Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks, Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh, the important budget! ushered in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings? have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic and the wisdom and the wit And the loud laugh--I long to know them all;I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Not such his evening, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed And bored with elbow-points through both his sides, Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage;Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work!
Which not even critics criticise, that holds Inquisitive attention while I read Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break, What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?
Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge That tempts ambition. On the summit, see, The seals of office glitter in his eyes;He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels, Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, And with a dextrous jerk soon twists him down And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Here rills of oily eloquence, in soft Meanders, lubricate the course they take;The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved To engross a moment's notice, and yet begs, Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, However trivial all that he conceives.
Sweet bashfulness! it claims, at least, this praise, The dearth of information and good sense That it foretells us, always comes to pass.
Cataracts of declamation thunder here, There forests of no meaning spread the page In which all comprehension wanders lost;While fields of pleasantry amuse us there, With merry descants on a nation's woes.
The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks And lilies for the brows of faded age, Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets.
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, Sermons and city feasts and favourite airs, Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits, And Katterfelto with his hair on end At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the great Babel and not feel the crowd;To hear the roar she sends through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced To some secure and more than mortal height, That liberates and exempts me from them all.
It turns submitted to my view, turns round With all its generations; I behold The tumult and am still. The sound of war Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me;Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride And avarice that makes man a wolf to man;Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats By which he speaks the language of his heart, And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.
He travels and expatiates, as the bee From flower to flower so he from land to land;The manners, customs, policy of all Pay contribution to the store he gleans, He sucks intelligence in every clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research At his return--a rich repast for me.
He travels and I too. I tread his deck, Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes Discover countries, with a kindred heart Suffer his woes and share in his escapes;While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
Oh Winter, ruler of the inverted year, Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car indebted to no wheels, But urged by storms along its slippery way, I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold'st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning East, Shortening his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy west; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering at short notice in one group The family dispersed, and fixing thought Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening know.
No rattling wheels stop short before these gates;No powdered pert proficients in the art Of sounding an alarm, assault these doors Till the street rings; no stationary steeds Cough their own knell, while heedless of the sound The silent circle fan themselves, and quake:
