Tis not, however, insolence and noise,
The tempest of tumultuary joys,
Nor is it yet despondence and dismay
Will win her visits, or engage her stay;

416

Pray'r only, and the penitential tear,

Can call her smiling down, and fix her here

But when a country, (one that I could name,)

In prostitution sinks the sense of shame ;

415

When infamous Venality, grown bold,

Writes on his bosom, To be let or sold;
When Perjury, that Heav'n-defying vice,
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price,
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade;

420

When Av'rice starves, (and never hides his face,)
Two or three millions of the human race,

And not a tongue inquires, how, where, or when,

Though conscience will have twinges now and then ; When profanation of the sacred cause,

426

In all its parts, times, ministry, and laws,

Bespeaks a land, once Christian, fall'n and lost,

In all, but wars against that title most;

What follows next let cities of great name,

430

And regions long since desolate, proclaim.

Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome,

Speak to the present times, and times to come;

They cry aloud in ev'ry careless ear,

Stop while you may; suspend your mad career;

435

O learn from our example and our fate,

Learn wisdom and repentance cre too late.

Not only Vice disposes and prepares

The mind, that slumbers sweetly in her snares,

To stoop to Tyranny's usurp'd command,
And bend her polish'd neck beneath his hand,

440

(A dire effect, by one of Nature's laws, Urchangeably connected with its cause ;) But Frovidence himself will intervene,

To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene

445

All are his instruments; each form of war,
What burns at home, or threatens from afar :
Nature in arms, her elements at strife,
The storms that overset the joys of life,

Are but his rods to scourge a guity land,

450

And waste it at the bidding of his hand.

He gives the word, and Mutiny soon roars

In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores;

The standards of all nations are unfurl'd;

She has one foe, and that one foe the world.

455

And, if he doom that people with a frown,

And mark them with a seal of wrath press'd down,

Obduracy takes place callous and tough,

The reprobated race grows judgment proof;

Earth shakes beneath them, and Heav'n roars above; 460

But nothing scares them from the course they love.

To the lascivious pipe and wanton song,

That charm down fear, they frolick it along,

With mad rapidity and unconcern,

Down to the gulf, from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail-
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail!
They trust in armies, and their courage dies;
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies,
But all they trust in, withers, as it must,

465

470

When He commands, in whom they place no trust.

Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast

A long despis'd, but now victorious, host;

Tyranny sends the chain, that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege;
Gives liberty the last, the mortal shock:
Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.

475

4. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach,

Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach ?

B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire

430

The muse imparts, and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.

If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame;
She pours a sensibility divine

Along the nerves of every feeling line.
But if a aeed not tamely to be borr.e

Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,

435

The strings are swept with such a pow'r so loud, 490 The storm of musick shakes th' astonish'd crowd.

So, when remote futurity is brought

Before the keen inquiry of her thought,

A terrible sagacity informs

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms;

495

He hears the thunder ere the tempest low'rs;

And, arm'd with strength surpassing human pow'rs,
Seizes events as yet unknown to man,

And darts his soul into the dawning plan.

Hence in a Roman mouth, the grace .ul name

500

Of prophet and of poet was the same;

Hence, British poets, too, the priesthood shar'd,
And every hallow'd druid was a bard.

But no prophetick fires to me belong;

I play with syllables, and sport in song.

505

A. At Westminster, where little poets strive

To set a distich upon six and five,

Where Discipline helps th' op'ning buds of sense,

And makes his pupils proud with silver pence,

I was a poet too: but modern taste

510

Is so refin'd, and delicate, and chaste,

That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
Thus, all success depending on an ear,
And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,
And truth cut short to make a period round,

515

I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse,
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit,
And some wits flag through fear of losing it

520

Give me the line that ploughs its stately course
Like a proud swan, conqu'ring the stream by force;
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.

When Labour and when Dulness club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's, stand,
Beating alternately in measur'd time,
The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be ;

But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song ;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,

All birks and braes, though he was never there;
Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains,
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;
A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke-
An art contriv'd to advertise a joke,
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words-but in the gap between :
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ
To substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

525

530

535

540

To dally much with subjects mean and low Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so. Neglected talents rust into decay,

545

And ev'ry effort ends in pushpin play.

The man that means success should soar above

A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove;

Else, summoning the muse to such a theme,

550

The fruit of all her labour is whipp'd cream,

As if an eagle flew aloft, and then

Stoop'd from its highest pitch to pounce a wren
As if the poet, purposing to wed,

Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread.

555

Ages claps'd ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard, To carry Nature's lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.

Thus Genius rose and set at order'd times,
And shot a day-spring into distant climes,
Ennobling ev'ry region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose ;

560

And, tedious years of Gothick darkness pass'd,
Emerg'd all splendour in our isle at last.
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again.

565

A. Is genius only found in epick lays? Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise. Make their heroick pow'rs your own at once,

570

Or candidly confess yourself a dunce.

B. These were the chief: each interval of night

Was grac'd with many an undulating light.
In less illustrious bards his beauty shone

A meteor or a star; in these the sun.

575

The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below. Like him unnotic'd I, and such as I,

Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly;
Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land,
An ell or two of prospect we command;
But never peep beyond the thorny bound,
Or oaken fer.ce that hems the paddock round.
In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart
Had faded, poetry was not an art:
Language above all teaching, or,
Only by gratitude and glowing thought,
Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy, unmanacled by form,

580

595

if taught,

Not prompted, as in our degen'rate days,
By low ambition and the thirst of praise,

5.90

Was natural as is the flowing stream,

And yet magnificent-A God the theme!

That theme on Earth exhausted, though above 'Tis found as everlasting as his love,

595

Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things-
The feats of heroes, and the wrath of Kings;