So crisp in beauty, 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
Shape such a foot and ankle as the waves
Crowded in eager rivalry to kiss
When Venus from the enamoured sea arose ;
Jacob, thou canst but make a monster of him!
All alteration man could think, would mar
His Pig-perfection.
The last charge, — he lived
Here I could shelter him
With noble and right-reverend precedents,
And show by sanction of authority
That 'tis a very honorable 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!
Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile
That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossomed field
Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise.
WESTBURY, 1799.
RECOMMENDED TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE SLAVE
RARE music! I would rather hear cat-courtship
Under my bedroom 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 clock-
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
Led by the nose, imbruted, and in the eye
Of Reason from their nature's purposes
As miserably perverted.
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 'twere 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, thou wert born to make him sport; That that great snout of thine was formed on purpose
To hold a ring, and that thy fat was given thee
For an approved pomatum!
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
His 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 ear, O Earth!
For seven long years, this precious syllogism
Hath baffled justice and humanity!
NAY, gather not that Filbert, Nicholas;
There is a maggot there: it is his house,
His castle. Oh! commit not burglary;
Strip him not naked, — 'tis his clothes, his shell,
His bones, the case and armor 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 easily may all things be destroyed!
But 'tis 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 pampered 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 ordained:
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 cracked.
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 enkernelled thus; never to hear
Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots,
Kings, Jacobins, and Tax-commissioners;
To feel no motion but the wind that shook
The Filbert-tree, and rocked 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
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