Denies the power that wields it.
that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men,
That live an atheist life: involves the heaven
In tempefts; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the breath of blooming Health.
He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his fhrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines,
And defolates a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philofopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and difcordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By neceffary laws their fure effects;
Of action and reaction. He has found
The fource of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause
Sufpend the effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means fince first he made the
world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation lefs
Than a capacious refervoir of means
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eyefalve; ask of him,
Or afk of whomfoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee ftill-
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year moft part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy fullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Aufonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers.
To shake thy fenate, and from heights fublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task :
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and forrows, with as true a heart
As any thunderer there. And I can feel
Thy follies too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whofe very looks
Reflect difhonour on the land I love.
How, in the name of foldiership and sense,
Should England profper, when fuch things, as
fmooth
And tender as a girl, all effenced o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who fell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight; when such as thefe
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful caufe?
Time was when it was praife and boaft enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
The hope of fuch hereafter! They have fallen
Each in his field of glory; one in arms
And one in council-Wolfe upon the lap
Of smiling Victory that moment won,
And Chatham heart-fick of his country's fhame!
They made us many foldiers. Chatham, still
Confulting England's happiness at home,
Secured it by an unforgiving frown,
If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were fwift to follow whom all loved.
Those funs are fet. Oh, rife fome other fuch!
Or all that we have left is
empty talk
Of old achievements, and despair of new.
Now hoift the fail, and let the ftreamers float
Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck
With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets,
That no rude favour maritime invade
The nose of nice nobility! Breathe soft,
Ye clarionets; and fofter ftill, ye flutes;
That winds and waters, lull'd by magic founds,
May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore!
True, we have loft an empire-let it pass.
True; we may thank the perfidy of France,
That pick'd the jewel out of England's crown,
With all the cunning of an envious shrew.
And let that pass-'twas but a trick of state!
A brave man knows no malice, but at once
Forgets in peace the injuries of war,
And gives his direft foe a friend's embrace.
And, fhamed as we have been, to the very beard
Braved and defied, and in our own fea proved
Too weak for thofe decifive blows that once
Ensured us mastery there, we yet retain
Some small pre-eminence; we justly boast
At least fuperior jockeyfhip, and claim
The honours of the turf as all our own!
Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek,
And show the shame ye might conceal at home
In foreign eyes!-be grooms, and win the plate
Where once your nobler fathers won a crown!——
'Tis generous to communicate your fkill
To thofe that need it! Folly is foon learn'd:
And under fuch preceptors who can fail?
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,
The expedients and inventions multiform,
To which the mind reforts, in chase of terms
Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win-
To arreft the fleeting images that fill
The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,
And force them fit till he has pencil'd off
A faithful likeness of the forms he views;
Then to dispose his copies with such art,
That each may find its moft propitious light,
And shine by fituation, hardly lefs
Than by the labour and the skill it cost;
Are occupations of the poet's mind
So pleasing, and that steal away the thought
With fuch addrefs from themes of fad import,
That, loft in his own mufings, happy man!
He feels the anxieties of life, denied
Their wonted entertainment, all retire.
Such joys has he that fings. But ah! not fuch,
Or feldom fuch, the hearers of his fong.
Faftidious, or else liftlefs, or perhaps
Aware of nothing arduous in a task
They never undertook, they little note
His dangers or escapes, and haply find
There least amusement where he found the most.
But is amusement all? Studious of fong,
And yet ambitious not to fing in vain,
I would not trifle merely, though the world
Be loudest in their praise who do no more.
Yet what can fatire, whether grave or gay?
It may correct a foible, may chastise
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,
Retrench a swordblade, or difplace a patch;
But where are its fublimer trophies found?
What vice has it fubdued? whofe heart reclaim'd
By rigour? or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tamed:
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and ftricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
The pulpit, therefore (and I name it fill'd
With folemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing)—
The pulpit (when the fatirift has at last,
Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,
Spent all his force, and made no profelyte)—
I fay the pulpit (in the fober use
Of its legitimate, peculiar powers)
Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall
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