The deluge wash'd it out; but left unquench'd The seeds of murder in the breast of man. Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line Of his descending progeny was found The first artificer of death; the shrewd Contriver who first sweated at the forge, And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. Him, Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times, The sword and falchion their inventor claim, And the first smith was the first murderer's son. His art survived the waters; and ere long, When man was multiplied and spread abroad In tribes and clans, and had begun to call These meadows and that range of hills his own, The tasted sweets of property begat Desire of more; and industry in some To improve and cultivate their just demesne, Made others covet what they saw so fair. Thus war began on earth: these fought for sp And those in self-defence. Savage at first The onset, and irregular. At length One eminent above the rest, for strength, For stratagem, or courage, or for all,
Was chosen leader; him they served in war, And him in peace, for sake of warlike deeds
Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare? Or who so worthy to control themselves As he whose prowess had subdued their foes? Thus war affording field for the display
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, Which have their exigencies too, and call For skill in government, at length made king. King was a name too proud for man to wear With modesty and meekness; and the crown, So dazzling in their eyes who set it on, Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound. It is the abject property of most, That being parcel of the common mass, And destitute of means to raise themselves, They sink and settle lower than they need. They know not what it is to feel within A comprehensive faculty that grasps
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, Almost without an effort, plans too vast
For their conception, which they cannot move.
Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk With gazing, when they see an able man Step forth to notice; and besotted thus, Build him a pedestal, and say, "Stand there, And be our admiration and our praise." They roll themselves before him in the dust, Then most deserving in their own account When most extravagant in his applause, As if exalting him they raised themselves. Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound And sober judgment, that he is but man, They demi-deify and fume him so, That in due season he forgets it too. Inflated and astrut with self-conceit, He gulps the windy diet, and ere long, Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks The world was made in vain, if not for him. Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges born To bear his burdens; drawing in his gears And sweating in his service, his caprice Becomes the soul that animates them all. He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, Spent in the purchase of renown for him, An easy reckoning, and they think the same. Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings Were burnish'd into heroes, and became The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp,
Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died. Strange that such folly as lifts bloated man To eminence fit only for a god,
Should ever drivel out of human lips,
Even in the cradled weakness of the world!
Still stranger much, than when at length mankind Had reach'd the sinewy firmness of their youth, And could discriminate and argue well On subjects more mysterious, they were yet Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear And quake before the gods themselves had made. But above measure strange, that neither proof Of sad experience, nor examples set By some whose patriot virtue has prevail'd, Can even now, when they are grown mature In wisdom, and with philosophic deeps Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest! Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To reverence what is ancient, and can plead A course of long observance for its use, That even servitude, the worst of ills.
Because deliver'd down from sire to son, Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. But is it fit, or can it it bear the shock Of rational discussion, that a man, Compounded and made up like other men Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust And folly in as ample measure meet As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, Should be a despot absolute, and boast Himself the only freeman of his land? Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will, Wage war, with any or with no pretence Of provocation given or wrong sustain'd, And force the beggarly last doit, by means That his own humour dictates, from the clutch Of poverty, that thus he may procure His thousands, weary of penurious life, A splendid opportunity to die?
Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees
In politic convention) put your trust In the shadow of a bramble, and reclined
In fancied peace beneath its dangerous branch, Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway,
Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs Your self-denying zeal that holds it good To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang His thorns with streamers of continual prai? We too are friends to loyalty. We love
The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, And reigns content within them: him we serve Freely and with delight, who leaves us free: But recollecting still that he is man,
We trust him not too far. King though he be, And king in England too, he may be weak, And vain enough to be ambitious still, May exercise amiss his proper powers, Or covet more than freemen choose to grant: Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, To administer, to guard, to adorn the state, But not to warp or change it. We are his, To serve him nobly in the common cause, True to the death, but not to be his slaves. Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Of kings, between your loyalty and ours: We love the man, the paltry pageant you; We the chief patron of the commonwealth, You the regardless author of its woes;
We, for the sake of liberty, a king,
You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake. Our love is principle, and has its root In reason, is judicious, manly, free; Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, I would not be a king to be beloved Causeless, and daub'd with undiscerning praise, Where love is mere attachment to the throne, Not to the man who fills it as he ought.
Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
The state that strives for liberty, though foil'd, And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, Deserves at least applause for her attempt, And pity for her loss. But that's a cause Not often unsuccessful; power usurp'd
Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong, 'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.*
Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more To France than all her losses and defeats, Old or of later date, by sea or land,
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastille. Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts, Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair, That monarchs have supplied from age to age With music such as suits their sovereign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men!
There's not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye were fall'n at last; to know
That even our enemies, so oft employ'd
In forging chains for us, themselves were free. For he who values liberty confines
*The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unnecessary warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware that it is become almost fashionable to stigmatize such sentiments as no better than empty declamation; but it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern times.--(C.)
His zeal for her predominance within No narrow bounds; her cause engages him Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man. There dwell the most forlorn of human kind, Immured though unaccused, condemn'd untried, Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. There, like the visionary emblem seen By him of Babylon,* life stands a stump, And filleted about with hoops of brass,
Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone. To count the hour-bell, and expect no change; And ever, as the sullen sound is heard, Still to reflect, that though a joyless note To him whose moments all have one dull pace, Ten thousand rovers in the world at large Account it music; that it summons some To theatre or jocund feast or ball; The wearied hireling finds it a release From labour; and the lover, who has chid Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight:- To fly for refuge from distracting thought To such amusements as ingenious woe Contrives, hard shifting and without her tools :-- To read engraven on the mouldy walls, In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, A sad memorial, and subjoin his own:- To turn purveyor to an overgorged And bloated spider, till the pamper'd pest Is made familiar, watches his approach, Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend To wear out time in numbering to and fro The studs that thick emboss his iron door, Then downward and then upward, then aslant, And then alternate, with a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish, till the sum exactly found In all directions, he begins again :-
Oh comfortless existence! hemm'd around
With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel
And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?
That man should thus encroach on fellow man,
Abridge him of his just and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, nip his fruitfulness and use,
« PreviousContinue » |