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CORRUPTION; AN EPISTLE, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: Boast on, my friend -- though stripp'd of all beside
Last Line: O england! Sinking england! Boast no more.
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Corruption In Politics; Freedom; Great Britain - Revolution, 1688; Liberty; English Revolution, 1688


BOAST on, my friend -- though stripp'd of all beside,
Thy struggling nation still retains her pride:
That pride, which once in genuine glory woke
When Marlborough fought, and brilliant St. John spoke;
That pride which still, by time and shame unstung,
Outlives e'en Wh -- tel -- cke's sword and H -- wk -- sb'ry's tongue!
Boast on, my friend, while in this humbled isle
Where Honour mourns and Freedom fears to smile,
Where the bright light of England's fame is known
But by the baleful shadow she has thrown
On all our fate -- where, doom'd to wrongs and slights,
We hear you talk of Britain's glorious rights,
As wretched slaves, that under hatches lie,
Hear those on deck extol the sun and sky!
Boast on, while wandering through my native haunts,
I coldly listen to thy patriot vaunts;
And feel, though close our wedded countries twine,
More sorrow for my own than pride from thine.

Yet pause a moment -- and if truths severe
Can find an inlet to that courtly ear,
Which loves no politics in rhyme but Pye's,
And hears no news but W -- rd's gazetted lies, --
If aught can please thee but the good old saws
Of "Church and State," and "William's matchless laws,"
And "Acts and Rights of glorious Eighty-eight," --
Things, which though now a century out of date,
Still serve to ballast, with convenient words,
A few crank arguments for speeching lords, --
Turn, while I tell how England's freedom found,
Where most she look'd for life, her deadliest wound;
How brave she struggled, while her foe was seen,
How faint since Influence lent that foe a screen;
How strong o'er James and Popery she prevail'd,
How weakly fell, when Whigs and gold assail'd.

While kings were poor, and all those schemes unknown
Which drain the people, to enrich the throne;
Ere yet a yielding Commons had supplied
Those chains of gold by which themselves are tied;
Then proud Prerogative, untaught to creep
With bribery's silent foot on Freedom's sleep,
Frankly avow'd his bold enslaving plan,
And claim'd a right from God to trample man!
But Luther's schism had too much roused mankind
For Hampden's truths to linger long behind;
Nor then, when king-like popes had fallen so low,
Could pope-like kings escape the levelling blow.
That ponderous sceptre (in whose place we bow
To the light talisman of influence now),
Too gross, too visible to work the spell
Which modern power performs, in fragments fell:
In fragments lay, till, patch'd and painted o'er
With fleur-de-lys, it shone and scourged once more.

'Twas then, my friend, thy kneeling nation quaff'd
Long, long and deep, the churchman's opiate draught
Of tame obedience -- till her sense of right
And pulse of glory seem'd extinguish'd quite,
And Britons slept so sluggish in their chain,
That wakening Freedom call'd almost in vain.
O England! England! what a chance was thine,
When the last tyrant of that ill-starr'd line
Fled from his sullied crown, and left thee free
To found thy own eternal liberty!
How bright, how glorious, in that sunshine hour
Might patriot hands have raised the triple tower
Of British freedom, on a rock divine
Which neither force could storm nor treachery mine!
But, no -- the luminous, the lofty plan,
Like mighty Babel, seem'd too bold for man;
The curse of jarring tongues again was given
To thwart a work that raised men nearer heaven.
While Tories marr'd what Whigs had scarce begun,
While Whigs undid what Whigs themselves had done,
The time was lost, and William, with a smile,
Saw Freedom weeping o'er the unfinish'd pile!

Hence all the ills you suffer, -- hence remain
Such galling fragments of that feudal chain,
Whose links, around you by the Norman flung,
Though loosed and broke so often, still have clung.
Hence sly Prerogative, like Jove of old,
Has turn'd his thunder into showers of gold,
Whose silent courtship wins securer joys,
Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise.
While parliaments, no more those sacred things
Which make and rule the destiny of kings,
Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown,
And each new set of sharpers cog their own.
Hence the rich oil, that from the Treasury steals,
And drips o'er all the Constitution's wheels,
Giving the old machine such pliant play,
That Court and Commons jog one joltless way,
While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car,
So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far;
And the duped people, hourly doom'd to pay
The sums that bribe their liberties away, --
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd, to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart!
But soft! my friend, I hear thee proudly say
"What! shall I listen to the impious lay,
That dares, with Tory licence, to profane
The bright bequests of William's glorious reign?
Shall the great wisdom of our patriot sires,
Whom H -- wks -- b -- y quotes and savoury B -- rch admires,
Be slander'd thus? Shall honest St -- le agree
With virtuous R -- se to call us pure and free,
Yet fail to prove it? Shall our patent pair
Of wise state-poets waste their words in air,
And Pye unheeded breathe his prosperous strain,
And C -- nn -- ng take the people's sense in vain?"

The people! -- ah, that Freedom's form should stay
Where Freedom's spirit long hath pass'd away!
That a false smile should play around the dead,
And flush the features where the soul hath fled!
When Rome had lost her virtue with her rights,
When her foul tyrant sat on Capreae's heights
Amid his ruffian spies, and doom'd to death
Each noble name they blasted with their breath, --
E'en then (in mockery of that golden time,
When the Republic rose revered, sublime,
And her free sons, diffused from zone to zone,
Gave kings to every country but their own), --
E'en then the senate and the tribunes stood,
Insulting marks, to show how Freedom's flood
Had dared to flow, in glory's radiant day,
And how it ebb'd, -- for ever ebb'd away!

Oh, look around -- though yet a tyrant's sword
Nor haunts our sleep nor trembles o'er our board,
Though blood be better drawn by modern quacks,
With Treasury leeches than with sword or axe;
Yet say, could e'en a prostrate tribune's power,
Or a mock senate, in Rome's servile hour,
Insult so much the claims, the rights of man,
As doth that fetter'd mob, that free divan,
Of noble tools and honourable knaves,
Of pension'd patriots and privileged slaves!
That party-colour'd mass, which nought can warm
But quick corruption's heat -- whose ready swarm
Spread their light wings in Bribery's golden sky,
Buzz for a period, lay their eggs, and die; --
That greedy vampire, which from Freedom's tomb
Comes forth, with all the mimicry of bloom
Upon its lifeless cheek, and sucks and drains
A people's blood to feed its putrid veins!

Heavens, what a picture! yes, my friend, 'tis dark;
"But can no light be found, no genuine spark
Of former fire to warm us? Is there none,
To act a Marvell's part?" -- I fear not one.
To place and power all public spirit tends,
In place and power all public spirit ends;
Like hardy plants, that love the air and sky,
When out, 'twill thrive -- but taken in, 'twill die!

Not bolder truths of sacred Freedom hung
From Sidney's pen or burn'd on Fox's tongue,
Than upstart Whigs produce each market night,
While yet their conscience, as their purse, is light;
While debts at home excite their care for those
Which, dire to tell, their much-loved country owes,
And loud and upright, till their prize be known,
They thwart the King's supplies to raise their own.
But bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum --
So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb.
And though I feel as if indignant Heaven
Must think that wretch too foul to be forgiven
Who basely hangs the bright protecting shade
Of Freedom's ensign o'er Corruption's trade,
And makes the sacred flag he dares to show
His passport to the market of her foe,
Yet, yet, I own, so venerably dear
Are Freedom's grave old anthems to my ear,
That I enjoy them, though by rascals sung,
And reverence Scripture e'en from Satan's tongue.
Nay, when the constitution has expired,
I'll have such men, like Irish wakers, hired
To sing old "Habeas Corpus" by its side,
And ask, in purchased ditties, why it died?

See that smooth lord, whom nature's plastic pains
Seem to have destined for those Eastern reigns
When eunuchs flourish'd, and when nerveless things
That men rejected were the chosen of Kings; --
E'en he, forsooth, (oh, mockery accurst!)
Dared to assume the patriot's name at first --
Thus Pitt began, and thus begin his apes;
Thus devils, when first raised, take pleasing shapes.
But oh, poor Ireland! if revenge be sweet
For centuries of wrong, for dark deceit
And withering insult -- for the Union thrown
Into thy bitter cup, when that alone
Of slavery's draught was wanting -- if for this
Revenge be sweet, thou hast that daemon's bliss;
For, oh! 'tis more than hell's revenge to see
That England trusts the men who've ruin'd thee; --
That, in these awful days, when every hour
Creates some new or blasts some ancient power,
When proud Napoleon, like the burning shield
Whose light compell'd each wondering foe to yield,
With baleful lustre blinds the brave and free,
And dazzles Europe into slavery, --
That, in this hour, when patriot zeal should guide,
When Mind should rule, and -- Fox should not have died,
All that devoted England can oppose
To enemies made fiends, and friends made foes,
Is the rank refuse, the despised remains
Of that unpitying power, whose whips and chains
Made Ireland first, in wild, adulterous trance.
Turn false to England's bed, and whore with France.
Those hack'd and tainted tools, so foully fit
For the grand artizan of mischief, P -- tt,
So useless ever, but in vile employ,
So weak to save, so vigorous to destroy!
Such are the men that guard thy threaten'd shore,
O England! sinking England! boast no more.





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