The desolation of Nineveh, &c.
Bespeaks a land, once christian, fall'n, and lost In all that wars against that title most; What follows next let cities of great name, 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 ye may; suspend your mad career; O learn, from our example and our fate. Learn wisdom and repentance ere 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 (A dire effect, by one of nature's laws Unchangeably connected with its cause ;) But Providence himself will intervene To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene. 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 guilty land, 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. 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; But nothing scares them from the course they love: To the lascivious pipe and wanton song, That charm down fear, they frolic 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!
Is the downfal of Nations.
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, 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. A. 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 The muse imparts, and can command the lyre, Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal, Whete'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 nerve of ev'ry feeling line.
But, if a deed not tamely to be borne,
Fire, indignation, and a sense of scorn,
The strings are swept with such a pow'r, so loud, The storm of music shakes th' astonish'd crowd.4 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 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, he And darts his soul into the dawing plan. Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name Of prophet and of poet was the same;
Hence British poets, too, the priesthood shar'd, And ev'ry hallow'd druid was a bardosha But no prophetic fires to me belong;
I play with syllables, and sport in song.
A. At Westminster, where little poets strive
To set a distich upon six and five,
But Dullness of mere Versification.
Where discipline helps opening buds of sense, And makes his pupils proud with silver-pence, I was a poet too: but modern taste
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, 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. Give me the line that plows its stately course Like a proud swan, conq'ring the stream by force; That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart, Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.
When labour, and when dullness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's, stand,
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