Sidebilder
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Divine authority within his breast

Brings every thought, word, action to the test,
Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,
As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.

Heaven from above, and Conscience from within,
Cry in his startled ear, "Abstain from sin !"
The world around solicits his desire,
And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire,
While all his purposes and steps to guard,
Peace follows virtue as its sure reward,
And pleasure brings as surely in her train,
Remorse and sorrow and vindictive pain.

Man thus endued with an elective voice,
Must be supplied with objects of his choice.
Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight,
Or present, or in prospect, meet his sight;
These open on the spot their honeyed store,
Those call him loudly to pursuit of more,
His unexhausted mine, the sordid vice
Avarice shows, and virtue is the price.
Here, various motives his ambition raise,

Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise;
There beauty wooes him with expanded arms :

E'en Bacchanalian madness has its charms.

Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refined
Might well alarm the most unguarded mind,
Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth,
Or lead him devious from the path of truth;
Hourly allurements on his passions press,
Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess.
Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air ;-
Oh, what a dying, dying close was there!
'Tis harmony from yon sequestered bower,
Sweet harmony that soothes the midnight hour;
Long ere the charioteer of day had run
His morning course, the enchantment was begun,
And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,
Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.

Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent

That virtue points to? Can a life thus spent
Lead to the bliss she promises the wise,

Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?
Ye devotees to your adored employ,

Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy,

Love makes the music of the blest above,

Heaven's harmony is universal love;

And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined,

And lenient as soft opiates to the mind,

Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind.

Gray dawn appears, the sportsman and his train

Speckle the bosom of the distant plain;

'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs,

R

[ocr errors]

Save that his scent is less acute than theirs,
For persevering chase and headlong leaps,
True beagle as the staunchest hound he keeps.
Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene,
He takes offence and wonders what you mean;
The joy, the danger and the toil o'erpays;
'Tis exercise and health, and length of days.
Again impetuous to the field he flies,
Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies;
Like a slain deer, the tumbril brings him home,
Unmissed but by his dogs and by his groom.
Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place,
Lights of the world, and stars of human race,—
But if eccentric ye forsake your sphere,
Prodigious, ominous, and viewed with fear,
The comet's baneful influence is a dream,
Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme.
What then,- —are appetites and lusts laid down,
With the same ease the man puts on his gown?
Will avarice and concupiscence give place,

Charmed by the sounds, your reverence, or your grace?
No. But his own engagement binds him fast;
Or if it does not, brands him to the last
What atheists call him, a designing knave,
A mere church juggler, hypocrite, and slave.
Oh, laugh or mourn with me, the rueful jest,
A cassocked huntsman, and a fiddling priest;
Ile from Italian songsters takes his cue,
Set l'aul to music, he shall quote him too.
He takes the field, the master of the pack

Cries, Well done, Saint !-and claps him on the back.
Is this the path of sanctity? Is this

To stand a way-mark in the road to bliss?
Himself a wanderer from the narrow way,
His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?
Go, cast your orders at your Bishop's feet,

Send your dishonoured gown to Monmouth Street,
The sacred function, in your hands is made,
Sad sacrilege! no function, but a trade.

Occiduus is a pastor of renown;

When he has prayed and preached the Sabbath down,
With wire and catgut he concludes the day,

Quavering and semiquavering care away.

The full concerto swells upon your ear;

All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swear

The Babylonian tyrant with a nod

Had summoned them to serve his golden god.

So well that thought the employment seems to suit,
Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute.

Oh, fie! 'Tis evangelical and pure;

Observe each face, how sober and demure!
Ecstasy sets her stamp on every mien,

Chins fallen, and not an eye-ball to be seen.
Still I insist, though music heretofore

Has charmed me much, not even Occiduus more,
Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meet
For Sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.
Will not the sickliest sheep of every flock
Resort to this example as a rock,
There stand and justify the foul abuse
Of Sabbath hours, with plausible excuse?
If apostolic gravity be free

To play the fool on Sundays, why not we?
If he the tinkling harpsichord regards
As inoffensive, what offence in cards?
Strike up the fidales! let us all be gay!
Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.
O Italy! Thy Sabbaths will be soon

Our Sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon,
Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,
Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been,
God's worship and the mountebank between.
What says the prophet? Let that day be blest
With holiness and consecrated rest.

Pastime and business both it should exclude,
And bar the door the moment they intrude,
Nobly distinguished above all the six,

By deeds in which the world must never mix.
Hear him again. He calls it a delight,

A day of luxury observed aright,

When the glad soul is made heaven's welcome guest,
Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.
But triflers are engaged and cannot come ;
Their answer to the call is-Not at home.

Oh, the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,
The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again.
Cards with what rapture, and the polished die,
The yawning chasm of indolence supply;
Then to the dance, and make the sober moon
Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon.
Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,
The snug close party, or the splendid hall,
Where night down-stooping from her ebon throne,
Views constellations brighter than her own.
'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,
The balm of care, elysium of the mind.
Innocent!-Oh, if venerable time
Slain at the foot of pleasure be no crime,
Then with his silver beard and magic wand,
Let Comus rise Archbishop of the land,
Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe,
Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.

Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast, The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.

Rufillus, exquisitely formed by rule,
Not of the moral, but the dancing school,
Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a tone
As tragical, as others at his own.

He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,
Then kill a constable, and drink five more ;
But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,
And has the ladies' etiquette by heart.
Go, fool, and arm in arm with Clodio plead
Your cause before a bar you little dread;
But know, the law that bids the drunkard die
Is far too just to pass the trifler by.

Both baby-featured and of infant size,

Viewed from a distance, and with heedless eyes,
Folly and innocence are so alike,

The difference, though essential, fails to strike.
Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,

A simpering countenance, and a trifling air ;
But innocence, sedate, serene, erect,
Delights us, by engaging our respect.

Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet,
Receives from her both appetite and treat;
But if he play the glutton and exceed,
His benefactress blushes at the deed.
For nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,

Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.

Daniel ate pulse by choice, -example rare!

Heaven blessed the youth, and made him fresh and fair.
Gorgonius sits abdominous and wan,

Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan;

He snuffs far off the anticipated joy,

Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ,
Prepares for meals, as jockeys take a sweat,
Oh, nauseous! an emetic for a whet,-
Will providence o'erlook the wasted good?
Temperance were no virtue if he could.

That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,
Are hurtful, is a truth confessed by all.
And some that seem to threaten virtue less,
Still hurtful, in the abuse, or by the excess.

Is man then only for his torment placed,
The centre of delights he may not taste?
Like fabled Tantalus condemned to hear
The precious stream still purling in his ear,
Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst
With prohibition and perpetual thirst?
No, wrangler, -destitute of shame and sense
The precept that enjoins him abstinence,
Forbids him none but the licentious joy,
Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.
Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid
In every bosom where her nest is made,

[ocr errors]

Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?
Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?
Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame

Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame ?
All these belong to virtue, and all prove
That virtue has a title to your love.

Have you no touch of pity, that the poor
Stand starved at your inhospitable door?
Or if yourself, too scantily supplied,
Need help, let honest industry provide.
Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart ;
These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.
No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern waste
Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast?
Can British paradise no scenes afford
To please her sated and indifferent lord?
Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run
Quite to the lees? And has religion none?
Brutes capable, should tell you 'tis a lie,
And judge you from the kennel and the sty.
Delights like these, ye sensual and profane,
Ye are bid, begged, besought to entertain;
Called to these crystal streams, do ye turn off
Obscene, to swill and swallow at a trough?
Envy the beast then, on whom heaven bestows
Your pleasures, with no curses in the close!
Pleasure admitted in undue degree,

Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice
Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use,
Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,
And woman, lovely woman, does the same.
The heart, surrendered to the ruling power
Of some ungoverned passion every hour,

Finds, by degrees, the truths that once bore sway,
And all their deep impression wear away.

So coin grows smooth, in traffic current passed,

'Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.

The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide, In rushes folly with a full moon tide.

Then welcome errors of whatever size,
To justify it by a thousand lies.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
Mortals whose pleasures are their only care,
First wish to be imposed on, and then are;
And lest the fulsome artifice should fail,
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.

« ForrigeFortsett »