Part 10 (1/2)

How thou arrests my sense! how with the sight My winter'd blood grows stiff to all delight!

Torpedo to the eye! whose least glance can Freeze our wild l.u.s.ts, and rescue headlong man.

Eloquent silence! able to immure An atheist's thoughts, and blast an epicure.

Were I a Lucian, Nature in this dress Would make me wish a Saviour, and confess.

Where are you, sh.o.r.eless thoughts, vast tenter'd hope, Ambitious dreams, aims of an endless scope, Whose stretch'd excess runs on a string too high, And on the rack of self-extension die?

Chameleons of state, air-monging band, Whose breath--like gunpowder--blows up a land, Come see your dissolution, and weigh What a loath'd nothing you shall be one day.

As th' elements by circulation pa.s.s From one to th' other, and that which first was I so again, so 'tis with you; the grave And Nature but complot; what the one gave The other takes; think, then, that in this bed There sleep the relics of as proud a head, As stern and subtle as your own, that hath Perform'd, or forc'd as much, whose tempest-wrath Hath levell'd kings with slaves, and wisely then Calm these high furies, and descend to men.

Thus Cyrus tam'd the Macedon; a tomb Check'd him, who thought the world too straight a room.

Have I obey'd the powers of face, A beauty able to undo the race Of easy man? I look but here, and straight I am inform'd, the lovely counterfeit Was but a smoother clay. That famish'd slave Beggar'd by wealth, who starves that he may save, Brings. .h.i.ther but his sheet; nay, th' ostrich-man That feeds on steel and bullet, he that can Outswear his lords.h.i.+p, and reply as tough To a kind word, as if his tongue were buff, Is chap-fall'n here: worms without wit or fear Defy him now; Death hath disarm'd the bear.

Thus could I run o'er all the piteous score Of erring men, and having done, meet more, Their shuffled wills, abortive, vain intents, Fantastic humours, perilous ascents, False, empty honours, traitorous delights, And whatsoe'er a blind conceit invites; But these and more which the weak vermins swell, Are couch'd in this acc.u.mulative cell, Which I could scatter; but the grudging sun Calls home his beams, and warns me to be gone; Day leaves me in a double night, and I Must bid farewell to my sad library.

Yet with these notes--Henceforth with thought of thee I'll season all succeeding jollity, Yet d.a.m.n not mirth, nor think too much is fit; Excess hath no religion, nor wit; But should wild blood swell to a lawless strain, One check from thee shall channel it again.

IN AMIc.u.m F[OE]NERATOREM.

Thanks, mighty Silver! I rejoice to see How I have spoil'd his thrift, by spending thee.

Now thou art gone, he courts my wants with more, His decoy gold, and bribes me to restore.

As lesser lode-stones with the North consent, Naturally moving to their element, As bodies swarm to th' centre, and that fire Man stole from heaven, to heav'n doth still aspire, So this vast crying sum draws in a less; And hence this bag more Northward laid I guess, For 'tis of pole-star force, and in this sphere Though th' least of many, rules the master-bear.

Prerogative of debts! how he doth dress His messages in c.h.i.n.k! not an express Without a fee for reading; and 'tis fit, For gold's the best restorative of wit.

Oh how he gilds them o'er! with what delight I read those lines, which angels do indite!

But wilt have money, Og? must I dispurse Will nothing serve thee but a poet's curse?

Wilt rob an altar thus? and sweep at once What Orpheus-like I forc'd from stocks and stones?

'Twill never swell thy bag, nor ring one peal In thy dark chest. Talk not of shreeves, or gaol; I fear them not. I have no land to glut Thy dirty appet.i.te, and make thee strut Nimrod of acres; I'll no speech prepare To court the hopeful cormorant, thine heir.

For there's a kingdom at thy beck if thou But kick this dross: Parna.s.sus' flow'ry brow I'll give thee with my Tempe, and to boot That horse which struck a fountain with his foot.

A bed of roses I'll provide for thee, And crystal springs shall drop thee melody.

The breathing shades we'll haunt, where ev'ry leaf Shall whisper us asleep, though thou art deaf.

Those waggish nymphs, too, which none ever yet Durst make love to, we'll teach the loving fit; We'll suck the coral of their lips, and feed Upon their spicy breath, a meal at need: Rove in their amber-tresses, and unfold That glist'ring grove, the curled wood of gold; Then peep for babies, a new puppet play, And riddle what their prattling eyes would say.

But here thou must remember to dispurse, For without money all this is a curse.

Thou must for more bags call, and so restore This iron age to gold, as once before.

This thou must do, and yet this is not all, For thus the poet would be still in thrall, Thou must then--if live thus--my nest of honey Cancel old bonds, and beg to lend more money.

TO HIS FRIEND----

I wonder, James, through the whole history Of ages, such entails of poverty Are laid on poets; lawyers--they say--have found A trick to cut them; would they were but bound To practise on us, though for this thing we Should pay--if possible--their bribes and fee.

Search--as thou canst--the old and modern store Of Rome and ours, in all the witty score Thou shalt not find a rich one; take each clime, And run o'er all the pilgrimage of time, Thou'lt meet them poor, and ev'rywhere descry A threadbare, goldless genealogy.

Nature--it seems--when she meant us for earth Spent so much of her treasure in the birth As ever after n.i.g.g.ards her, and she, Thus stor'd within, beggars us outwardly.

Woful profusion! at how dear a rate Are we made up! all hope of thrift and state Lost for a verse. When I by thoughts look back Into the womb of time, and see the rack Stand useless there, until we are produc'd Unto the torture, and our souls infus'd To learn afflictions, I begin to doubt That as some tyrants use from their chain'd rout Of slaves to pick out one whom for their sport They keep afflicted by some ling'ring art; So we are merely thrown upon the stage The mirth of fools and legend of the age.

When I see in the ruins of a suit Some n.o.bler breast, and his tongue sadly mute Feed on the vocal silence of his eye, And knowing cannot reach the remedy; When souls of baser stamp s.h.i.+ne in their store, And he of all the throng is only poor; When French apes for foreign fas.h.i.+ons pay, And English legs are dress'd th' outlandish way, So fine too, that they their own shadows woo, While he walks in the sad and pilgrim shoe; I'm mad at Fate, and angry ev'n to sin, To see deserts and learning clad so thin; To think how th' earthly usurer can brood Upon his bags, and weigh the precious food With palsied hands, as if his soul did fear The scales could rob him of what he laid there.

Like devils that on hid treasures sit, or those Whose jealous eyes trust not beyond their nose, They guard the dirt and the bright idol hold Close, and commit adultery with gold.

A curse upon their dross! how have we sued For a few scatter'd chips? how oft pursu'd Pet.i.tions with a blush, in hope to squeeze For their souls' health, more than our wants, a piece?

Their steel-ribb'd chests and purse--rust eat them both!-- Have cost us with much paper many an oath, And protestations of such solemn sense, As if our souls were sureties for the pence.