Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

If monarchy consist in such base things,
Sighing, I say again, I pity kings!

To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood,
Even when he labours for his country's good;
To see a band, called patriot for no cause,
But that they catch at popular applause,
Careless of all the anxiety he feels,

Hook disappointment on the public wheels;
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,
Most confident, when palpably most wrong;
If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship; and may I be poor and free!
To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs,
To which the unwashed artificer repairs,
To indulge his genius after long fatigue,
By diving into cabinet intrigue;

1

(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play)

To win no praise, when well-wrought plans prevail,

But to be rudely censured when they fail;
To doubt the love his favourites may pretend,
And in reality to find no friend;

If he indulge a cultivated taste,

His galleries with the works of art well graced, To hear it called extravagance and waste;

If these attendants, and if such as these,
Must follow royalty, then welcome ease;
However humble and confined the sphere,
Happy the state, that has not these to fear.
A. Thus men, whose thoughts contemplative
have dwelt

On situations, that they never felt,

Start up sagacious, covered with the dust
Of dreaming study and pedantic rust,
And prate and preach about what others prove,
As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares;
They have their weight to carry, subjects their's;
Poets, of all men, ever least regret

Increasing taxes, and the nation's debt.

Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse The mighty plan, oracular, in verse,

No bard, however majestic, old or new,

Should claim my fixt attention more than you.

B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay To turn the course of Helicon that way;

Nor would the nine consent the sacred tide

Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside,
Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse

The leathern ears of stock-jobbers and Jews.
A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme
To themes more pertinent, if less sublime.
When ministers and ministerial arts;

Patriots, who love good places at their hearts;
When admirals, extolled for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill;

Generals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay;
When freedom, wounded almost to despair,

Though discontent alone can find out where; When themes like these employ the poet's tongue,

I hear as mute as if a syren sung.

Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains

A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains?

That were a theme might animate the dead,

And move the lips of poets cast in lead.

B. The cause, though worth the search, may

yet elude

Conjecture and remark, however shrewd.
They take perhaps a well-directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Liberal in all things else, yet nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams;
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work;
Thus with a rigour, for his good designed,
She rears her favourite man of all mankind.
His form robust and of elastic tone,
Proportioned well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force

A mind well-lodged, and masculine of course.
Hence liberty, sweet liberty inspires,

And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires.

Patient of constitutional controul,

He bears it with meek manliness of soul;
But, if authority grow wanton, woe

To him that treads upon his free-born toe;
One step beyond the boundary of the laws
Fires him at once in freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud prerogative, not much revered,
Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard;
And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay,
Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away.
Born in a climate softer far than our's,
Not formed like us, with such Herculean powers,
The Frenchman, easy, debonair and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of misery far away:
He drinks his simple beverage with a gust;
And, feasting on an onion and a crust,

We never feel the alacrity and joy,

With which he shouts and carols Vive le Roy,
Filled with as much true merriment and glee,
As if he heard his king say-Slave, be free.

« ForrigeFortsett »