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But love him. He is one whom many wrongs
Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time
When he would weep to hear of wickedness,
And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest
He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor
A good man's honest anger. His quick eye
Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought
Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind
He mingled, by himself he judged of them,
And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,
And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD met
Пler unsuspecting victim, fair of front,
And lovely as Apega's sculptured form,
Like that false image caught his warm embrace,
Aud gored his open breast. The reptile race
Clung round his bosom, and with viper folds
Encircling, stung the fool who foster'd them.
His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sire
BENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he bore

His father's name; the world who injured him
Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuse
But love him, HOUSEHOLD Gops! for we were nurst
In the same school.

PENATES! Some there are

Who say, that not in the inmost heaven ye dwell, Gazing with eye remote on all the ways

Yet to this faith

Of man, his GUARDIAN GODS; wiselier they deem
A dearer interest to the human race
Links you, yourselves the SPIRITs of the Dead.
No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,
No light of human reason penetrate
The depth where Truth lies hid.
My heart with instant sympathy assents;
And I would judge all systems and all faiths
By that best touchstone, from whose test DECEIT
Shrinks like the Arch-Fiend at Ithuriel's spear,
And SOPHISTRY's gay glittering bubble bursts,
As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,
When that false Florimel, 2 by her prototype
Display'd in rivalry, with all her charms
Dissolved away.

Nor can the halls of Heaven
Give to the human soul such kindred joy,
As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,
When with the breeze it wantons round the brow
Of one beloved on earth; or when at night
In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS
And Joys that are no more. Or when, perchance
With power permitted to alleviate ill

And fit the sufferer for the coming woe,
Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills
The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines
For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart

One of the ways and means of the tyrant Nabis. If one of his subjects refused to lend him money, he commanded him to cmbrace his Apega; the statue of a beautiful Woman so formed as to clasp the victim to her breast, in which a pointed dagger was concealed.

2 Then did he set her by that snowy one,
Like the true saint beside the image set,
Of both their beauties to make paragone
And trial whether should the honour get;
Streightway so soone as both together met,
The enchaunted damsell vanish'd into noubt;
Her snowy substance melted as with beat;
Ne of that goodly bew remayned ought
But the empty girdle which about her wast was wron¡ht.

SPENSER.

The balm of resignation, and inspires
With heavenly hope. Even as a child delights
To visit day by day the favourite plant

His hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,
And watch all-anxious for the promised flower;
Thus to the blessed spirit in innocence
And pure affections like a little child,
Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friends
Beloved; then sweetest, if, as Duty prompts,
With earthly care we in their breasts have sown
The seeds of Truth and Virtue, holy flowers,
Whose odour reacheth lieaven.

When my sick Heart (Sick with hope long delay'd, than which no care Weighs on the spirit heavier,) from itself Seeks the best comfort, often have I deem'd That thou didst witness every inmost thought, SEWARD! my dear, dead friend! For not iu vain, O early summon'd on thy heavenly course! Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leave With strengthen'd step to foliow the right path. Till we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe The deep regret of nature, with belief, O EDMUND! that thine eye's celestial ken Pervades me now, marking with no mean joy The movements of the heart that loved thee well!

Such feelings Nature prompts, and hence your rites,
DOMESTIC Gops! arose. When for his son

With ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewail'd,
Mourning his age left childless, and his wealth
Heapt for an alien, he with obstinate eye
Still on the imaged marble of the dead

Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrath,
A safe asylum, fled the offending slave,
And garlanded the statue, and implored
His young lost lord to save: Remembrance then
Soften'd the father, and he loved to see

The votive wreath renew'd, and the rich smoke
Curl from the costly censer slow and sweet.
From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing rites
Divulging spread; before your idol forms 2
By every hearth the blinded Pagan knelt,
Pouring his prayers to these, and offering there
Vain sacrifice or impious, and sometimes
With human blood your sanctuary defiled:
Till the first Brutus, tyrant-conquering chief,
Arose; he first the impious rites put down,
He litliest, who for FREEDOM lived and died,
The friend of humankind. Then did your feasts
Frequent recur and blameless; and when came
The solemn festival, 3 whose happiest rites
Emblem'd EQUALITY, the holiest truth!
Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,
To you the fragrant censer smoked, to you
The rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!
For not the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine
Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleansed

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.-Proverbs.
Qua non gravior mortalibus addita cura,
SPES ubi longa venit.

STATIUS.

It is not certainly known under what form the Penates were worshi, ped. Some assert, as wooden or brazen rods shaped like trumpets; others, that they were represented as young men.

The Saturnalia.

With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart
Made pure, and by domestic Peace and Love
Hallow'd to you.
Hearken your hymn of praise,
PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,
There only to be found. Often at eve,
Amid my wanderings I have seen far off
The lonely light that spake of comfort there;
It told my heart of many a joy of home,
And my poor heart was sad. When I have gazed
From some high eminence on goodly vales
And cots and villages embower'd below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scene so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.
There is a magic in that little word:
It is a mystic circle that surrounds
Comforts and virtues never known beyond
The hallowed limit. Often has my heart
Ached for that quiet haven!—haven'd now,
I think of those in this world's wilderness
Who wander on and find no home of rest
Till to the grave they go! them POVERTY,
Hollow-eyed fiend, the child of WEALTH and Power,
Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,
Cankering with her foul mildews the chill'd heart;-
Them WANT with scorpion scourge drives to the den
Of GUILT;-them SLAUGHTER for the price of death
Throws to her raven brood. Oh, not on them,
GOD OF ETERNAL JUSTICE! not on them
Let fall thy thunder!

HOUSEHOLD Deities!

and love

Then only shall be Happiness on earth

When man shall feel sacred
your
power,
Your tranquil joys; then shall the city stand
A huge veid sepulchre, and rising fair
Amid the ruins of the palace pile

The olive grow, there shall the TREE of PEACE
Strike its roots deep and flourish. This the state
Shall bless the race redeem'd of Man, when WEALTH
And POWER and all their hideous progeny
Shall sink annihilate, and all mankind.
Live in the equal brotherhood of love.
Heart-calming hope, and sure! for hitherward
Tend all the tumults of the troubled world,
Its
its wisdom, and its wickedness
woes,
Alike so He hath will'd, whose will is just.

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The good old term appears. Oh! it looks ill
When delicate tongues disclaim old terms of kin,
Sir-ing and Madam-ing as civilly

As if the road between the heart and lips
Were such a weary and Laplandish way,

That the poor travellers came to the red gates
Half frozen. Trust me, Cousin Margaret,
For many a day my Memory hath play'd
The creditor with me on your account,

Aud made me shame to think that I should owe
So long the debt of kindness. But in truth,
Like Christian on his pilgrimage, I bear
So heavy a pack of business, that albeit

I toil on mainly, in our twelve hours' race
Time leaves me distanced. Loth indeed were I
That for a moment you should lay to me
Unkind neglect; mine, Margaret, is a heart

That smokes not, yet methinks there should be some
Who know how warm it beats. I am not one
Who can play off my smiles and courtesies

To every Lady of her lap-dog tired

Who wants a play-thing; I am no sworn friend
Of half-an-hour, as apt to leave as love;
Mine are no mushroom feelings, which spring up
At once without a seed and take no root,
Wiseliest distrusted. In a narrow sphere,
The little circle of domestic life,

I would be known and loved: the world beyond
Is not for me. But, Margaret, sure I think
That you should know me well, for you and I
Grew up together, and when we look back
Upon old times, our recollections paint
The same familiar faces. Did I wield
The wand of Merlin's magic, I would make
Brave witchcraft. We would have a faery ship,
Aye, a new Ark, as in that other flood
Which cleansed the sons of Anak from the earth;
The Sylphs should waft us to some goodly isle
Like that where whilom old Appollidon
Built up his blameless spell; and I would bid
The Sea-Nymphis pile around their coral bowers,
That we might stand upon the beach, and mark
The far-off breakers shower their silver spray,
And hear the eternal roar, whose pleasant sound
Told us that never mariner should reach
Our quiet coast. In such a blessed isle
We might renew the days of infancy,
And Life like a long childhood pass away,
Without one care. It may be, Margaret,
That I shall yet be gather'd to my friends;
For I am not of those who live estranged
Of choice, till at the last they join their race
In the family-vault. If so, if I should lose,
Like my old friend the Pilgrim, this huge pack
So heavy on my shoulders, I and mine
Right pleasantly will end our pilgrimage.
If not, if I should never get beyond
This Vanity town, there is another world
Where friends will meet. And often, Margaret,

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What is Peru and those Golcondan mines
To thee, Virginia? miserable realms,
They furnish gold for knaves and gems for fools;
But thine are common comforts!--To omit
Pipe-panegyric and tobacco-praise,

Think what the general joy the snuff-box gives,
Europe, aud far above Pizarro's name
Write Raleigh in thy records of renown!
Him let the school-boy bless if he behold
His master's box produced, for when he sees
The thumb and finger of Authority

Stuft the nostrils, when hat, head, and wig
up
Shake all; when on the waistcoat black the dust
Or drop falls brown; soon shall the brow severe
Relax; and from vituperative lips

Words that of birch remind not, sounds of praise,
And jokes that must be laugh'd at shall proceed.

1799.

Along a road whose white intensity Would now make platina uncongealable Like quicksilver.

Were it midnight, I should walk Self-lanthorn'd, saturate with sunbeams. Jove! O gentle Jove! have mercy, and once more Kick that obdurate Phoebus out of heaven! Give Boreas the wind-cholie, till he roar For cardamum, and drink down peppermint, Making what's left as precious as Tokay. Send Mercury, to salivate the sky Till it dissolve in rain. O gentle Jove! But some such little kindness to a wretch Who feels his marrow spoiling his best coat,Who swells with caloric as if a Prester Had leaven'd every limb with poison-yeast ;Lend me thine eagle just to flap his wings, And fan me, and I will build temples to thee, And turn true Pagan.

Not a cloud nor breeze,

O you most heathen Deities! if ever

My bones reach home (for, for the flesh upon them, It hath resolved itself into a dew,)

I shall have learnt owl-wisdom. Thou vile Phœbus,
Set me a Persian sun-idolater

Upon this turnpike road, and I'll convert him
With no inquisitorial argument

But thy own fires. Now woe be to me wretch,
That I was in a heretic country born!

Else might some mass for the poor souls that bleach,
And burn away the calx of their offences

In that great Purgatory crucible,

Help me. ( Jupiter! my poor complexion!

I am made a copper-Indian of already;

And if no kindly cloud will parasol me,
My very cellular membrane will be changed,-
I shall be negrolied.

A brook! a brook!
Oh what a sweet cool sound!

'T is very nectar! It runs like life through every strengthen'd limb! Nymph of the stream, now take a grateful prayer.

1799.

COOL REFLECTIONS

DURING A MIDSUMMER WALK,

O SPARE me-spare me, Phoebus! if indeed
Thou hast not let another Phaeton

Drive earthward thy fierce steeds and fiery car;
Mercy! I melt! I melt! No tree, no bush,
No shelter! not a breath of stirring air
East, West, or North, or South! Dear God of day,
Put on thy nightcap! crop thy locks of light,
And be in the fashion! turn thy back upon us,
And let thy beams flow upward! make it night
Instead of noon! one little miracle,

In pity, gentle Phoebus!

What a joy,

Oh what a joy, to be a seal and flounder
On an ice island! or to have a den

With the white bear, cavern'd in polar snow!
It were a comfort to shake hands with death,—
He has a rare cold hand! to wrap one's self
In the gift-shirt Deianeira sent,
Dipt in the blood of Nessus, just to keep
The sun off, or toast cheese for Beelzebub,-
That were a cool employment to this journey

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Perhaps,-hark Jacob! dost thou hear that horn?
Woe to the young posterity of pork!
Their enemy is at hand.

Again. Thou say'st
The Pig is ugly. Jacob, look at him!
Those eyes have taught the Lover flattery.
His face,-nay, Jacob, Jacob! were it fair
To judge a Lady in her dishabille?
Fancy it drest, and with saltpetre rouged.
Behold his tail, my friend, with curls like that
The wanton hop marries her stately spouse:
So crisp in heauty Amoretta's hair

Rings round her lover's soul the chains of love.
And what is beauty, but the aptitude
Of parts harmonious? give thy fancy scope,
And thou wilt find that no imagined change
Can beautify this beast. Place at his end
The starry glories of the Peacock's pride;
Give him the Swan's white breast; for his horn-hoofs
Shape such a foot and ankle as the waves
Crowded in eager rivalry to kiss,

When Venus from the enamour'd sea arose ;-
Jacob, thou canst but make a monster of him!
All alteration man could think would mar
llis Pig-perfection.

A dirty life.

The last charge,―he lives

Here I could shelter him

With noble and right-reverend precedents,
And show by sanction of authority
That 't is a very honourable thing

To thrive by dirty ways. But let me rest
On better ground the unanswerable defence:
The Pig is a philosopher, who knows
No prejudice. Dirt? Jacob, what is dirt?
If matter,-why the delicate dish that tempts
An o'ergorged Epicure to the last morsel
That stuffs him to the throat-gates is no more.
If matter be not, but as Sages say,
Spirit is all, and all things visible
Are one, the infinitely modified,

Think, Jacob, what that Pig is, and the mire
Wherein he stands knee-deep.

And there! that breeze
Pleads with me, and has won thee to the smile
That speaks conviction. O'er yen blossom'd field
Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise,

THE DANCING BEAR.

Led by the nose, embruted, and in the eye
Of Reason from their Nature's purposes
As miserably perverted.

Bruin-Bear

Now could I sonnetize thy piteous plight,
And prove how much my sympathetic heart
Even for the miseries of a beast can feel,
In fourteen lines of sensibility.

But we are told all things were made for man;
And I'll be sworn there's not a fellow here
Who would not swear 't were hanging blasphemy
To doubt that truth. Therefore as thou wert born,
Bruin! for man, and man makes nothing of thee
In any other way,-most logically

It follows, that thou must be born to dance;
That that great snout of thine was form'd on purpose
To hold a ring; and that thy fat was given thee
Ouly to make pomatum!

To demur
Were heresy. And politicians say
(Wise men who in the scale of reason give
No foolish feelings weight), that thou art here
Far happier than thy brother bears who roam
O'er trackless snow for food; that being born
Inferior to thy leader, unto him
Rightly belongs dominion; that the compact
Was made between ye, when thy clumsy feet
First fell into the snare, and he gave up

Ilis right to kill, conditioning thy life

Should thenceforth be his property;-besides,
'Tis wholesome for thy morals to be brought
From savage climes into a civilized state,
Into the decencies of Christendom.-
Bear! Bear! it passes in the Parliament
For excellent logic this! what if we say
How barbarously man abuses power?
Talk of thy baiting, it will be replied,
Thy welfare is thy owner's interest,
But were thou baited it would injure thee,
Therefore thou art not baited. For seven years

Hear it, O Heaven, and give car, O Earth!
For seven long years this precious Syllogism
Hlath baffled justice and humanity!!

THE FILBERT.

NAY, gather not that Filbert, Nicholas, There is a maggot there,--it is his house,— llis castle,ol commit not burglary!

RECOMMENDED TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE SLAVE- Strip him not naked.—'t is his clothes, his shell,

TRADE.

RARE music! I would rather hear cat-courtship
Under my bed-room window in the night,

Than this scraped catgut's screak. Rare dancing too!
Alas, poor Bruin! How he foots the pole,

And waddles round it with unwieldy steps,

Swaying from side to side'-The dancing-master
Hath had as profitless a pupil in him

As when he would have tortured my poor toes

To minuet grace, and made them move like clockwork
In musical obedience. Bruin! Bruin!
Thou art but a clumsy biped!—and the mob
With noisy merriment mock his heavy pace,
And laugh to see him led by the nose!-themselves

Ilis bones, the case and armour of his life,
And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas!
It were an easy thing to crack that nut
Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth,
So casily may all things be destroy'd!
But 't is not in the power of mortal man
To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.
There were two great men once amused themselves
Watching two maggots run their wriggling race,
And wagering on their speed; but Nick, to us
It were no sport to see the pamper'd worm
Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat,
Like to some Barber's leathern powder-bag
Wherewith he feathers, frosts, or cauliflowers
Spruce Beau, or Lady fair, or Doctor grave.

Enough of dangers and of enemies

Hath Nature's wisdom for the worm ordain'd:
Increase not thou the number! Him the Mouse
Gnawing with nibbling tooth the shell's defence
May from his native tenement eject;
Him may the Nut-hatch piercing with strong bill
Unwittingly destroy; or to his hoard

The Squirrel bear, at leisure to be crack'd.
Man also hath his dangers and his foes

As this poor Maggot hath; and when I muse
Upon the aches, anxieties, and fears,
The Maggot knows not, Nicholas, methinks
It were a happy metamorphosis

To be enkernell'd thus: never to hear
Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots,
Kings, Jacobines, and Tax-commissioners;
To feel no motion but the wind that shook
The Filbert Tree, and rock'd us to our rest;
And in the middle of such exquisite food
To live luxurious! the perfection this
Of snugness! it were to unite at once
Hermit retirement, Aldermanic bliss,
And Stoic independence of mankind.

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From the four corners of the world cries out

For justice upon one accursed head;
When Freedom hath her holy banners spread
Over all nations, now in one just cause
United; when with one sublime accord
Europe throws off the yoke abhorr'd,
And Loyalty and Faith, and Ancient Laws
Follow the avenging sword!

Woe, woe to England! woe and endless shame
If this heroic land,

False to her feelings and unspotted fame,
Hold out the olive to the Tyrant's hand!
Woe to the world if Buonaparte's throue
Be suffer'd still to stand!

For by what names shall Right and Wrong be known,

What new and courtly phrases must we feign
For Falsehood, Murder, and all monstrous crimes,
If that perfidious Corsican maintain
Still his detested reign,

And France, who yearns even now to break her chain,
Beneath his iron rule be left to groan!
No! by the innumerable dead,
Whose blood hath for his lust of power been shed,
Death only can for his foul deeds atone!
That peace which Death and judgment can bestow,
That peace be Buonaparte's,-that alone!

For sooner shall the Ethiop change his skin,
Or from the Leopard shall her spots depart,

Than this man change his old flagitious heart.
Have ye not seen him in the balance weigh'd,
And there found wanting? On the stage of blood
Foremost the resolute adventurer stood;

And when by many a battle won,
He placed upon his brow the crown,
Curbing delirious France beneath his sway,
Then, like Octavius in old time,
Fair name might he have hauded down,

Effacing many a stain of former crime.
Fool! should he cast away that bright renown!
Fool! the redemption proffer'd should he lose!
When Heaven such grace vouchsafed him that the way
To Good and Evil lay
Before him, which to chuse.

But Evil was his Good,

For all too long in blood had he been nurst, And ne'er was earth with fouler tyrant curst Bold man and bad,

Remorseless, godless, full of fraud and lies, And black with murders and with perjuries, Himself in Hell's whole panoply he clad; No law but his own headstrong will he knew, No counsellor but his own wicked heart! From evil thus portentous strength he drew, And trampled under foot all human ties, All holy laws, all natural charities.

O France! beneath this fierce Barbarian's sway Disgraced thou art to all succeeding times! Rapine and blood and fire have mark'd thy way, All loathsome, all unutterable crimes!

A curse is on thee, France! from far and wide It hath gone up to Heaven! All lands have cried For vengeance upon thy detested head! All nations curse thee, France! for wheresoc'er Ja peace or war thy banner hath been spread, All forms of human woe have follow'd there. The Living and the Dead

Cry out alike against thee! They who bear Crouching beneath its weight thine irou yoke, Join in the bitterness of secret prayer The voice of that innumerable throug, Whose slaughter'd spirits day and night invoke The everlasting Judge of right and wrong, How long, O Lord! Holy and just, how long!

A merciless oppressor hast thou been, Thyself remorselessly oppress'd meantime; Greedy of war, when all that thou couldst gain Was but to dye thy soul with deeper crime, And rivet faster round thyself the chain. O blind to honour, and to interest blind, When thus in abject servitude resign'd To this barbarian upstart, thou couldst brave God's justice, and the heart of humankind! Madly thou thoughtest to enslave the world, Thyself the while a miserable slave! Behold the flag of vengeance is unfurl'd? The dreadful armies of the North advance! While England, Portugal, and Spain combined,

Give their triumphant banners to the wind, And stand victorious in the fields of France! One man hath been for ten long wretched years The cause of all this blood and all these tears!

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