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My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, and disposes much All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine; Thine unadulterate manners are less soft And plausible than social life requires, And thou hast need of discipline and art
To give thee what politer France receives From nature's bounty-that humane address And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse, either starved by cold reserve, Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl. Yet being free I love thee: for the sake Of that one feature can be well content, Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art, To seek no sublunary rest beside.
But once enslaved, farewell! I could endure Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home, Where I am free by birthright, not at all. Then what were left of roughness in the grain Of British natures, wanting its excuse That it belongs to freemen, would disgust. And shock me. I should then with double pain Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime; And, if I must bewail the blessing lost, For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people less austere;
In scenes which, having never known me free, Would not reproach me with the loss I felt. Do I forebode impossible events,
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And tremble at vain dreams? Heaven grant I may But the age of virtuous politics is past, And we are deep in that of cold pretence. Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere, And we too wise to trust them. He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Design'd by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith
And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough: For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there? Can he be strenuous in his country's cause Who slights the charities for whose dear sake That country, if at all, must be beloved?
'Tis therefore sober and good men are sad For England's glory, seeing it wax pale And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts So loose to private duty, that no brain, Healthful and undisturb'd by factious fumes, Can dream them trusty to the general weal. Such were not they of old, whose temper'd blades Dispersed the shackles of usurp'd control, And hew'd them link from link. Then Albion's song Were sons indeed; they felt a filial heart Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs; And, shining each in his domestic sphere, Shone brighter still, once call'd to public view.
"Tis therefore many, whose sequester'd lot Forbids their interference, looking on, Anticipate perforce some dire event; And, seeing the old castle of the state, That promised once more firmness, so assail'd That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, Stand motionless expectants of its fall. All has its date below; the fatal hour Was register'd in Heaven ere time began. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die too the deep foundations that we lay, Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains. We build with what we deem eternal rock: A distant age asks where the fabric stood; And in the dust, sifted and search'd in vain, The undiscoverable secret sleeps.
But there is yet a liberty, unsung By poets, and by senators unpraised, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of earth and hell confederate take away: A liberty which persecution, fraud, Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind: Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 'Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven, Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind, And seal'd with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure By the unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,
And are august, but this transcends them all. His other works, this visible display
Of all-creating energy and might,
Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the word That, finding an interminable space Unoccupied, has fill'd the void so well,
And made so sparkling what was dark before. But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true, Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, Might well suppose the artificer divine Meant it eternal, had he not himself Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, And, still designing a more glorious far, Doom'd it as insufficient for his praise. These therefore are occasional, and pass; Form'd for the confutation of the fool, Whose lying heart disputes against a God; That office served, they must be swept away. Not so the labours of his love: they shine In other heavens than these that we behold, And fade not. There is paradise that fears No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends Large prelibation oft to saints below.
Of these, the first in order, and the pledge And confident assurance of the rest,
Is liberty a flight into his arms, Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way, A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, And full immunity from penal woe.
Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes, and a dungeon; and his body serves The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul, Opprobrious residence he finds them all. Propense his heart to idols, he is held In silly dotage on created things, Careless of their Creator. And that low And sordid gravitation of his powers To a vile clod so draws him, with such force Resistless from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward; his ambition is to sink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. But, ere he gain the comfortless repose He seeks, an acquiescence of his soul, In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures- What does he not, from lusts opposed in vain, And self-reproaching conscience? He foresees The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,
Far worse than all the plagues, with which his sing Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless misery; future death, And death still future: not a hasty stroke, Like that which sends him to the dusty grave, But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears;
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