Hark, how at once the dying strains decay,
And soften unexpectedly away.
The peer, prince, peasant, soldier, squire, divine,
Goddess of Change, bend low before your shrine,
Swearing to follow, whereso'er you lead,
Though you eat toads, or walk upon your head.
'Tis hence, belles game, intrigue, sip citron-drams,
And hide their lovely locks with heads of rams;
Hence girls, once modest, without blush appear,
With legs display'd, and swan-soft bosoms bare;
Hence stale, autumnal dames, still deck'd with laces,
Look like vile canker'd coins in velvet cases.
Ask you, why whores are more belov'd than wives?
Why, weeping virtue exil'd, flattery thrives?
Why, mad for pensions, Britons young and old
Adore base ministers, those calves of gold?
Why witling templars on religion joke,
Fat, rosy justices, drink, doze, and snioke,
Dull critics on best bards pour harmless spite,
As babes that mumble coral, cannot bite?
Why knaves malicious, brother-knaves embrace,
With hearts of gall, but courtly smiling face?
Why scornful Folly from her gaudy coach, ·
At starving houseless Virtue points reproach?
Why Avarice is the great all-worship'd god?
Methinks some demon answers-Tis the mode!'
At this Corruption smiles with ghastly grin,
Presaging triumphs to her mother, Sin;
Who as with baneful wings aloft she flies,
This falling land be mine!'—exulting cries;
Grim Tyranny attends her on her way,
And frowns, and whets his sword, that thirsts to slay.
* Tete de monton, literally translated.
Look from the frigid to the torrid zone,
By custom all are led, by nature none.
The hungry Tartar rides upon his meat,
To cook the dainty flesh with buttock's heat:
The Chinese complaisantly takes his bed
With his big wife, and is with caudle fed.
How would our tender British beauties shriek,
To see slim beaux on bulls their lances break!
Yet no Lucinda, in heroic Spain,
Admits a youth, but who his beast has slain.
See, wondrous lands, where the fell victor brings,
To his glad wives, the heads of slaughter'd kings,
The mangled heads!-o'er which they sing and
laugh,
And in dire banquets the warm life-blood quaff;
Where youths their grandsires, age-bent, trembling,
Pitying their weary weakness, kindly slay:
Where sainted brachmans, sick of life, retire,
To die spontaneous on the spicy pyre;
Where (stranger still!) with their wild dates content,
The simple swains no sighs for gold torment.
How fondly partial are our judgments grown,
We deem all manners odious but our own!
O teach me, friend, to know wise Nature's rules,
And laugh, like you, at Fashion's hoodwink'd fools;
You, who to woods remov'd from modish sin,
Despise the distant world's hoarse, busy din:
As shepherds from high rocks hear far below,
Hear unconcern'd loud torrents fiercely flow;
6 The following facts are taken from the accounts of different countries.
You, though mad millions the mean taste upbraid,
Who still love Virtue, fair, forsaken maid;
As Bacchus charming Ariadne bore,
By all abandon'd, from the lonesome shore.
WRITTEN AT MONTAUBAN, 1750.
TARN, how delightful wind thy willow'd waves,
But ab! they fructify a land of slaves.
In vain thy barefoot sun-burnt peasants hide
With luscious grapes yon hill's romantic side;
No cups nectareous shall their toils repay,
The priests', the soldiers', and the farmers' prey.
Vain glows this sun in cloudless glory dress'd,
That strikes fresh vigour through the pining breast;
Give me, beneath a colder, changeful sky,
My soul's best, only pleasure, Liberty!
What millions perish'd near thy moanful flood'
When the red papal tyrant cried out-' Blood!'
Less fierce the Saracen, and quiver'd Moor,
That dash'd thy infants 'gainst the stones of yore.
Be warn'd, ye nations round; and trembling see
Dire superstition quench humanity!
By all the chiefs in Freedom's battles lost;
By wise and virtuous Alfred's awful ghost;
By old Galgacus' scythed, iron car,
That swiftly whirling through the walks of war,
1 Alluding to the persecutions of the Protestants, and the wars of the Saracens, carried on in the Southern provinces of France.
Dash'd Roman blood, and crush'd the foreign throngs;
By holy Druids' courage-breathing songs;
By fierce Bonduca's shield, and foaming steeds;
By the bold peers that met on Thames's meads
By the fifth Henry's helm, and lightning-spear,
O Liberty, my warm petition hear;
Be Albion still thy joy! with her remain,
Long as the surge shall lash her oak-crown'd plain !
THE REVENGE OF AMERICA.
WHEN fierce Pizarro's legions flew
O'er ravag'd fields of rich Peru,
Struck with his bleeding people's woes,
Old India's awful Genius rose.
He sat on Andes' topmost stone,
And heard a thousand nations groan;
For grief his feathery crown he tore,
To see huge Plata foam with gore;
He broke his arrows, stamp'd the ground,
To view his cities smoking round.
'What woes,' he cried, ' hath lust of gold
O'er my poor country widely roll'd;
Plunderers proceed! my bowels tear,
But ye shall meet destruction there;
From the deep-vaulted mine shall rise
The' insatiate fiend, pale Avarice,
Whose steps shall trembling Justice fly,
Peace, Order, Law, and Amity!
I see all Europe's children curs'd
With lucre's universal thirst;
The rage that sweeps my sons away,
My baneful gold shall well repay.'
THE DYING INDIAN.
'THE dart of Izdabel prevails! 'twas dip'd
In double poison-I shall soon arrive
At the bless'd island, where no tigers spring
On heedless hunters; where ananas bloom
Thrice in each moon; where rivers smoothly glide,
Nor thundering torrents whirl the light canoe
Down to the sea; where my forefathers feast
Daily on hearts of Spaniards!-O my son,
I feel the venom busy in my breast,
Approach and bring my crown, deck'd with the teeth
Of that bold Christian who first dar'd deflour
The virgins of the sun; and, dire to tell!
Robb'd Pachacamac's altar of its gems!
I mark'd the spot where they inter'd this traitor,
And once at midnight stole I to his tomb,
And tore his carcass from the earth, and left it
A prey to poisonous flies. Preserve this crown
With sacred secresy: if e'er returns
Thy much-lov'd mother from the desert woods,
Where as I hunted late, I hapless lost her,
Cherish her age; tell her I ne'er have worship'd
With those that eat their God. And when disease
|