When gifts perverted, or not duly priz'd,
Pleasure o'ervalued, and his grace despis'd,
Provoke the vengeance of his righteous hand;
To pour down wrath upon a thankless land;
He will be found impartially severe,
Too just to wink, or speak the guilty clear
Oh Israel, of all nations most undone !
Thy diadem displac'd, thy sceptre gone:
Thy temple, once thy glory, fall'n and raz'd,
And thou a worshipper e'en where thou may'st;
The services, once only without spot,
Mere shadows now, their ancient pomp forgot;
Thy Levites, once a consecrated host,
No longer Levites, and their lineage lost,
And the thyself o'er ev'ry country sown,
With none on earth that thou canst call thine own ;
Cry aloud, thou, that sittest in the dust,
Cry to the proud, the cruel, and unjust;
Knock at the gates of nations, rouse their fears;
Say wrath is coming, and the storm appears,
But raise the shrillest cry in British ears.
What ails thee, restless as the waves that roar,
And fling their foam against thy chalky shore;
Mistress, at least while Providence shall please
And trident-bearing queen of the wide seas-
Why, having kept good faith, and often shown
Friendship and truth to others, find'st thou none?
Thon that hast set the persecuted free,
None interposes now to succour thee.
Countries indebted to thy pow'r, that shine
With light deriv'd from thee, would smother thine;
Thy very children watch for thy disgrace-
A lawless brood, and curse thee to thy face.
Thy rulers load thy credit year by year,
With sums Peruvian mines could never clear;
As if, like arches built with skilful hand,
The more 'twere press'd the firmer it would stand.
The cry in all thy ships is still the same,
Speed us away to battle and to fame.
Thy mariners explore the wild expanse,
Impatient to descry the flags of France:
But though they fight as thine have ever fought,
Return asham'd without the wreaths they sought.
Thy senate is a scene of civil jar,
Chaos of contrarieties at war;
Where sharp and solid, phlegmatick and light,
Discordant atoms meet, ferment, and fight;
Where Obstinacy takes his sturdy stand,
To disconcert what Policy has plann'd ;
Where Policy is busied all night long
In setting right what Faction has set wrong;
Where flails of oratory thresh the floor,
That yields them chaff and dust, and nothing more.
Thy rack'd inhabitants repine, complain,
Tax'd till the brow of Labour sweats in vain;
War lays a burden on the reeling state,
And peace does nothing to relieve the weight;
Successive loads succeeding broils impose,
And sighing millions prophesy the close.
Is adverse Providence, when ponder'd well,
So dimly writ, or difficult to spell,
Thou canst not read with readiness and ease
Providence adverse in events like these?
Know, then, that heavenly wisdom on this ball
Creates, gives birth to, guides, consummates all; 315
That while laborious and quick-thoughted man.
Snuffs up the praise of what he seems to plan,
He first conceives, then perfects his design,
As a mere instrument in hands divine:
Blind to the working of that secret pow'r,
That balances the wings of ev'ry hour,
The busy trifler dreams himself alone,
Frames many a purpose, and God works his own.
States thrive or wither as moons wax and wane,
E'en as his will and his decrees ordain ;
While honour, virtue, piety, bear sway,
They flourish; and as these decline, decay :
In just resentment of his injur'd laws,
He pours contempt on them, and on their cause:
Strikes the rough thread of errour right athwart
The web of ev'ry scheme they have at heart;
Bids rottenness invade and bring to dust
The pillars of support, in which they trust,
And do his errand of disgrace and shame
On the chief strength and glory of the frame.
None ever yet impeded what he wrought,
None bars him out from his most secret thought;
Darkness itself before his eye is light,
And Hell's close mischief naked in his sight.
Stand now and judge thyself-Hast thou incurr'd
His anger, who can waste thee with a word;
Who poises and proportions sea and land,
Weighing them in the hollow of his hand :
And in whose awful sight all nations seem
As grasshoppers, as dust, a drop, a dream?
Hast thou, (a sacrilege his soul abhors,)
Claim'd all the glory of thy prosperous wars?
Proud of thy fleets and armies, stol'n the gem
Of his just praise, to lavish it on them?
Hast thou not learn'd, what thou art often told,
A truth still sacred, and believ'd of old,
That no success depends on spears and swords
Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?
That courage is his creature, and dismay
The post that at his bidding speeds away,
Ghastly in feature, and his stämm'ring tongue
With doleful rumour and sad presage hung,
To quell the valour of the stoutest heart,
And teach the combatant a woman's part 2
That he bids thousands fly where none pursue,
Saves as he will by many or by few.
And claims for ever as his royal right,
Th' event and sure decision of the fight?
Hast thou, tho' suckled at fair Freedom's breast,
Exported Slav'ry to the conquered East?
Pull'd down the tyrants India serv'd with dread,
And rais'd thyself, a greater in their stead?
Gone thither arm'd and hungry, return'd full,
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,
A despot big with pow'r obtain'd by wealth,
And that obtain'd by rapine and by stealth?
With Asiatick vices stor'd thy mind,
But left their virtues and thine own behind?
And having truck'd thy soul, brought home the fee,
To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee?
Hast thou by statute shov'd from its design
The Saviour's feast, his own bless'd bread and wine,
And made the symbols of atoning grace
An office-key, a picklock to a place,
That infidels may prove their title good
By an oath dipp'd in sacramental blood?
A blot, that will be still a blot, in spite
Of all that grave apologists may write ;
And though a bishop toil to cleanse the stain,
He wipes and scours the silver cup in vain.
And hast thou sworn on ev'ry slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?
Hast thou, when Heav'n has cloth'd thee with dis
And long provok'd, repaid thee to thy face,
(For thou hast known eclipses, and endur'd,
Dimness and anguish, all thy beams obscur'd,
When sin has shed dishonour on thy brow;
And never of a sabler hue than now,)
Hast thou with heart perverse and conscience sear'd, Despising all rebuke, still persever'd,
And having chosen evil, scorn'd the voice
That cried, Repent!-and gloried in thy choice?
Thy fastings, when calamity at last
Suggests th' expedient of a yearly fast,
What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a pow'r In lighter diet at a later hour,
To charm to sleep the threat'ning of the skies,
And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes?
The fast that wins deliverance, and suspends
The stroke that a vindictive God intends,
Is to renounce hypocrisy ; to draw
Thy life upon the pattern of the law;
To war with pleasure, idoliz'd before;
To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more.
All fasting else, whate'er be the pretence,
Is wooing mercy by renew'd offence.
Hast thou within thee sin, that in old time
Brought fire from Heav'n, the sex-abusing crime, 415
Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace,
Baboons are free from, upon human race?
Think on the fruitful and well-water'd spot
That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot.
Where Paradise seem'd still vouchsaf'd on earth, 420
Burning and scorch'd into perpetual dearth;
Or in his words who damn'd the base desire,
Suff'ring the vengeance of eternal fire;
Then Nature injur'd, scandaliz'd, defil'd,
Unveil'd her blushing cheek, look'd on, and smil'd; 425 Beheld with joy the lovely scene defac'd,
And prais'd the wrath that laid her beauties waste.
Far be the thought from any verse of mine,
And farther still the form'd and fix'd design,
To thrust the charge of deeds, that I detest,
Against an innocent unconscious breast;
The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man:
An individual is a sacred mark
Not to be pierc'd in play, or in the dark;
But publick censure speaks a publick foe,
Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow.
|