The Task and Other Poems | Page 8

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.?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 chisel 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 sterile 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?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 show 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 in 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 ofttimes honour too,?To peculators of the public gold:?That thieves at home must hang; but he, that puts?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 centring all authority in modes?And customs of her own, till Sabbath rites?Have dwindled into unrespected forms,?And knees and hassocks are wellnigh 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?But such as art contrives, possess ye still?Your element; there only ye can shine,?There only minds like yours can do no harm.?Our groves were planted to console at noon?The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve?The moonbeam, sliding softly in between?The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,?Birds warbling all the music. We can spare?The splendour of your lamps, they but eclipse?Our softer satellite. Your songs confound?Our more harmonious notes. The thrush departs?Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.?There is a public mischief in your mirth;?It plagues your country. Folly such as yours,?Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan,?Has made, which enemies could ne'er have done,?Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you,?A mutilated structure, soon to fall.
BOOK II.
THE TIMEPIECE.
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,?Some boundless contiguity of shade,?Where rumour of oppression and deceit,?Of unsuccessful or successful war,?Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,?My soul is sick with every day's report?Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.?There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,?It does not feel for man. The natural bond?Of brotherhood is severed as the flax?That falls asunder at the touch of fire.?He finds his fellow guilty of a skin?Not coloured like his own, and having power?To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause?Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.?Lands intersected by a narrow frith?Abhor each other. Mountains interposed?Make enemies of nations, who had else?Like kindred drops been mingled into one.?Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;?And worse than all, and most to be deplored,?As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,?Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat?With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,?Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.?Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,?And having human feelings, does not blush?And hang his head, to think himself a man??I would not have a slave to till my ground,?To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,?And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth?That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.?No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's?Just estimation prized above all price,?I had much rather be myself the slave?And wear the bonds, than fasten