that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah’s hallow’d gate;
Their language simple as their manners meek,
No shining ornaments have they to seek,
Nor labour they, nor time nor talents waste
In sorting flowers to suit a fickle taste;
But while they speak the wisdom of the skies,
Which art can only darken and disguise,
Th’ abundant harvest, recompence divine,
Repays their work — the gleaning only, mine.
CHARITY.
Quâ nihil majus meliusve terris
Fata donavere, boni{que} divi,
Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora priscum.
HOR. Lib. IV. Ode II.
FAIREST and foremost of the train that wait
On man’s most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Prosper (I press thee with a pow’rful plea)
A task I venture on, impell’d by thee:
Oh never seen but in thy blest effects,
Nor felt but in the soul that heav’n selects,
Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.
Come, prompt me with benevolent desires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And though disgrac’d and slighted, to redeem
A poet’s name, by making thee the theme.
God working ever on a social plan,
By various ties attaches man to man:
He made at first, though free and unconfin’d,
One man the common father of the kind,
That ev’ry tribe, though plac’d as he sees best,
Where seas or desarts part them from the rest,
Diff’ring in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook — lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic dust,
Steer’d Britain’s oak into a world unknown,
And in his country’s glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,
The rights of man were sacred in his view:
He sooth’d with gifts and greeted with a smile
The simple native of the new-found isle,
He spurn’d the wretch that slighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood,
Nor would endure that any should controul
His free-born brethren of the southern pole.
But though some nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In baser souls unnumber’d evils meet,
To thwart its influence and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved,
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!
Where wast thou then sweet Charity, where then
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?
Wast thou in Monkish cells and nunn’ries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No — Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear not love, and heav’n abhors the fee:
Wherever found (and all men need thy care)
Nor age nor infancy could find thee there.
The hand that siew ‘till it could slay no more,
Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore;
Their prince as justly seated on his throne,
As vain imperial Philip on his own,
Trick’d out of all his royalty by art,
That stripp’d him bare, and broke his honest heart,
Died by the sentence of a shaven priest,
For scorning what they taught him to detest.
How dark the veil that intercepts the blaze
Of heav’ns mysterious purposes and ways;
God stood not, though he seem’d to stand aloof,
And at this hour the conqu’ror feels the proof.
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,
The canker’d spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their mines create.
Oh could their antient Incas rise again,
How would they take up Israel’s taunting strain!
Art thou too fall’n Iberia, do we see
The robber and the murth’rer weak as we?
Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,
Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see th’ oppressor in his turn oppress’d.
Art thou the God the thunder of whose hand
Roll’d over all our desolated land,
Shook principalities and kingdoms down,
And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted pow’rs,
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.
’Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And vengeance executes what justice wills.
Again — the band of commerce was design’d
T’ associate all the branches of mankind,
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe:
Wise to promote whatever end he means,
God opens fruitful nature’s various scenes,
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the gen’ral use;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return receives supply from all;
This genial intercourse and mutual aid,
Cheers what were else an universal shade,
Calls nature from her ivy-mantled den,
And softens human rockwork into men.
Ingenious Art with her expressive face
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race,
Not only fills necessity’s demand,
But overcharges her capacious hand;
Capricious taste itself can crave no more,
Than she supplies from her abounding store;
She strikes out all that luxury can ask,
&nb
sp; And gains new vigour at her endless task.
Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire,
The painters pencil and the poets lyre;
From her the canvass borrows light and shade,
And verse more lasting, hues that never fade.
She guides the finger o’er the dancing keys,
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease,
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around,
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound.
These are the gifts of art, and art thrives most
Where commerce has enrich’d the busy coast:
He catches all improvements in his flight,
Spreads foreign wonders in his country’s sight,
Imports what others have invented well,
And stirs his own to match them, or excel.
’Tis thus reciprocating each with each,
Alternately the nations learn and teach;
While Providence enjoins to ev’ry soul
An union with the vast terraqueous whole.
Heav’n speed the canvass gallantly unfurl’d
To furnish and accommodate a world;
To give the Pole the produce of the sun,
And knit th’ unsocial climates into one. —
Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave
Impel the fleet whose errand is to save,
To succour wasted regions, and replace
The smile of opulence in sorrow’s face. —
Let nothing adverse, nothing unforeseen,
Impede the bark that plows the deep serene,
Charg’d with a freight transcending in its worth
The gems of India, nature’s rarest birth,
That flies like Gabriel on his Lord’s commands,
An herald of God’s love, to pagan lands. —
But ah! what wish can prosper, or what pray’r,
For merchants rich in cargoes of despair,
Who drive a loathsome traffic, gage and span,
And buy the muscles and the bones of man?
The tender ties of father, husband, friend,
All bonds of nature in that moment end,
And each endures while yet he draws his breath,
A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death.
The sable warrior, frantic with regret
Of her he loves, and never can forget,
Loses in tears the far receding shore,
But not the thought that they must meet no more;
Depriv’d of her and freedom at a blow,
What has he left that he can yet forego?
Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resign’d,
He feels his body’s bondage in his mind,
Puts off his gen’rous nature, and to suit
His manners with his fate, puts on the brute.
Oh most degrading of all ills that wait
On man, a mourner in his best estate!
All other sorrows virtue may endure,
And find submission more than half a cure;
Grief is itself a med’cine, and bestow’d
T’ improve the fortitude that bears the load,
To teach the wand’rer, as his woes encrease,
The path of wisdom, all whose paths are peace.
But slav’ry! — virtue dreads it as her grave,
Patience itself is meanness in a slave:
Or if the will and sovereignty of God
Bid suffer it awhile, and kiss the rod,
Wait for the dawning of a brighter day,
And snap the chain the moment when you may.
Nature imprints upon whate’er we see
That has a heart and life in it, be free;
The beasts are chartered — neither age nor force
Can quell the love of freedom in a horse:
He breaks the cord that held him at the rack,
And conscious of an unincumber’d back,
Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the rein,
Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane,
Responsive to the distant neigh he neighs,
No stops, till overleaping all delays,
He finds the pasture where his fellows graze.
Canst thou, and honour’d with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
So may the wolf whom famine has made bold
To quit the forest and invade the fold;
So may the ruffian who with ghostly glide,
Dagger in hand, steals close to your bed-side;
Not he, but his emergence forc’d the door,
He found it inconvenient to be poor.
Has God then giv’n its sweetness to the cane
Unless his laws be trampled on — in vain?
Built a brave world, which cannot yet subsist,
Unless his right to rule it be dismiss’d?
Impudent blasphemy! so folly pleads,
And av’rice being judge, with ease succeeds.
But grant the plea, and let it stand for just,
That man make man his prey, because he must,
Still there is room for pity to abate
And sooth the sorrows of so sad a state.
A Briton knows, or if he knows it not,
The Scripture plac’d within his reach, he ought,
That souls have no discriminating hue,
Alike important in their Maker’s view,
That none are free from blemish since the fall,
And love divine has paid one price for all.
The wretch that works and weeps without relief,
Has one that notices his silent grief,
He from whose hands alone all pow’r proceeds,
Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds,
Considers all injustice with a frown,
But marks the man that treads his fellow down.
Begone, the whip and bell in that hard hand,
Are hateful ensigns of usurp’d command,
Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim
To scourge him, weariness his only blame.
Remember, heav’n has an avenging rod;
To smite the poor is treason against God.
Trouble is grudgingly and hardly brook’d,
While life’s sublimest joys are overlook’d.
We wander o’er a sun-burnt thirsty soil
Murm’ring and weary of our daily toil,
Forget t’ enjoy the palm-tree’s offer’d shade,
Or taste the fountain in the neighb’ring glade:
Else who would lose that had the pow’r t’ improve
Th’ occasion of transmuting fear to love?
Oh ’tis a godlike privilege to save,
And he that scorns it is himself a slave. —
Inform his mind, one flash of heav’nly day
Would heal his heart and melt his chains away;
`Beauty for ashes’ is a gift indeed,
And slaves, by truth enlarg’d, are doubly freed:
Then would he say, submissive at thy feet,
While gratitude and love made service sweet,
My dear deliv’rer out of hopeless night,
Whose bounty bought me but to give me light,
I was a bondman on my native plain,
Sin forg’d, and ignorance made fast the chain;
Thy lips have shed instruction as the dew,
Taught me what path to shun, and what pursue;
Farewell my former joys! I sigh no more
For Africa’s once lov’d, benighted shore,
Serving a benefactor I am free,
At my best home if not exiled from thee.
Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds
A stream of lib’ral and heroic deeds,
The swell of pity, not to be confin’d
Within the scanty limits of the mind,
Dis
dains the bank, and throws the golden sands,
A rich deposit, on the bord’ring lands:
These have an ear for his paternal call,
Who makes some rich for the supply of all,
God’s gift with pleasure in his praise employ,
And THORNTON is familiar with the joy.
Oh could I worship aught beneath the skies,
That earth hath seen or fancy can devise,
Thine altar, sacred liberty, should stand,
Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,
With fragrant turf and flow’rs as wild and fair
As ever dress’d a bank or scented summer air.
Duely as ever on the mountain’s height
The peep of morning shed a dawning light;
Again, when evening in her sober vest
Drew the grey curtain of the fading west,
My soul should yield thee willing thanks and praise
For the chief blessings of my fairest days:
But that were sacrilege — praise is not thine,
But his who gave thee and preserves thee mine:
Else I would say, and as I spake, bid fly
A captive bird into the boundless sky,
This triple realm adores thee — thou art come
From Sparta hither, and art here at home;
We feel thy force still active, at this hour
Enjoy immunity from priestly pow’r,
While conscience, happier than in antient years,
Owns no superior but the God she fears.
Propitious spirit! yet expunge a wrong
Thy rights have suffer’d, and our land, too long,
Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts that share
The fears and hopes of a commercial care;
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built
To bind the lawless and to punish guilt,
But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire and flood,
Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood,
And honest merit stands on slipp’ry ground,
Where covert guile and artifice abound:
Let just restraint for public peace design’d,
Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind,
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee,
But let insolvent innocence go free.
Patron, of else the most despised of men,
Accept the tribute of a stranger’s pen;
Verse, like the laurel its immortal meed,
Should be the guerdon of a noble deed,
I may alarm thee, but I fear the shame
(Charity chosen as my theme and aim)
I must incur, forgetting HOWARD’S name.
Blest with all wealth can give thee, to resign
Joys doubly sweet to feelings quick as thine,
To quit the bliss thy rural scenes bestow,
To seek a nobler amidst scenes of woe,
To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring home
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 12
