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

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 prostituted sight,?No deflower'd eye can face the naked light:?Yet does this high perfection well proceed?From strength of its own native seed,?This wilderness, the world, like that poetic wood of old,
Bears one, and but one branch of gold,?Where the bless'd spirit lodges like the dove,?And which (to heavenly soil transplanted) will improve,?To be, as 'twas below, the brightest plant above;?For, whate'er theologic levellers dream,?There are degrees above, I know,?As well as here below,?(The goddess Muse herself has told me so),?Where high patrician souls, dress'd heavenly gay,?Sit clad in