I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears, A patriot's for his country: thou art sad At thought of her forlorn and abject state, From which no power of thine can raise her up. Thus fancy paints thee, and though apt to err, Perhaps errs little when she paints thee thus. She tells me too, that duly, every morn Thou climbest the mountain top, with eager eye Exploring far and wide the watery waste For sight of ship from England. Every speck Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale
With conflict of contending hopes and fears. But comes at last the dull and dusky eve, And sends thee to thy cabin, well prepared To dream all night of what the day denied. Alas! expect it not. We found no bait To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, Disinterested good, is not our trade. We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought; And must be bribed to compass earth again
Licentiousness of great Cities.
By other hopes and richer fruits than yours. But though true worth and virtue, in the mild And genial soil of cultivated life
Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there, Yet not in cities oft; in proud, and gay, And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow, As to a common and most noisome sewer, The dregs and feculence of every land. In cities foul example on most minds Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds In gross and pampered cities sloth, and lust, And wantonness, and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or seen with least reproach; and virtue, taught By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there Beyond the achievement of successful flight. I do confess them nurseries of the arts
In which they flourish most; where, in the beams Of warm encouragement, and in the eye
Of public note, they reach their perfect size.
London the Nursery of Arts,
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed
The fairest capital in all the world,
By riot and incontinence the worst.
There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees
All her reflected features. Bacon there Gives more than female beauty to a stone, And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips. Nor does the chissel occupy alone
The powers of sculpture, but the style as much; Each province of her art her equal care. With nice incision of her guided steel
She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil So steril with what charms soe'er she will, The richest scenery and the loveliest forms. Where finds philosophy her eagle eye,
With which she gazes at yon burning disk Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots? In London: Where her implements exact, With which she calculates, computes, and scans
but not free from Corruption.
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now Measures an atom, and now girds a world? In London. Where has commerce such a mart, So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supplied, As London-opulent, enlarged, and still Increasing, London? Babylon of old Not more the glory of the earth than she, A more accomplished world's chief glory now.
She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two That so much beauty would do well to purge; And shew this queen of cities, that so fair May yet be foul, so witty, yet not wise, It is not seemly, nor of good report, That she is slack of discipline; more prompt To avenge than to prevent the breach of law: That she is rigid in denouncing death On petty robbers, and indulges life
And liberty, and oft-times honour too,
To peculators of the public gold;
That thieves at home must hang; but he that puts
Town and Country contrasted.
Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes. Nor is it well, nor can it come to good, That, through profane and infidel contempt Of holy writ, she has presumed to annul And abrogate, as roundly as she may, The total ordinance and will of God; Advancing fashion to the post of truth, And centering all authority in modes
And customs of her own, till Sabbath rites Have dwindled into unrespected forms,
And knees and hassocks are well nigh divorced.
God made the country, and man made the town. What wonder then, that health and virtue, gifts, That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, That life holds out to all, should most abound And least be threatened in the fields and groves. Possess ye therefore, ye, who borne about In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue But that of idleness, and taste no scenes
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