-PIECE. 53 The earth shall shake him out of all his holds, Or make his house his grave. Nor fo content, Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood, And drown him in her dry and dusty gulphs. What then-were they the wicked above all, And we the righteous, whose faft-anchor'd isle Moved not, while their's was rock'd like a light skiff, The sport of ev'ry wave? No: none are clear, And none than we more guilty. But where all Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts Of wrath obnoxious, God may chuse his mark : May punish, if he please, the less, to warn The more malignant, If he spar’d not them, Tremble and be amazed at thine escape Far guiltier England, left he spare not thee,
Happy the man who sees a God employed · In all the good and ill that checquer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
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And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate), could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan,
Then God might be surprized, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks,
And, having found his instrument, forgets
Or disregards, or more presumptuous still
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life: involves the heav'n
In tempests, quits his grasp upon the winds
And gives them all their fury: bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines,
And desolates a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action. He has found
The source of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear. .
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world,
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it ? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means
Form’d for his use, and ready at his will ?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-falve, ask of him,
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Or
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught,
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee ftill My country! and while yet ą nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain’d to love thee. Though thy climę Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deform’d With dripping rains, ar wither'd by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy fullen skies And fields without a flower, for warmer France With all her yines ; nor for Ausonia's groyes Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bow’rs.. To fhake thy fenate, and from heights sublime Of patriot eloquence ta flash down fire Upon thy foes, was never meant my task; But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart As any thund'rer there. And I can feel Thy follies too, and with a just disdain
Frown
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonor on the land I lave.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when fuch things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er
With odors, and as profligate aș sweet,
Who fell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight; when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause ?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill th’ ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honors, and farewell with them
The hope of such hereafter. They have fall’n
Each in his field of glory: one in arms,
And one in council. Wolfe upon the lap
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