The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 | Page 6

to fiends?
Sin and the plague ever abound
In governments too easy, and too
fruitful ground;
Evils which a too gentle king,
Too flourishing a spring,
And too
warm summers bring:
Our British soil is over rank, and breeds

Among the noblest flowers a thousand pois'nous weeds,
And every
stinking weed so lofty grows,
As if 'twould overshade the Royal Rose;

The Royal Rose, the glory of our morn,
But, ah! too much without a thorn.
VI
Forgive (original mildness) this ill-govern'd zeal,
'Tis all the angry
slighted Muse can do
In the pollution of these days;
No province now is left her but to rail,

And poetry has lost the art to praise,
Alas, the occasions are so few:
None e'er but you,
And your
Almighty Master, knew
With heavenly peace of mind to bear
(Free
from our tyrant passions, anger, scorn, or fear)
The giddy turns of
popular rage,
And all the contradictions of a poison'd age;
The Son
of God pronounced by the same breath
Which straight pronounced
his death;
And though I should but ill be understood,
In wholly
equalling our sin and theirs,
And measuring by the scanty thread of

wit
What we call holy, and great, and just, and good,
(Methods in
talk whereof our pride and ignorance make use,) And which our wild
ambition foolishly compares
With endless and with infinite;
Yet
pardon, native Albion, when I say,
Among thy stubborn sons there
haunts that spirit of the Jews, That those forsaken wretches who to-day

Revile his great ambassador,
Seem to discover what they would
have done
(Were his humanity on earth once more)
To his
undoubted Master, Heaven's Almighty Son.
VII
But zeal is weak and ignorant, though wondrous proud,
Though very
turbulent and very loud;
The crazy composition shows,
Like that
fantastic medley in the idol's toes,
Made up of iron mixt with clay,

This crumbles into dust,
That moulders into rust,
Or melts by the
first shower away.
Nothing is fix'd that mortals see or know,
Unless,
perhaps, some stars above be so;
And those, alas, do show,
Like all transcendent excellence below;

In both, false mediums cheat our sight,
And far exalted objects lessen
by their height:
Thus primitive Sancroft moves too high
To be observed by vulgar
eye,
And rolls the silent year
On his own secret regular sphere,

And sheds, though all unseen, his sacred influence here.
VIII
Kind star, still may'st thou shed thy sacred influence here, Or from thy
private peaceful orb appear;
For, sure, we want some guide from
Heaven, to show
The way which every wand'ring fool below

Pretends so perfectly to know;
And which, for aught I see, and much
I fear,
The world has wholly miss'd;
I mean the way which leads to Christ:

Mistaken idiots! see how giddily they run,
Led blindly on by

avarice and pride,
What mighty numbers follow them;
Each fond of
erring with his guide:
Some whom ambition drives, seek Heaven's
high Son
In Caesar's court, or in Jerusalem:
Others, ignorantly wise,

Among proud doctors and disputing Pharisees:
What could the
sages gain but unbelieving scorn;
Their faith was so uncourtly, when
they said
That Heaven's high Son was in a village born;
That the world's Saviour had been
In a vile manger laid,
And
foster'd in a wretched inn?
IX
Necessity, thou tyrant conscience of the great,
Say, why the church is
still led blindfold by the state;
Why should the first be ruin'd and laid
waste,
To mend dilapidations in the last?
And yet the world, whose
eyes are on our mighty Prince,
Thinks Heaven has cancell'd all our sins,
And that his subjects share
his happy influence;
Follow the model close, for so I'm sure they
should,
But wicked kings draw more examples than the good:
And
divine Sancroft, weary with the weight
Of a declining church, by
faction, her worst foe, oppress'd,
Finding the mitre almost grown
A load as heavy as the crown,

Wisely retreated to his heavenly rest.
X
Ah! may no unkind earthquake of the state,
Nor hurricano from the
crown,
Disturb the present mitre, as that fearful storm of late,

Which, in its dusky march along the plain,
Swept up whole churches
as it list,
Wrapp'd in a whirlwind and a mist;
Like that prophetic
tempest in the virgin reign,
And swallow'd them at last, or flung them
down.
Such were the storms good Sancroft long has borne;
The
mitre, which his sacred head has worn,
Was, like his Master's Crown,

inwreath'd with thorn.
Death's sting is swallow'd up in victory at last,
The bitter cup is from him past:
Fortune in both extremes
Though
blasts from contrariety of winds,
Yet to firm heavenly minds,
Is but
one thing under two different names;
And even the sharpest eye that
has the prospect seen,
Confesses ignorance to judge between;
And
must to human reasoning opposite conclude,
To point out which is
moderation, which is fortitude.
XI
Thus Sancroft, in the exaltation of retreat,
Shows lustre that was
shaded in his seat;
Short glimm'rings of the prelate glorified;
Which
the disguise of greatness only served to hide.
Why should the Sun, alas! be proud
To lodge behind a golden cloud?

Though fringed with evening gold the cloud appears so gay,
'Tis
but a low-born vapour kindled by a ray:
At length 'tis overblown and past,
Puff'd by the people's spiteful blast,

The dazzling glory dims their