Relapsed again! strange tendency to rail!
I fear'd this meekness would not long prevail.
You deem it rancour, then?
Look round and see
What vices flourish still unpruned by me:
Corruption, roll'd in a triumphant car,
Displays his burnish'd front and glittering star,
Nor heeds the public scorn, or transient curse,
Unknown alike to honour and remorse.
Behold the leering belle, caress'd by all,
Adorn each private feast and public ball,
Where peers attentive listen and adore,
And not one matron shuns the titled whore.
At Peter's obsequies1 I sung no dirge;
Nor has my satire yet supplied a scourge
For the vile tribes of usurers and bites,
Who sneak at Jonathan's, and swear at White's.
Each low pursuit, and slighter folly, bred
Within the selfish heart and hollow head,
Thrives uncontroll'd, and blossoms o'er the land,
Nor feels the rigour of my chastening hand.
While Codrus shivers o'er his bags of gold,
By famine wither'd, and benumb'd by cold,
I mark his haggard eyes with frenzy roll,
And feast upon the terrors of his soul;
The wrecks of war, the perils of the deep,
That curse with hideous dreams the caitiff's sleep;
Insolvent debtors, thieves, and civil strife,
Which daily persecute his wretched life,
1 'Peter's obsequies: Peter Waters, Esq.
With all the horrors of prophetic dread,
That rack his bosom while the mail is read.
Safe from the road, untainted by the school,
A judge by birth, by destiny a fool,
While the young lordling struts in native pride,
His party-colour'd tutor by his side,
Pleased, let me own the pious mother's care,
Who to the brawny sire commits her heir.
Fraught with the spirit of a Gothic monk,
Let Rich, with dulness and devotion drunk,
Enjoy the peal so barbarous and loud,
While his brain spews new monsters to the crowd; 170 I see with joy the vaticide deplore
A hell-denouncing priest and . .
Let every polish'd dame and genial lord,
Employ the social chair and venal board;
Debauch'd from sense, let doubtful meanings run,
The vague conundrum, and the prurient pun,
While the vain fop, with apish grin, regards
The giggling minx half-choked behind her cards:
These, and a thousand idle pranks, I deem
The motley spawn of Ignorance and Whim.
Let Pride conceive, and Folly propagate,
The fashion still adopts the spurious brat :
Nothing so strange that fashion cannot tame;
By this, dishonour ceases to be shame :
This weans from blushes lewd Tyrawley's face,
Gives Hawley1 praise, and Ingoldsby disgrace,
From Mead to Thomson shifts the palm at once,
A meddling, prating, blundering, busy dunce!
And may,
should taste a little more decline,
Transform the nation to a herd of swine.
1 Hawley:' discomfited at Falkirk in 1746.
The fatal period hastens on apace.
Nor will thy verse the obscene event disgrace;
Thy flowers of poetry, that smell so strong,
The keenest appetites have loathed the song,
Condemn'd by Clark, Banks, Barrowby, and Chitty,
And all the crop-ear'd critics of the city:
While sagely neutral sits thy silent friend,
Alike averse to censure or commend.
Peace to the gentle soul that could deny
His invocated voice to fill the cry!
And let me still the sentiment disdain
Of him who never speaks but to arraign,
The sneering son of Calumny and Scorn,
Whom neither arts, nor sense, nor soul adorn ;
Or his, who, to maintain a critic's rank,
Though conscious of his own internal blank,
His want of taste unwilling to betray,
"Twixt sense and nonsense hesitates all day,
With brow contracted hears each passage read,
And often hums, and shakes his empty head,
Until some oracle adored pronounce
The passive bard a poet or a dunce;
Then in loud clamour echoes back the word,
"Tis bold, insipid-soaring, or absurd.
These, and the unnumber'd shoals of smaller fry,
That nibble round, I pity and defy.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746.
1 MOURN, hapless Caledonia! mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renown'd,
Lie slaughter'd on their native ground;
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.
2 The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses life.
Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks,
Where once they fed their wanton flocks:
Thy ravish'd virgins shriek in vain ;
Thy infants perish on the plain.
3 What boots it, then, in every clime,
Through the wide-spreading waste of Time,
Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise,
Still shone with undiminish'd blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.
4 The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night .
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.
5 Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their father stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames, and murdering steel!
6 The pious mother, doom'd to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretch'd beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies.
7 While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate,
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!
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