Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPLEEN; AN EPISTLE TO MR. CUTHBERT JACKSON, by MATTHEW GREEN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPLEEN; AN EPISTLE TO MR. CUTHBERT JACKSON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This motley piece to you I send
Last Line: Life's voyage to the world unknown.
Subject(s): Politics & Government; Religion; Social Problems; Spleen (organ); Theology


This motley piece to you I send,
Who always were a faithful friend;
Who, if disputes should happen hence,
Can best explain the author's sense;
And, anxious for the public weal,
Do what I sing so often feel.
The want of method pray excuse,
Allowing for a vapoured Muse;
Nor to a narrow path confined,
Hedge in by rules a roving mind.
The child is genuine; you can trace
Throughout, the sire's transmitted face.
Nothing is stolen; my Muse, though mean,
Draws from the spring she finds within,
Nor vainly buys what Gildon sells,
Poetic buckets for dry wells.
School-helps I want, to climb on high,
Where all the ancient treasures lie,
And there unseen commit a theft
On wealth in Greek exchequers left.
Then where? from whom? what can I steal,
Who only with the moderns deal?
This were attempting to put on
Raiment from naked bodies won;
They safely sing before a thief,
They cannot give who want relief;
Some few excepted, names well known,
And justly laureled with renown,
Whose stamp of genius marks their ware,
And theft detects: of theft beware;
From Moore so lashed, example fit,
Shun petty larceny in wit.
First know, my friend, I do not mean
To write a treatise on the spleen,
Nor to prescribe when nerves convulse,
Nor mend the alarum watch, your pulse.
If I am right, your question lay,
What course I take to drive away
The day-mare Spleen, by whose false pleas
Men prove mere suicides in ease,
And how I do myself demean
In stormy world to live serene.
When by its magic lantern spleen
With frightful figures spread life's scene,
And threatening prospects urged my fears,
A stranger to the luck of heirs;
Reason, some quiet to restore,
Showed part was substance, shadow more;
With spleen's dead weight though heavy grown,
In life's rough tide I sunk not down,
But swam, till Fortune threw a rope,
Buoyant on bladders filled with hope.
I always choose the plainest food
To mend viscidity of blood.
Hail! water-gruel, healing power,
Of easy access to the poor;
Thy help love's confessors implore,
And doctors secretly adore;
To thee I fly, by thee dilute --
Through veins my blood doth quicker shoot,
And by swift current throws off clean
Prolific particles of spleen.
I never sick by drinking grow,
Nor keep myself a cup too low,
And seldom Chloe's lodgings haunt,
Thirsty of spirits which I want.
Hunting I reckon very good
To brace the nerves and stir the blood,
But after no field-honours itch,
Achieved by leaping hedge and ditch.
While spleen lies soft relaxed in bed,
Or o'er coal-fires inclines the head,
Hygeia's sons with hound and horn
And jovial cry awake the Morn.
These see her from the dusky plight,
Smeared by the embraces of the Night,
With roral wash redeem her face,
And prove herself of Titan's race,
And, mounting in loose robes the skies,
Shed light and fragrance as she flies.
Then horse and hound fierce joy display,
Exulting at the hark-away,
And in pursuit o'er tainted ground
From lungs robust field-notes resound.
Then, as St. George the dragon slew,
Spleen pierced, trod down, and dying view;
While all the spirits are on wing,
And woods and hills and valleys ring.
To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling green;
Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies.
Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kitten, if the humour hit,
Has harlequined away the fit.
Since mirth is good in this behalf,
At some particulars let us laugh:
Witlings, brisk fools, cursed with half sense
That stimulates their impotence,
Who buzz in rhyme, and like blind flies
Err with their wings for want of eyes;
Poor authors worshipping a calf,
Deep tragedies that make us laugh,
A strict dissenter saying grace,
A lecturer preaching for a place,
Folks, things prophetic to dispense,
Making the past the future tense,
The popish dubbing of a priest,
Fine epitaphs on knaves deceased,
Green-aproned Pythonissa's rage,
Great Aesculapius on his stage,
A miser starving to be rich,
The prior of Newgate's dying speech,
A jointured widow's ritual state,
Two Jews disputing tete-a-tete,
New almanacs composed by seers,
Experiments on felons' ears,
Disdainful prudes, who ceaseless ply
The superb muscle of the eye,
A coquette's April-weather face,
A Queenborough mayor behind his mace,
And fops in military show,
Are sovereign for the case in view.
If spleen-fogs rise at close of day,
I clear my evening with a play,
Or to some concert take my way.
The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humour, music's flights,
Adjust and set the soul to rights.
Life's moving pictures, well-wrought plays,
To others' grief attention raise;
Here, while the tragic fictions glow,
We borrow joy by pitying woe;
There gaily comic scenes delight,
And hold true mirrors to our sight.
Virtue, in charming dress arrayed,
Calling the passions to her aid,
When moral scenes just actions join,
Takes shape, and shows her face divine.
Music has charms, we all may find,
Ingratiate deeply with the mind.
When art does sound's high power advance,
To music's pipe the passions dance;
Motions unwilled its powers have shown,
Tarantulated by a tune.
Many have held the soul to be
Nearly allied to harmony.
Her have I known indulging grief,
And shunning company's relief,
Unveil her face, and looking round,
Own, by neglecting sorrow's wound,
The consanguinity of sound.
In rainy days keep double guard,
Or spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest while their wings are wet.
In such dull weather, so unfit
To enterprise a work of wit,
When clouds one yard of azure sky
That's fit for simile, deny,
I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But if dull fogs invade the head,
That memory minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,
And on the drowning world remark;
Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day,
And from the hipped discourses gather
That politics go by the weather;
Then seek good-humoured tavern chums,
And play at cards, but for small sums;
Or with the merry fellows quaff,
And laugh aloud with them that laugh;
Or drink a joco-serious cup
With souls who've took their freedom up,
And let my mind, beguiled by talk,
In Epicurus' garden walk,
Who thought it heaven to be serene;
Pain, hell; and purgatory, spleen.
Sometimes I dress, with women sit,
And chat away the gloomy fit;
Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,
And wear a gay impertinence,
Nor think nor speak with any pains,
But lay on fancy's neck the reins,
Talk of unusual swell of waist
In maid of honour loosely laced,
And beauty borrowing Spanish red,
And loving pair with separate bed,
And jewels pawned for loss of game,
And then redeemed by loss of fame;
Of Kitty (aunt left in the lurch
By grave pretence to go to church)
Perceived in hack with lover fine,
Like Will and Mary on the coin;
And thus in modish manner we,
In aid of sugar, sweeten tea.
Permit, ye fair, your idol form,
Which e'en the coldest heart can warm,
May with its beauties grace my line,
While I bow down before its shrine,
And your thronged altars with my lays
Perfume, and get by giving praise.
With speech so sweet, so sweet a mien
You excommunicate the spleen,
Which fiend-like flies the magic ring
You form with sound, when pleased to sing;
Whate'er you say, howe'er you move,
We look, we listen, and approve.
Your touch, which gives to feeling bliss,
Our nerves officious throng to kiss;
By Celia's pat, on their report,
The grave-aired soul, inclined to sport,
Renounces wisdom's sullen pomp,
And loves the floral game, to romp.
But who can view the pointed rays,
That from black eyes scintillant blaze?
Love on his throne of glory seems
Encompassed with satellite beams.
But when blue eyes, more softly bright,
Diffuse benignly humid light,
We gaze, and see the smiling loves,
And Cytherea's gentle doves,
And raptured fix in such a face
Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace.
Shine but on age, you melt its snow;
Again fires long extinguished glow,
And, charmed by witchery of eyes,
Blood long congealed liquefies!
True miracle, and fairly done
By heads which are adored while on.
But oh, what pity 'tis to find
Such beauties both of form and mind,
By modern breeding much debased,
In half the female world at least!
Hence I with care such lotteries shun,
Where, a prize missed, I'm quite undone,
And han't, by venturing on a wife,
Yet run the greatest risk in life.
Mothers and guardian aunts, forbear
Your impious pains to form the fair,
Nor lay out so much cost and art,
But to deflower the virgin heart,
Of every folly fostering-bed
By quickening heat of custom bred.
Rather than by your culture spoiled,
Desist, and give us nature wild,
Delighted with a hoyden soul
Which truth and innocence control.
Coquettes, leave off affected arts,
Gay fowlers at a flock of hearts;
Woodcocks to shun your snares have skill,
You show so plain you strive to kill.
In love the artless catch the game,
And they scarce miss who never aim.
The world's great Author did create
The sex to fit the nuptial state,
And meant a blessing in a wife
To solace the fatigues of life,
And old inspired times display
How wives could love and yet obey.
Then truth and patience of control
And housewife arts adorned the soul;
And charms, the gift of nature, shone;
And jealousy, a thing unknown;
Veils were the only masks they wore;
Novels (receipts to make a whore)
Nor ombre nor quadrille they knew,
Nor Pam's puissance felt at loo.
Wise men did not, to be thought gay,
Then compliment their power away;
But lest, by frail desires misled,
The girls forbidden paths should tread,
Of ignorance raised the safe high wall;
But we haw-haws, that show them all.
Thus we at once solicit sense,
And charge them not to break the fence.
Now, if untired, consider, friend,
What I avoid to gain my end.
I never am at meeting seen,
Meeting, that region of the spleen;
The broken heart, the busy fiend,
The inward call, on spleen depend.
Law, licensed breaking of the peace,
To which vacation is disease;
A gipsy diction scarce known well
By the magi, who law-fortunes tell,
I shun; nor let it breed within
Anxiety, and that the spleen;
Law, grown a forest, where perplex
The mazes, and the brambles vex;
Where its twelve verderers every day
Are changing still the public way,
Yet if we miss our path and err,
We grievous penalties incur,
And wanderers tire, and tear their skin,
And then get out where they went in.
I never game, and rarely bet,
Am loth to lend, or run in debt.
No compter-writs me agitate,
Who moralizing pass the gate,
And there mine eyes on spendthrifts turn,
Who vainly o'er their bondage mourn.
Wisdom, before beneath their care,
Pays her upbraiding visits there,
And forces folly through the grate
Her panegyric to repeat.
This view, profusely when inclined,
Enters a caveat in the mind;
Experience joined with common sense
To mortals is a providence.
Passion, as frequently is seen,
Subsiding settles into spleen.
Hence, as the plague of happy life,
I run away from party strife.
A prince's cause, a church's claim,
I've known to raise a mighty flame,
And priest, as stoker, very free
To throw in peace and charity.
That tribe whose practicals decree
Small beer the deadliest heresy;
Who, fond of pedigree, derive
From the most noted whore alive;
Who own wine's old prophetic aid,
And love the mitre Bacchus made,
Forbid the faithful to depend
On half-pint drinkers for a friend,
And in whose gay red-lettered face
We read good living more than grace:
Nor they so pure and so precise,
Immaculate as their white of eyes,
Who for the spirit hug the spleen,
Phylactered throughout all their mien;
Who their ill-tasted home-brewed prayer
To the state's mellow forms prefer;
Who doctrines, as infectious, fear,
Which are not steeped in vinegar,
And samples of heart-chested grace
Expose in show-glass of the face,
Did never me as yet provoke
Either to honour band and cloak,
Or deck my hat with leaves of oak.
I rail not with mock-patriot grace
At folks, because they are in place,
Nor, hired to praise with stallion pen,
Serve the ear-lechery of men;
And to avoid religious jars
The laws are my expositors,
Which in my doubting mind create
Conformity to Church and State.
I go, pursuant to my plan,
To Mecca with the caravan,
And think it right in common sense
Both for diversion and defence.
Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world's a vast design;
Like theirs who tug in little boat
To pull to them the ship afloat,
While to defeat their laboured end,
At once both wind and stream contend;
Success herein is seldom seen,
And zeal, when baffled, turns to spleen.
Happy the man who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;
His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pulled against the tide.
He, paddling by the scuffing crowd,
Sees unconcerned life's wager rowed,
And when he can't prevent foul play,
Enjoys the folly of the fray.
By these reflections I repeal
Each hasty promise made in zeal.
When gospel propagators say
We're bound our great light to display,
And Indian darkness drive away,
Yet none but drunken watchmen send
And scoundrel link-boys for that end;
When they cry up this holy war,
Which every Christian should be for,
Yet such as owe the law their ears,
We find employed as engineers;
This view my forward zeal so shocks,
In vain they hold the money-box.
At such a conduct, which intends
By vicious means such virtuous ends,
I laugh off spleen, and keep my pence
From spoiling Indian innocence.
Yet philosophic love of ease
I suffer not to prove disease,
But rise up in the virtuous cause
Of a free press and equal laws.
The press restrained! nefandous thought!
In vain our sires have nobly fought;
While free from force the press remains,
Virtue and Freedom cheer our plains,
And Learning largesses bestows,
And keeps uncensured open house.
We to the nation's public mart
Our works of wit and schemes of art,
And philosophic goods this way,
Like water carriage, cheap convey.
This tree, which knowledge so affords,
Inquisitors with flaming swords
From lay-approach with zeal defend,
Lest their own paradise should end.
The press from her fecundous womb
Brought forth the arts of Greece and Rome;
Her offspring, skilled in logic war,
Truth's banner waved in open air;
The monster Superstition fled,
And hid in shades its Gorgon head,
And lawless power the long-kept field.
By reason quelled, was forced to yield.
This nurse of arts, and freedom's fence
To chain, is treason against sense;
And, Liberty, thy thousand tongues
None silence, who design no wrongs;
For those that use the gag's restraint,
First rob, before they stop complaint.
Since disappointment galls within,
And subjugates the soul to spleen,
Most schemes, as money-snares, I hate,
And bite not at projector's bait.
Sufficient wrecks appear each day,
And yet fresh fools are cast away.
Ere well the bubbled can turn round,
Their painted vessel runs aground;
Or in deep seas it oversets
By a fierce hurricane of debts;
Or helm-directors in one trip,
Freight first embezzled, sink the ship.
Such was of late a corporation,
The brazen serpent of the nation,
Which, when hard accidents distressed,
The poor must look at to be blessed,
And thence expect, with paper sealed
By fraud and usury, to be healed.
I in no soul-consumption wait
Whole years at levees of the great,
And hungry hopes regale the while
On the spare diet of a smile.
There you may see the idol stand
With mirror in his wanton hand;
Above, below, now here, now there
He throws about the sunny glare.
Crowds pant, and press to seize the prize,
The gay delusion of their eyes.
When Fancy tries her limning skill
To draw and colour at her will,
And raise and round the figures well,
And show her talent to excel,
I guard my heart, lest it should woo
Unreal beauties Fancy drew,
And disappointed, feel despair
At loss of things that never were.
When I lean politicians mark
Grazing on ether in the Park;
Who, e'er on wing with open throats,
Fly at debates, expresses, votes,
Just in the manner swallows use,
Catching their airy food of news;
Whose latrant stomachs oft molest
The deep-laid plans their dreams suggest;
Or see some poet pensive sit,
Fondly mistaking spleen for wit,
Who, though short-winded, still will aim
To sound the epic trump of Fame;
Who still on Phoebus' smiles will dote
Nor learn conviction from his coat;
I bless my stars, I never knew
Whimsies which, close pursued, undo,
And have from old experience been
Both parent and the child of spleen.
These subjects of Apollo's state,
Who from false fire derive their fate,
With airy purchases undone
Of lands, which none lend money on,
Born dull, had followed thriving ways,
Nor lost one hour to gather bays.
Their fancies first delirious grew,
And scenes ideal took for true.
Fine to the sight Parnassus lies,
And with false prospects cheats their eyes;
The fabled goods the poets sing,
A season of perpetual spring,
Brooks, flowery fields, and groves of trees,
Affording sweets and similes,
Gay dreams inspired in myrtle bowers,
And wreaths of undecaying flowers,
Apollo's harp with airs divine,
The sacred music of the Nine,
Views of the temple raised to Fame,
And for a vacant niche proud aim,
Ravish their souls, and plainly show
What Fancy's sketching power can do.
They will attempt the mountain steep,
Where on the top, like dreams in sleep,
The Muses revelations show,
That find men cracked, or make them so.
You, friend, like me, the trade of rhyme
Avoid, elaborate waste of time,
Nor are content to be undone,
And pass for Phoebus' crazy son.
Poems, the hop-grounds of the brain,
Afford the most uncertain gain;
And lotteries never tempt the wise
With blanks so many to a prize
I only transient visits pay,
Meeting the Muses in my way,
Scarce known to the fastidious dames,
Nor skilled to call them by their names.
Nor can their passports in these days
Your profit warrant, or your praise.
On poems by their dictates writ,
Critics as sworn appraisers, sit,
And, mere upholsterers, in a trice
On gems and painting set a price.
These tailoring artists for our lays
Invent cramped rulcs, and with strait stays
Striving free Nature's shape to hit,
Emaciate sense, before they fit.
A commonplace and many friends
Can serve the plagiary's ends,
Whose easy vamping talent lies,
First wit to pilfer, then disguise.
Thus some, devoid of art and skill
To search the mine on Pindus' hill,
Proud to aspire and workmen grow,
By genius doomed to stay below,
For their own digging show the town
Wit's treasure brought by others down.
Some wanting, if they find a mine,
An artist's judgment to refine,
On fame precipitately fixed,
The ore with baser metals mixed
Melt down, impatient of delay,
And call the vicious mass a play.
All these engage to serve their ends
A band select of trusty friends,
Who, lessoned right, extol the thing,
As Psapho taught his birds to sing;
Then to the ladies they submit,
Returning officers on wit;
A crowded house their presence draws,
And on the beaux imposes laws,
A judgment in its favour ends
When all the panel are its friends;
Their natures merciful and mild
Have from mere pity saved the child;
In bulrush ark the bantling found
Helpless, and ready to be drowned,
They have preserved by kind support,
And brought the baby-muse to court.
But there's a youth that you can name,
Who needs no leading strings to fame,
Whose quick maturity of brain
The birth of Pallas may explain,
Dreaming of whose depending fate,
I heard Melpomene debate:
"This, this is he, that was foretold
Should emulate our Greeks of old.
Inspired by me with sacred art,
He sings, and rules the varied heart,
If Jove's dread anger he rehearse,
We hear the thunder in his verse;
If he describe love turned to rage,
The Furies riot on his page;
If he fair liberty and law
By ruffian power expiring draw,
The keener passions then engage
Aright, and sanctify their rage;
If he attempt disastrous love,
We hear those plaints that wound the grove;
Within the kinder passions glow,
And tears distilled from pity flow."
From the bright vision I descend,
And my deserted theme attend.
Me never did ambition seize,
Strange fever most inflamed by ease!
The active lunacy of pride,
That courts jilt Fortune for a bride,
This paradise tree, so fair and high,
I view with no aspiring eye;
Like aspen shake the restless leaves,
And Sodom-fruit our pains deceives,
Whence frequent falls give no surprise,
But fits of spleen, called growing wise.
Greatness in glittering forms displayed
Affects weak eyes much used to shade,
And by its falsely envied scene
Gives self-debasing fits of spleen.
We should be pleased that things are so,
Who do for nothing see the show,
And, middle-sized, can pass between
Life's hubbub safe, because unseen,
And midst the glare of greatness trace
A watery sunshine in the face,
And pleasures fled to, to redress
The sad fatigue of idleness.
Contentment, parent of delight,
So much a stranger to our sight,
Say, goddess, in what happy place
Mortals behold thy blooming face;
Thy gracious auspices impart,
And for thy temple choose my heart.
They whom thou deignest to inspire
Thy science learn, to bound desire;
By happy alchemy of mind
They turn to pleasure all they find;
They both disdain in outward mien
The grave and solemn garb of spleen,
And meretricious arts of dress,
To feign a joy, and hide distress;
Unmoved when the rude tempest blows,
Without an opiate they repose,
And covered by your shield, defy
The whizzing shafts that round them fly;
Nor, meddling with the gods' affairs,
Concern themselves with distant cares;
But place their bliss in mental rest,
And feast upon the good possessed.
Forced by soft violence of prayer,
The blithesome goddess soothes my care;
I feel the deity inspire,
And thus she models my desire:
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,
A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids that never saw the town,
A serving-man not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper formed to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys,
And better to preserve the peace,
Commissioned by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May heaven (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land;
A pond before full to the brim,
Where cows may cool and geese may swim;
Behind, a green like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet,
Where odorous plants in evening fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air,
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenced by a slope with bushes crowned,
Fit dwelling for the feathered throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With opening views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy too regale,
Where the half-cirque which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds;
And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees,
From hills through plains in dusk array
Extended far, repel the day.
Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid;
Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beech
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While, soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind:
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measured motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus puts them out.
There see the clover, pea, and bean
Vie in variety of green;
Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep,
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,
And poppy top-knots deck her hair,
And silver streams through meadows stray,
And Naiads on the margin play,
And lesser nymphs on side of hills
From plaything urns pour down the rills.
Thus sheltered, free from care and strife,
May I enjoy a calm through life;
See faction, safe in low degree,
As men at land see storms at sea,
And laugh at miserable elves,
Not kind so much as to themselves,
Cursed with such souls of base alloy
As can possess but not enjoy;
Debarred the pleasure to impart
By avarice, sphincter of the heart;
Who wealth, hard earned by guilty cares,
Bequeath untouched to thankless heirs.
May I, with look ungloomed by guile,
And wearing virtue's livery-smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive,
With income not in Fortune's power,
And skill to make a busy hour,
With trips to town life to amuse,
To purchase books, and hear the news,
To see old friends, brush off the clown,
And quicken taste at coming down,
Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage,
And slowly mellowing in age,
When fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe,
Quit a worn being without pain,
Perhaps to blossom soon again.
But now more serious see me grow,
And what I think, my Memmius, know.
The enthusiast's hope and raptures wild
Have never yet my reason foiled.
His springy soul dilates like air,
When free from weight of ambient care,
And, hushed in meditation deep,
Slides into dreams, as when asleep;
Then, fond of new discoveries grown,
Proves a Columbus of her own,
Disdains the narrow bounds of place,
And through the wilds of endless space,
Borne up on metaphysic wings,
Chases light forms and shadowy things,
And, in the vague excursion caught,
Brings home some rare exotic thought.
The melancholy man such dreams,
As brightest evidence, esteems;
Fain would he see some distant scene
Suggested by his restless spleen,
And fancy's telescope applies
With tinctured glass to cheat his eyes.
Such thoughts as love the gloom of night
I close examine by the light;
For who, though bribed by gain to lie,
Dare sunbeam-written truths deny,
And execute plain common sense
On faith's mere hearsay evidence?
That superstition mayn't create,
And club its ills with those of fate,
I many a notion take to task,
Made dreadful by its visor-mask.
Thus scruple, spasm of the mind,
Is cured, and certainty I find;
Since optic reason shows me plain,
I dreaded spectres of the brain,
And legendary fears are gone,
Though in tenacious childhood sown.
Thus in opinions I commence
Freeholder in the proper sense,
And neither suit nor service do,
Nor homage to pretenders show,
Who boast themselves by spurious roll
Lords of the manor of the soul;
Preferring sense, from chin that's bare,
To nonsense throned in whiskered hair.
To thee, Creator uncreate,
O Entium Ens divinely great! --
Hold, Muse, nor melting pinions try,
Nor near the blazing glory fly,
Nor straining break thy feeble bow,
Unfeathered arrows far to throw;
Through fields unknown nor madly stray,
Where no ideas mark the way.
With tender eyes, and colours faint,
And trembling hands forbear to paint.
Who, features veiled by light can hit?
Where can, what has no outline, sit?
My soul, the vain attempt forego!
Thyself, the fitter subject, know!
He wisely shuns the bold extreme,
Who soon lays by the unequal theme,
Nor runs, with wisdom's Sirens caught,
On quicksand swallowing shipwrecked thought,
But, conscious of his distance, gives
Mute praise, and humble negatives.
In one, no object of our sight,
Immutable and infinite,
Who can't be cruel or unjust,
Calm and resigned, I fix my trust;
To him my past and present state
I owe, and must my future fate.
A stranger into life I'm come,
Dying may be our going home,
Transported here by angry Fate,
The convicts of a prior state;
Hence I no anxious thoughts bestow
On matters I can never know.
Through life's foul ways like vagrant passed,
He'll grant a settlement at last,
And with sweet ease the wearied crown,
By leave to lay his being down.
If doomed to dance the eternal round
Of life no sooner lost than found,
And dissolution soon to come,
Like sponge, wipes out life's present sum,
But can't our state of power bereave
An endless series to receive;
Then, if hard dealt with here by fate,
We balance in another state,
And consciousness must go along,
And sign the acquittance for the wrong.
He for his creatures must decree
More happiness than misery,
Or be supposed to create,
Curious to try, what 'tis to hate,
And do an act, which rage infers,
'Cause lameness halts, or blindness errs.
Thus, thus I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel with gentle gale;
At helm I make my reason sit,
My crew of passions all submit.
If dark and blustering prove some nights,
Philosophy puts forth her lights;
Experience holds the cautious glass,
To shun the breakers, as I pass,
And frequent throws the wary lead,
To see what dangers may be hid;
And once in seven years I'm seen
At Bath or Tunbridge to careen.
Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.
With store sufficient for relief,
And wisely still prepared to reef,
Nor wanting the dispersive bowl
Of cloudy weather in the soul,
I make (may heaven propitious send
Such wind and weather to the end)
Neither becalmed nor over-blown,
Life's voyage to the world unknown.





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