The Task, and Other Poems Part 4

A dissolution of all bonds ensued, The curbs invented for the mulish mouth Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts Grew rusty by disuse, and ma.s.sy gates Forgot their office, opening with a touch; Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade; The ta.s.selled cap and the spruce band a jest, A mockery of the world. What need of these For gamesters, jockeys, broth.e.l.lers impure, Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seen With belted waist, and pointers at their heels, Than in the bounds of duty? What was learned, If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot, And such expense as pinches parents blue And mortifies the liberal hand of love, Is squandered in pursuit of idle sports And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name, That sits a stigma on his father's house, And cleaves through life inseparably close To him that wears it. What can after-games Of riper joys, and commerce with the world, The lewd vain world that must receive him soon, Add to such erudition thus acquired, Where science and where virtue are professed?

They may confirm his habits, rivet fast His folly, but to spoil him is a task That bids defiance to the united powers Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews.

Now, blame we most the nurselings, or the nurse?

The children crooked and twisted and deformed Through want of care, or her whose winking eye And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood?

The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge, She needs herself correction; needs to learn That it is dangerous sporting with the world, With things so sacred as a nation's trust; The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.

All are not such. I had a brother once-- Peace to the memory of a man of worth, A man of letters and of manners too-- Of manners sweet as virtue always wears, When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles.

He graced a college in which order yet Was sacred, and was honoured, loved, and wept, By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.

Some minds are tempered happily, and mixt With such ingredients of good sense and taste Of what is excellent in man, they thirst With such a zeal to be what they approve, That no restraints can circ.u.mscribe them more Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake.

Nor can example hurt them. What they see Of vice in others but enhancing more The charms of virtue in their just esteem.

If such escape contagion, and emerge Pure, from so foul a pool, to shine abroad, And give the world their talents and themselves, Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth Exposed their inexperience to the snare, And left them to an undirected choice.

See, then, the quiver broken and decayed, In which are kept our arrows. Rusting there In wild disorder and unfit for use, What wonder if discharged into the world They shame their shooters with a random flight, Their points obtuse and feathers drunk with wine.

Well may the Church wage unsuccessful war With such artillery armed. Vice parries wide The undreaded volley with a sword of straw, And stands an impudent and fearless mark.

Have we not tracked the felon home, and found His birthplace and his dam? The country mourns-- Mourns, because every plague that can infest Society, that saps and worms the base Of the edifice that Policy has raised, Swarms in all quarters; meets the eye, the ear, And suffocates the breath at every turn.

Profusion breeds them. And the cause itself Of that calamitous mischief has been found, Found, too, where most offensive, in the skirts Of the robed pedagogue. Else, let the arraigned Stand up unconscious and refute the charge.

So, when the Jewish leader stretched his arm And waved his rod divine, a race obscene, Sp.a.w.ned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth Polluting Egypt. Gardens, fields, and plains Were covered with the pest. The streets were filled; The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook, Nor palaces nor even chambers 'scaped, And the land stank, so numerous was the fry.

BOOK III.

THE GARDEN.

As one who, long in thickets and in brakes Entangled, winds now this way and now that His devious course uncertain, seeking home; Or, having long in miry ways been foiled And sore discomfited, from slough to slough Plunging, and half despairing of escape, If chance at length he find a greensward smooth And faithful to the foot, his spirits rise, He chirrups brisk his ear-erecting steed, And winds his way with pleasure and with ease; So I, designing other themes, and called To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due, To tell its slumbers and to paint its dreams, Have rambled wide. In country, city, seat Of academic fame, howe'er deserved, Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last.

But now with pleasant pace, a cleanlier road I mean to tread. I feel myself at large, Courageous, and refreshed for future toil, If toil await me, or if dangers new.

Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflect Most part an empty ineffectual sound, What chance that I, to fame so little known, Nor conversant with men or manners much, Should speak to purpose, or with better hope Crack the satiric thong? 'Twere wiser far For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes, And charmed with rural beauty, to repose, Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains; Or when rough winter rages, on the soft And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air Feeds a blue flame and makes a cheerful hearth; There, undisturbed by folly, and apprised How great the danger of disturbing her, To muse in silence, or at least confine Remarks that gall so many to the few, My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.

Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall!

Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure, Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup.

Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.

Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored, That reeling G.o.ddess with the zoneless waist And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm Of Novelty, her fickle frail support; For thou art meek and constant, hating change, And finding in the calm of truth-tried love Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.

Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made Of honour, dignity, and fair renown, Till prost.i.tution elbows us aside In all our crowded streets, and senates seem Convened for purposes of empire less, Than to release the adult'ress from her bond.

The adult'ress! what a theme for angry verse, What provocation to the indignant heart That feels for injured love! but I disdain The nauseous task to paint her as she is, Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame.

No; let her pa.s.s, and charioted along In guilty splendour shake the public ways; The frequency of crimes has washed them white, And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch Whom matrons now of character unsmirched And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own.

Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time Not to be pa.s.sed; and she that had renounced Her s.e.x's honour, was renounced herself By all that prized it; not for prudery's sake, But dignity's, resentful of the wrong.

'Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif Desirous to return, and not received; But was a wholesome rigour in the main, And taught the unblemished to preserve with care That purity, whose loss was loss of all.

Men, too, were nice in honour in those days, And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped, And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained, Was marked and shunned as odious. He that sold His country, or was slack when she required His every nerve in action and at stretch, Paid with the blood that he had basely spared The price of his default. But now,--yes, now, We are become so candid and so fair, So liberal in construction, and so rich In Christian charity (good-natured age!) That they are safe, sinners of either s.e.x, Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, well bred, Well equipaged, is ticket good enough To pa.s.s us readily through every door.

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may (And no man's hatred ever wronged her yet), May claim this merit still--that she admits The worth of what she mimics with such care, And thus gives virtue indirect applause; But she has burnt her mask, not needed here, Where vice has such allowance, that her shifts And specious semblances have lost their use.

I was a stricken deer that left the herd Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I found by one who had himself Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts He drew them forth, and healed and bade me live.

Since then, with few a.s.sociates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene, With few a.s.sociates, and not wishing more.

Here much I ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come.

I see that all are wanderers, gone astray Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd And never won. Dream after dream ensues, And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed: rings the world With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, And add two-thirds of the remaining half, And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay As if created only, like the fly That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon, To sport their season and be seen no more.

The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise, And pregnant with discoveries new and rare.

Some write a narrative of wars, and feats Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history; describe the man, of whom His own coevals took but little note, And paint his person, character, and views, As they had known him from his mother's womb; They disentangle from the puzzled skein, In which obscurity has wrapped them up, The threads of politic and shrewd design That ran through all his purposes, and charge His mind with meanings that he never had, Or, having, kept concealed. Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn That He who made it and revealed its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

Some, more acute and more industrious still, Contrive creation; travel nature up To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixt, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants, each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp In playing tricks with nature, giving laws To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.

Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight Of oracles like these? Great pity, too, That having wielded the elements, and built A thousand systems, each in his own way, They should go out in fume and be forgot?

Ah, what is life thus spent? and what are they But frantic who thus spend it? all for smoke-- Eternity for bubbles proves at last A senseless bargain. When I see such games Played by the creatures of a Power who swears That He will judge the earth, and call the fool To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain, And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well, And prove it in the infallible result So hollow and so false--I feel my heart Dissolve in pity, and account the learned, If this be learning, most of all deceived.

Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps While thoughtful man is plausibly amused.

Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up!

'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arched and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending brows, 'Twere well could you permit the world to live As the world pleases. What's the world to you?-- Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk As sweet as charity from human b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, And exercise all functions of a man.

How then should I and any man that lives Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meandering there, And catechise it well. Apply your gla.s.s, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own; and if it be, What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art, To cut the link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind?

True; I am no proficient, I confess, In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath; I cannot a.n.a.lyse the air, nor catch The parallax of yonder luminous point That seems half quenched in the immense abyss: Such powers I boast not--neither can I rest A silent witness of the headlong rage, Or heedless folly, by which thousands die, Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.

G.o.d never meant that man should scale the heavens By strides of human wisdom. In His works, Though wondrous, He commands us in His Word To seek Him rather where His mercy shines.

The mind indeed, enlightened from above, Views Him in all; ascribes to the grand cause The grand effect; acknowledges with joy His manner, and with rapture tastes His style.

But never yet did philosophic tube, That brings the planets home into the eye Of observation, and discovers, else Not visible, His family of worlds, Discover Him that rules them; such a veil Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her Author more; From instrumental causes proud to draw Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake: But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees As meant to indicate a G.o.d to man, Gives HIM His praise, and forfeits not her own.

Learning has borne such fruit in other days On all her branches. Piety has found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!

Sagacious reader of the works of G.o.d, And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised, And sound integrity not more, than famed For sanct.i.ty of manners undefiled.

All flesh is gra.s.s, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ign.o.ble graves.

Nothing is proof against the general curse Of vanity, that seizes all below.

The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.

But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.

And wherefore? will not G.o.d impart His light To them that ask it?--Freely--'tis His joy, His glory, and His nature to impart.

But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.

What's that which brings contempt upon a book And him that writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact?

That makes a minister in holy things The joy of many, and the dread of more, His name a theme for praise and for reproach?-- That, while it gives us worth in G.o.d's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own?

What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up, But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?

Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.

Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure pa.s.sed!

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets, Though many boast thy favours, and affect To understand and choose thee for their own.

But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Even as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise, for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left, Substantial happiness for transient joy.

Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest, By every pleasing image they present, Reflections such as meliorate the heart, Compose the pa.s.sions, and exalt the mind; Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight To fill with riot and defile with blood.

Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes We persecute, annihilate the tribes That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye; Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song Be quelled in all our summer months' retreats; How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!

They love the country, and none else, who seek For their own sake its silence and its shade; Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Susceptible of pity, or a mind Cultured and capable of sober thought, For all the savage din of the swift pack, And clamours of the field? Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain, That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued With eloquence, that agonies inspire, Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs!

Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find A corresponding tone in jovial souls.

Well--one at least is safe. One sheltered hare Has never heard the sanguinary yell Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.

Innocent partner of my peaceful home, Whom ten long years' experience of my care Has made at last familiar, she has lost Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.

Yes--thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor At evening, and at night retire secure To thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarmed; For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged All that is human in me to protect Thine unsuspecting grat.i.tude and love.

If I survive thee I will dig thy grave, And when I place thee in it, sighing say, I knew at least one hare that had a friend.

How various his employments, whom the world Calls idle, and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler, too!

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, Delightful industry enjoyed at home, And nature in her cultivated trim Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad-- Can he want occupation who has these?

Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?

Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease, Not slothful; happy to deceive the time, Not waste it; and aware that human life Is but a loan to be repaid with use, When He shall call His debtors to account, From whom are all our blessings; business finds Even here: while sedulous I seek to improve, At least neglect not, or leave unemployed, The mind He gave me; driving it, though slack Too oft, and much impeded in its work By causes not to be divulged in vain, To its just point--the service of mankind.

He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart and keeps it; has a mind That hungers and supplies it; and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve No unimportant, though a silent task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem, To him that leads it, wise and to be praised; But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.

He that is ever occupied in storms, Or dives not for it or brings up instead, Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.