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THE 
 
 TASK. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM COW PER, 
 
 OF THE INNER TEMPLE, ESQ. 
 
 Fit surculus arbor. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN SHARPE, 
 
 PICCADILLY; 
 
 BY C. WHITT1NGHAM, CHISWICK. 
 
 M DCCC XVII. 
 

 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The history of the following production is briefly 
 this : A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem 
 of that kind from the author, and gave him tlie Sofa 
 for a subject. He obeyed; and, having much lei- 
 sure, connected another subject with it; and, pursu- 
 ing the train of thought to which his situation and 
 turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead 
 of the trifle which he at first intended, a serious affair 
 — a Volume ! 
 
 In the Poem on the subject of Education, he would 
 be very sorry to stand suspected of having aimed his 
 censure at any particular school. His objections are 
 such, as naturally apply themselves to schools in 
 general. If there were not, as for the most part 
 there is, wilful neglect in those who manage them, 
 and an omission even of such discipline as they are 
 susceptible of, the objects are yet too numerous for 
 minute attention; and the aching hearts of ten thou- 
 sand parents, mourning under the bitterest of all 
 disappointments, attest the truth of the allegation. 
 His quarrel, therefore, is with the mischief at large, 
 and not with any particular instance of it. 
 
 r. 
 
_ 
 
THE 
 
 
 A tatter'd apron hides , 
 
 Woi-tl as a cloak, and hardly hides a g-own 
 
 More tatter'd still ; 
 
 .-Kate is craz'd. 
 
 PRAWN BY RICHAR1) WESTAPL R.A. ENGRAVED BY J. H. ROBIN SON ; 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY. 
 
 OCT. 1,1817. 
 
THE TAS K. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE SOFA. 
 
 Historical deduction of seats from the stool to the Sofa.— A School- 
 boy’s ramble— A walk in the country.— The scene described.— Rural 
 sounds as well as sights delightful.— Another walk.— Mistake con- 
 cerning the charms of solitude corrected.— Colonnades commended. 
 —Alcove, aud the view from it.— The wilderness.— The grove.— 
 The thresher.— The necessity and the benefits of exercise.— The 
 works of nature superior to, and in some instances inimitable by, 
 art.— The wearisomeness of what is commonly called a life of 
 pleasure.— Change of scene sometimes expedient.— A common de- 
 scribed, and the character of crazy Kate introduced.— Gipsies.— 
 The blessings of civilized life.— That state most favourable to vir- 
 tue.— The South Sea islanders compassionated, but chiefly Omai.— 
 His present state of mind supposed.— Civilized life friendly to vir- 
 tue, but uot great cities.— Great cities, and London in particular, 
 allowed their due praise, but censured.— Fete champStre.— The 
 book concludes with a reflection on the fatal effects of dissipation 
 and effeminacy upon our public measures. 
 
 I sing the Sofa. I, who lately sang 
 Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touch’d with awe 
 The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand, 
 Escap’d with pain from that advent’rous flight, 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Now seek repose upon an humbler theme ; 
 
 The theme though humble, jet august and proud 
 The occasion — for the Fair commands the song. 
 
 Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use. 
 Save their own painted skins, our sires had none. 
 As yet black breeches were not; satin smooth, 
 
 Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile : 
 
 The hardy chief upon the rugged rock 
 Wash’d by the sea, or on the grav’lly bank 
 Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud. 
 Fearless of wrong, repos’d his weary strength. 
 Those barb’rous ages past, succeeded next 
 The birth-day of invention ; weak at first, 
 
 Dull in design, and clumsy to perform. 
 
 Joint-stools were then created; on three legs 
 Upborne they stood. Three legs upholding firm 
 A massy slab, in fashion square or round. 
 
 On such a stool immortal Alfred sat, 
 
 And sway’d the sceptre of his infant realms : 
 
 And such in ancient halls and mansions drear 
 May still be seen ; but perforated sore, 
 
 And drill’d in holes, the solid oak is found, 
 
 By worms voracious eating through and through. 
 
 At length a generation more refin’d 
 Improv’d the simple plan; made three legs four, 
 Gave them a twisted form vermicular, 
 
 And o’er the seat, with plenteous wadding stuff’d. 
 Induc’d a splendid cover, green and blue. 
 
 Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought 
 And woven close, or needle-work sublime. 
 
THE SOF.A . 
 
 5 
 
 There might you see the piony spread wide, 
 
 The full-blown rose, the shepherd and his lass, 
 Lapdog and lambkin with black staring eyes, 
 
 And parrots with twin cherries in their beak. 
 
 Now came the cane from India smooth and bright 
 With Nature's varnish; sever’d into stripes, 
 
 That interlac’d each other, these supplied 
 Of texture firm a lattice-work, that brac’d 
 The new machine, and it became a chair. 
 
 But restless was the chair; the back erect 
 Distress’d the weary loins, that felt no ease ; 
 
 The slipp’ry seat betray’d the sliding part, 
 
 That press’d it, and the feet hung dangling down, 
 Anxious in vain to find the distant lloor. 
 
 These for the rich : the rest, whom Fate had plac’d 
 In modest mediocrity, content 
 With base materials, sat on well-tann’d hides, 
 Obdurate and unyielding, glassy smooth, 
 
 With here and there a tuft'of crimson yarn, 
 
 Or scarlet crewel, in the cushion fix’d, 
 
 If cushion might be call’d, what harder seem’d 
 Than the firm oak, of which the frame was form’d. 
 No want of timber then was felt or fear’d 
 In Albion’s happy isle. The lumber stood 
 Poud’rous and fix’d by its own massy weight. 
 
 But elbows still were wanting ; these, some say, 
 
 An alderman of Cripplegate contriv’d ; 
 
 And some ascribe th’ invention to a priest, 
 
 Burly, and big, and studious of his ease. 
 
 But, rude at first, and not with easy slope 
 
« 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK . 
 
 Receding wide, they press’d against the ribs, 
 
 And bruis’d the side ; and, elevated high, 
 
 Taught the rais’d shoulders to invade the ears. 
 Long time elaps’d or e’er our rugged sires 
 Complain’d, though incommodiously pent in, 
 
 And ill at ease behind. The ladies first 
 ’Gan murmur, as became the softer sex. 
 
 Ingenious Fancy, never better pleas’d 
 Than when employ’d t’ accommodate the fair. 
 Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devis’d 
 The soft settee ; one elbow at each end, 
 
 And in the midst an elbow it receiv’d, 
 
 United yet divided, twain at once. 
 
 So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne ; 
 
 And so two citizens who, take the air, 
 
 Close pack’d, and smiling, in a chaise and one. 
 
 But relaxation of the languid frame, 
 
 The soft recumbency of outstretch’d limbs, 
 
 Was bliss reserv’d for happier days. So slow 
 The growth of what is excellent ; so hard 
 To attain perfection in this nether world. 
 
 Thus first Necessity invented stools, 
 
 Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, 
 
 And Luxury th’ accomplish’d sofa last. 
 
 The nurse sleeps sweetly, hir’d to watch the sics, 
 Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he. 
 
 Who quits the coach-box at the midnight hour, 
 
 To sleep within the carriage more secure, 
 
 His legs depending at the open door. 
 
 Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk, 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 The tedious rector drawling o’er his head ; 
 
 And sweet the clerk below. But neither sleep 
 Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead ; 
 
 Nor his, who quits the box at midnight hour, 
 
 To slumber in the carriage more secure; 
 
 Nor sleep enjoy’d by curate in his desk ; 
 
 Nor yet the dozings of the clerk, are sweet, 
 Compar’d with the repose the sofa yields. 
 
 O may I live exempted (while I live 
 Guiltless of pamper’d appetite obscene) 
 
 From pangs arthritic, that infest the toe 
 Of libertine Excess. The sofa suits 
 The gouty limb, ’tis true ; but gouty limb, 
 
 Though on a sofa, may I never feel : 
 
 For I have lov’d the rural walk through lanes 
 Of grassy swarth, close cropp’d by nibbling sheep. 
 And skirted thick with intertexture firm 
 Of thorny boughs ; have lov’d the rural walk 
 O’er hills, through valleys, and by rivers’ brink, 
 E’er since a truant boy I pass’d my bounds, 
 
 T’ enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames ; 
 
 And still remember, nor without regret 
 Of hours, that sorrow since has much endear’d, 
 How oft, my slice of pocket store consum’d, 
 
 Still hung’ring, pennyless, and far from home, 
 
 I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws, 
 
 Or blushing crabs, or berries, that emboss 
 The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere. 
 
 Flard fare ! but such as boyish appetite 
 Disdains not; nor the palate, undeprav’d 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 ROOK . 
 
 0 
 
 By culinary arts, unsav’ry deems. 
 
 No sofa then awaited my return ; 
 
 Nor sofa then I needed. Youth repairs 
 His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil 
 Incurring short fatigue ; and, though our years, 
 
 As life declines, speed rapidly away, 
 
 And not a year but pilfers as he goes 
 
 Some youthful grace, that age would gladly keep : 
 
 A tooth, or auburn lock, and by degrees 
 
 1 heir length and colour from the locks they spare; 
 Th’ elastic spring of an unwearied foot, 
 
 lhat mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the feme, 
 That play of lungs, inhaling and again 
 Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes 
 Swift pace or steep ascent no toil to me, 
 
 Aline have not pilfer’d yet; nor yet impair’d 
 My relish of fair prospect ; scenes that sooth’d 
 Or charm’d me young, no longer young, I find 
 Still soothing, and of pow’r to charm me still. 
 
 And witness, dear companion of my walks, 
 
 Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive 
 Fast lock’d in mine, with pleasure such as love, 
 Confirm’d by long experience of thy worth 
 And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire — 
 Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long. 
 
 Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere. 
 And that my raptures are not conjur’d up 
 To serve occasions of poetic pomp, 
 
 But genuine, and art partner of them all. 
 
 How oft upon yon eminence our pace 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 0 
 
 Has slacken’d to a pause, and we have borne 
 The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, 
 While Admiration feeding at the eye, 
 
 And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. 
 
 Thence with what pleasure have we just discern’d 
 The distant plough slow moving, and beside 
 His lab’ring team, that swerv’d not from the track, 
 The sturdy swain diminish’d to a boy ! 
 
 Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain 
 Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o’er, 
 Conducts the eye along his sinuous course 
 Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, 
 Stand, never overlook’d, our fav’rite elms, 
 
 That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut ; 
 
 While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, 
 That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, 
 
 The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; 
 Displaying on its varied side the grace 
 Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow’r. 
 Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells 
 Just undulates upon the list’ning ear, 
 
 Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote. 
 Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily view d, 
 Please daily, and whose novelty survives 
 Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years. 
 
 Praise justly due to those that I describe. 
 
 Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, 
 Exhilarate the spirit, and restore 
 The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, 
 
 That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wodd 
 b 3 
 
10 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 Of ancient growth, make music not unlike 
 The dash of Ocean on his winding shore. 
 
 And lull the spirit while they fill the mind; 
 Unnumber’d branches waving in the blast, 
 
 And all their leaves fast flutt’ring, all at once. 
 Nor less composure waits upon the roar 
 Of distant floods, or on the softer voice 
 Of neigh bring fountain, or of rills that slip 
 Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall 
 Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length 
 In matted grass, that with a livelier green 
 Betrays the secret of their silent course. 
 
 Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds. 
 
 But animated nature sw eeter still, 
 
 To sooth and satisfy the human ear. 
 
 Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 
 The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notes 
 Nice finger’d Art must emulate in vain, 
 
 But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime 
 In still repeated circles, screaming loud, 
 
 The jay, the pie, and ev’n the boding owl, 
 
 That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 
 Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 
 Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 
 And only there, please highly for their sake. 
 
 Peace to the artist, whose ingenious thought 
 Devis’d the weatherhouse, that useful toy ! 
 Fearless of humid air and gath’ring rains, 
 
 Forth steps the man— an emblem of myself! 
 
 More delicate, his tim’rous mate retires. 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 IT 
 
 When winter soaks the fields, and female feet, 
 Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay, 
 
 Or ford the rivulets, are best at home, 
 
 The task of new discov’ries falls on me, 
 
 At such a season, and with such a charge, 
 
 Once went I forth ; and found, till then unknown, 
 A cottage, whither oft we since repair : 
 
 ’Tis perch’d upon the green hill top, but close 
 Environ’d with a ring of branching elms, 
 
 That overhang the thatch, itself unseen 
 Peeps at the vale below ; so thick beset 
 With foliage of such dark redundant growth, 
 
 I call’d the low-roof ’d lodge the peasant's nest; 
 And, hidden as it is, and far remote 
 From such unpleasing sounds, as haunt the ear 
 In village or in town, the bay of curs 
 Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels, 
 And infants clam’rous whether pleas’d or pain’d, 
 Oft have I wish’d the peaceful covert mine. 
 
 Here, I have said, at least I should possess 
 The poet’s treasure, silence, and indulge 
 The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure. 
 
 Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat 
 Dearly obtains the refuge it affords. 
 
 Its elevated site forbids the wretch 
 To drink sweet waters of the crystal well ; 
 
 He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch, 
 
 And, heavy laden, brings his bev’rage home, 
 Far-fetch’d and little worth; nor seldom waits 
 Dependant on the baker’s punctual call, 
 
12 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 
 
 To hear his creaking panniers at the door, 
 Angry, and sad, and his last crust consum’d. 
 So farewell envy of the peasant's nest ! 
 
 If solitude make scant the means of life, 
 Society for me! — thou seeming sweet, 
 
 Be still a pleasing object in my view; 
 
 My visit still, but never mine abode. 
 
 Not distant far, a length of colonnade 
 Invites us. Monument of ancient taste, 
 
 Now scorn’d, but worthy of a better fate. 
 
 Our fathers knew the value of a screen 
 From sultry suns : and, in their shaded walks 
 And long protracted bow’rs, enjoy’d at noon 
 The gloom and coolness of declining day. 
 
 We bear our shades about us ; self-depriv’d 
 Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, 
 
 And range an Indian waste without a tree. 
 Thanks to Benevolus — he spares me yet 
 These chesnuts rang’d in corresponding lines ; 
 And, though himself so polish’d, still reprieves 
 The obsolete prolixity of shade. 
 
 Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast) 
 A sudden steep, upon a rustic bridge 
 We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip 
 Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink. 
 Hence, ancle deep in moss and flow’ry thyme. 
 We mount again, and feel at cv’ry step 
 Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft, 
 Rais’d by the mole, the miner of the soil. 
 
 He, not unlike the great ones of mankind, 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 13 
 
 Disfigures Earth : and, plotting in the dark, 
 
 Toils much to earn a monumental pile. 
 
 That may record the mischiefs he has done. 
 
 The summit gain’d, behold the proud alcove, 
 That crowns it! yet not all its pride secures 
 The grand retreat from injuries impress’d 
 By rural carvers, who with knives deface 
 The pannels, leaving an obscure, rude name, 
 
 In characters uncouth, and spelt amiss. 
 
 So strong the zeal t’ immortalize himself 
 Beats in the breast of man, that ev’n a few, 
 
 Few transient years, won from th’ abyss abhorr’d 
 Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize, 
 
 And even to a clown. Now roves the eye ; 
 
 And posted on this speculative height, 
 
 Exults in its command. The sheepfold here 
 Pours out its Heecy tenants o’er the glebe. 
 
 At first, progressive as a stream, they seek 
 The middle field ; but scatter’d by degrees, 
 
 Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land. 
 
 There from the sunburnt hayfield homeward creeps 
 The loaded w ain ; while, lighten’d of its charge, 
 The wain that meets it passes swiftly by; 
 
 The boorish driver leaning o’er his team 
 Vocif’rous, and impatient of delay. 
 
 Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, 
 Diversified with trees of ev’ry growth, 
 
 Alike, yet various. Here the grey smooth trunks 
 Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine, 
 
 Within the twilight of their distant shades; 
 
14 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 There, lost behind a rising ground, wood 
 Seems sunk, and shorten’d to its topmost boughs. 
 No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 
 Though each its hue peculiar; paler some, 
 
 And of a wannish grey; the willow such, 
 
 And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf, 
 
 And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm; 
 
 Of deeper green the elm ; and deeper still, 
 
 Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. 
 
 Some glossy-leav’d, and shining in the sun, 
 
 The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 
 Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 
 Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass 
 The sycamore, capricious in attire, 
 
 Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet 
 Have chang’d the woods, in scarlet honours bright 
 O’er these, but far beyond (a spacious map 
 Of hill and valley interpos’d between), 
 
 The Ouse, dividing the well-water’d land, 
 
 Now glitters in the sun, and now retires, 
 
 As bashful, yet impatient to be seen. 
 
 Hence the declivity is sharp and short, 
 
 And such the reascent : between them weeps 
 
 A little naiad her impov’rish’d urn 
 
 All summer long, which winter fills again. 
 
 The folded gates would bar my progress now, 
 
 But that the lord of this enclos’d demesne, 
 Communicative of the good he owns, 
 
 Admits me to a share ; the guiltless eye. 
 
 Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys. 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 15 
 
 Refreshing change ! where now the blazing sun ? 
 
 By short transition we have lost his glare, 
 
 And stepp’d at once into a cooler clime. 
 
 Ye fallen avenues! once more I mourn 
 Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice, 
 
 That yet a remnant of your race survives. 
 
 How airy and how light the graceful arch, 
 
 Yet awful as the consecrated roof 
 Re-echoing pious anthems ! while beneath 
 The checker’d earth seems restless as a flood 
 Brush’d by the wind. So sportive is the light 
 Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, 
 Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, 
 
 And dark’ning and enlight’ning, as the leaves 
 Play wanton, ev’ry moment, ev’ry spot. 
 
 And now, with nerves new-brac’d and spirits cheer’d, 
 We tread the wilderness, whose well-roll’d walks, 
 With curvature of slow and easy sweep — 
 Deception innocent — give ample space 
 To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next ; 
 Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms 
 We may discern the thresher at his task. 
 
 Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, 
 
 That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls 
 Full on the destin’d ear. Wide flies the chaff, 
 
 The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist 
 Of atoms, sparkling in the noonday beam. 
 
 Come hither, ye that press your beds of down, 
 
 And sleep not; see him sweating o’er his bread, 
 Before he eats it.— ’Tis the primal curse, 
 
16 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 
 
 But soften’d into mercy ; made the pledge 
 Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan. 
 
 By ceaseless action all that is subsists. 
 
 Constant rotation of th’ unwearied wheel, 
 
 That Nature rides upon, maintains her health, 
 
 Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads 
 An instant’s pause, and lives but while she moves. 
 Its own revolvency upholds the World. 
 
 Winds from all quarters agitate the air, 
 
 And fit the limpid element for use. 
 
 Else noxious : oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams. 
 All feel the fresh’ning impulse, and are cleans’d 
 By restless undulation : e’en the oak 
 Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm : 
 
 He seems indeed indignant, and to feel 
 Th’ impression of the blast with proud disdain, 
 Frowning, as if in his unconscious arm 
 He held the thunder : but the monarch owes 
 His firm stability to w'hat he scorns, 
 
 More fix’d below, the more disturb’d above. 
 
 The law, by which all creatures else are bound, 
 Binds man, the lord of all. Himself derives 
 No mean advantage from a kindred cause, 
 
 From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease. 
 The sedentary stretch their lazy length 
 When Custom bids, but no refreshment find, 
 
 For none they need : the languid eye, the cheek 
 Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk, 
 
 And wither’d muscle, and the vapid soul, 
 
 Reproach their owner with that love of rest, 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 17 
 
 To which he forfeits e’en the rest he loves. 
 
 Not such the alert and active. Measure life 
 By its true worth, the comforts it affords, 
 
 And theirs alone seems worthy of the name. 
 
 Good health, and, its associate in the most, 
 
 Good temper ; spirits prompt to undertake, 
 
 And not soon spent, though in an arduous task; 
 
 The pow’rs of fancy and strong thought are theirs; 
 Ev’n age itself seems privileg’d in them 
 With clear exemption from its own delects. 
 
 A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front 
 The vet’ran shows, and, gracing a grey beard 
 With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave 
 Sprightly, and old almost without decay. 
 
 Like a coy maiden, Ease, when courted most, 
 Furthest retires— an idol, at whose shrine 
 Who oft’nest sacrifice are favour’d least. 
 
 The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws, 
 
 Is Nature’s dictate. Strange ! there should be found, 
 Who, self-imprison’d in their proud saloons, 
 Renounce the odours of the open field 
 For the unscented fictions of the loom ; 
 
 Who, satisfied with only pencil’d scenes, 
 
 Prefer to the performance of a God 
 Th’ inferior wonders of an artist’s hand ! 
 
 Lovely indeed the mimic works of Art; 
 
 But Nature’s works far lovelier. I admire, 
 
 None more admires, the painter’s magic skill. 
 
 Who shows me that, which I shall never see, 
 Conveys a distant country into mine, 
 
18 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 fiopK r. 
 
 And throws Italian light on English walls; 
 
 But imitative strokes can do no more 
 
 Than please the eye — Sweet Nature’s ev’ry sense. 
 
 The air salubrious of her lofty hills, 
 
 The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales, 
 
 And music of her woods— no works of man 
 May rival these ; these all bespeak a pow’r 
 Peculiar, and exclusively her own. 
 
 Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast ; 
 
 Tis free to all— ’tis ev’ry day renew’d; 
 
 Who scorns it starves deservedly at home. 
 
 He does not scorn it, who, imprison’d long 
 In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey 
 To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank 
 And clammy, of his dark abode have bred, 
 Escapes at last to liberty and light ; 
 
 His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue; 
 
 His eye relumines its extinguish’d fires ; 
 
 He walks, he leaps, he runs— is wing’d with joy, 
 And riots in the sweets of ev’ry breeze. 
 
 He does not scorn it, who has long endur’d 
 A fever’s agonies, and fed on drugs. 
 
 Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam’d 
 With acrid salts ; his very heart athirst, 
 
 To gaze at Nature in her green array, 
 
 Upon the ship’s tall side he stands, possess’d 
 With visions prompted by intense desire: 
 
 Fair fields appear below, such as he left 
 Far distant, such as he would die to find— 
 lie seeks them headlong, and is seen no more. 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 I!) 
 
 The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; 
 
 The low’ring eye, the petulance, the frown, 
 
 And sullen sadness, that o’ershade, distort, 
 
 And mar the face of Beauty, when no cause 
 For such immeasurable woe appears, 
 
 These Flora banishes, and gives the fair 
 
 Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own. 
 
 It is the constant revolution, stale 
 
 And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, 
 
 That palls, and satiates, and makes languid life 
 A pedlar’s pack, that bows the bearer down. 
 
 Flealth suffers, and the spirits ebb ; the heart 
 Recoils from its own choice — at the full feast 
 Is famish’d— finds no music in the song, 
 
 No smartness in the jest; and wonders why. 
 
 Yet thousands still desire to journey on, 
 
 Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. 
 
 The paralytic, who can hold her cards, 
 
 But cannot play them, borrows a friend’s hand, 
 
 To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort 
 Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits, 
 Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad 
 And silent cipher, while her proxy plays. 
 
 Others are dragg’d into the crowded room 
 Between supporters ; and, once seated, sit. 
 Through downright inability to rise, 
 
 Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again. 
 
 These speak a loud memento. Yet e’en these 
 Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he, 
 
 That overhangs a torrent, to a twig. 
 
20 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die, 
 
 Yet scorn the purposes, for which they live. 
 
 Then wherefore not renounce them? No— the dread, 
 The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds 
 Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame, 
 
 And their invet’rate habits, all forbid. 
 
 Whom call we gay? That honour has been long 
 The boast of mere pretenders to the name. 
 
 The innocent are gay— the lark is gay, 
 
 That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, 
 
 Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams 
 Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest. 
 
 The peasant too, a witness of his song, 
 
 Himself a songster, is as gay as he. 
 
 But save me from the gaiety of those, 
 
 Whose headachs nail them to a noonday bed; 
 
 And save me too from theirs, whose haggard eyes 
 .Hash desperation, and betray their pangs 
 For property stripp’d off by cruel chance ; 
 
 From gaiety, that fills the bones with pain, 
 
 The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe. 
 
 The Earth was made so various, that the mind 
 Of desultory man, studious of change, 
 
 And pleas’d with novelty, might be indulg’d. 
 Prospects, however lovely, may be seen 
 Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight, 
 
 Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off 
 Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. 
 
 Then snug enclosures in the shelter’d vale, 
 
 Where frequent hedges intercept the eye, 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 21 
 
 Delight us; happy to renounce awhile, 
 
 Not senseless of its charms, what still we love, 
 That such short absence may endear it more. 
 Then forests, or the savage rock, may please, 
 That hides the seamew in his hollow clefts 
 Above the reach of man. His hoary head, 
 Conspicuous many a league, the mariner 
 Bound homeward, and in hope already there, 
 Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist 
 A girdle of half-witber’d shrubs he show s, 
 
 And at his feet the baffled billows die. 
 
 The common, overgrown with fern, and rough 
 With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, 
 And dang’rous to the touch, has yet its bloom, 
 And decks itself with ornaments of gold, 
 
 Yields no unpleasing ramble ; there the turf 
 Smells fresh, and, rich in odorif’rous herbs 
 And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 
 With luxury of unexpected sweets. 
 
 There often w anders one, whom better days 
 Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm’d 
 With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. 
 A serving-maid was she, and fell in love 
 With one who left her, went to sea, and died. 
 Her fancy follow’d him through foaming waves 
 To distant shores ; and she would sit and weep 
 At what a sailor suffers ; fancy too, 
 
 Delusive most w'here warmest wishes are, 
 Would oft anticipate his glad return, 
 
 And dream of transports she was not to know. 
 
22 
 
 the task. 
 
 book I. 
 
 She heard the doleful tidings of his death 
 
 And never smil d again ! and now she roams 
 The dreary waste ; there spends the livelong day, 
 And there, unless when charity forbids. 
 
 The livelong night. A tatter’d apron hides, 
 
 Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gowm 
 More tatter’d still ; and both but ill conceal 
 A bosom heav’d with never-ceasing sighs. 
 
 She begs fin idle pin of ail she meets, 
 
 And hoards them in her sleeve ; but needful food. 
 Though press’d with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, 
 Though pinch’d with cold, asks never.— Kate is craz’d! 
 
 I see a column of slow rising smoke 
 O’ertop the lofty wood, that skirts the wild. 
 
 A vagabond and useless tribe there eat 
 Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung 
 Between two poles upon a stick transverse, 
 
 Receives the morsel— flesh obscene of dog, 
 
 Or vermin, or at best of cock purloin’d 
 From his accustom’d perch. Hard faring race ! 
 
 They pick their fuel out of ev’ry hedge, 
 
 Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquench ’d 
 The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide 
 Their flutt’ring rags, and shows a tawny skin, 
 
 The vellum of the pedigree they claim. 
 
 Great skill have they in palmistry, and more 
 To conjure clean away the gold they touch, 
 
 Conveying worthless dross into its place ; 
 
 Loud when they beg, dumb oidy when they steal. 
 Strange ! that a creature rational, and cast 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 23 
 
 In human mould, should brutalize by choice 
 His nature ; and, though capable of arts, 
 
 By which the world might profit, and himself, 
 Self-banish’d from society, prefer 
 Such squalid sloth to honourable toil ! 
 
 Yet even these, though feigning sickness oft 
 They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, 
 And vex their flesh with artificial sores, 
 
 Can change their whine into a mirthful note, 
 
 When safe occasion offers ; and with dance, 
 
 And music of the bladder and the bag, 
 
 Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. 
 Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy 
 The houseless rovers of the sylvan world ; 
 
 And, breathing wholesome air, and wand’ring much, 
 Need other physic none to heal th’ effects 
 Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold. 
 
 Blest he, though undistinguish’d from the crowd 
 By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure, 
 
 Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside 
 His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn. 
 The manners and the arts of civil life. 
 
 His wants indeed are many ; but supply 
 Is obvious, plac’d within the easy reach 
 Of temp’rate wishes and industrious hands. 
 
 Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil ; 
 
 Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns, 
 
 And terrible to sight, as when she springs 
 (If e’er she spring spontaneous) in remote 
 And barb’rous climes, where violence prevails, 
 
24 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind, 
 By culture tam’d, by liberty refresh’d, 
 
 And all her fruits by radiant truth matur’d. 
 
 War and the chase engross the savage whole; 
 War follow’d for revenge, or to supplant 
 The envied tenants of some happier spot: 
 
 The chase for sustenance, precarious trust ! 
 
 His hard condition with severe constraint 
 Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth 
 Of wisdom, proves a school, in which he learns 
 Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate, 
 
 Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside. 
 Thus fare the shiv’ring natives of the north, 
 And thus the rangers of the western world, 
 Where it advances far into the deep, 
 
 Tow’rds the antarctic. Ev’n the favour’d isles 
 So lately found, although the constant sun 
 Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, 
 Can boast but little virtue ; and, inert 
 Through plenty, lose in morals what they gain 
 In manners— victims of luxurious ease. 
 
 These therefore I can pity, plac’d remote 
 From all, that science traces, art invents, 
 
 Or inspiration teaches ; and enclos’d 
 In boundless oceans, never to be pass’d 
 By navigators uninform’d as they, 
 
 Or plough’d perhaps by British bark again. 
 
 But far beyond the rest, and with most cause, 
 Tbee, gentle savage * ! whom no love of thee 
 Or thine, but curiosity perhaps, 
 
 Omai. 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 • 2 > 
 
 Or else vainglory, prompted us to draw 
 Forth from thy native bow’rs, to show thee here 
 With what superior skill we can abuse 
 The gifts of Providence, and squander life. 
 
 The dream is past; and thou hast found again 
 Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams, [found 
 And homestall thatch’d with leaves. But hast thou 
 Their former charms? And, having seen our state. 
 Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp 
 Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports, 
 
 And heard our music; are thy simple friends, 
 
 Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights, 
 
 As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys - 
 Lost nothing by comparison with ours ? 
 
 Rude as thou art (for we return’d thee rude 
 And ignorant, except of outward show), 
 
 I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart 
 And spiritless, as never to regret 
 Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known. 
 Methinks I see thee straying on the beach, 
 
 And asking of the surge, that bathes thy foot, 
 
 If ever it has wash’d our distant shore. 
 
 I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears, 
 
 A patriot’s for his country : thou art sad 
 At thought of her forlorn and abject state, 
 
 From which no pow’r of thine can raise her up. 
 Thus Fancy paints thee, and, though apt to err, 
 Perhaps errs little, when she paints thee thus. 
 
 She tells me too, that duly ev’ry morn 
 Thou climb’st the mountain top, with eager eye 
 c 
 
26 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Exploring far and wide the wat’ry waste, 
 
 For sight of ship from England. Ev’ry speck 
 Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale 
 With conflict of contending hopes and fears. 
 
 But comes at last the dull and dusky eve, 
 
 And sends thee to thy cabin, well-prepar’d, 
 
 To dream all night of what the day denied. 
 
 Alas! expect it not. We found no bait 
 To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, 
 Disinterested good, is not our trade. 
 
 W e travel far ’tis true, but not for nought ; 
 
 And must be brib’d to compass Earth again 
 By other hopes and richer fruits than yours. 
 
 But though true worth and virtue in the mild 
 And genial soil of cultivated life 
 Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there. 
 Yet not in cities oft: in proud, and gay. 
 
 And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow, 
 
 As to a common and most noisome sewer. 
 
 The dregs and feculence of ev’ry land. 
 
 In cities foul example on most minds 
 Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds. 
 
 In gross and pamper’d cities, sloth, and lust. 
 
 And wantonness, and gluttonous excess. 
 
 In cities vice is hidden with most ease, 
 
 Or seen with least reproach ; and virtue, taught 
 By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there 
 Beyond th’ achievement of successful flight. 
 
 I do confess them nurs’ries of the arts, 
 
 In which they flourish most ; where, in the beams 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 27 
 
 Or warm encouragement, and in the eye 
 Of public note, they reach their perfect size. 
 
 Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim’d 
 The fairest capital of all the world, 
 
 By riot and incontinence the w orst. 
 
 There, touch’d by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes 
 A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees 
 All her reflected features. Bacon there 
 Gives more than female beauty to a stone, 
 
 And Chatham’s eloquence to marble lips. 
 
 Nor does the chisel occupy alone 
 
 The pow’rs of Sculpture, but the style as much; 
 
 Each province of her art her equal care. 
 
 With nice incision of her guided steel 
 She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil 
 So steril with what charms soe’er she will, 
 
 The richest scen’ry and the loveliest forms. 
 
 Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye, 
 
 With which she gazes at yon burning disk 
 Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots ? 
 
 In London: where her implements exact, 
 
 W r ith which she calculates, computes, and scans, 
 All distance, motion, magnitude, and now 
 Measures an atom, and now girds a world ? 
 
 In London. Where has commerce such a mart, 
 So rich, so throng’d, so drain’d, and so supplied, 
 
 As London — opulent, enlarg’d, and still 
 Increasing, London? Babylon of old 
 Not more the glory of the Earth than she, 
 
 A more accomplish’d w orld’s chief glory now. 
 c 2 
 
28 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two, 
 That so much beauty would do well to purge; 
 
 And show this queen of cities, that so fair 
 May yet be foul ; so witty, yet not wise. 
 
 It is not seemly, nor of good report, 
 
 That she is slack in discipline ; more prompt 
 T' avenge than to prevent the breach of law : 
 
 That she is rigid in denouncing death 
 On petty robbers, and indulges life, 
 
 And liberty, and ofttimes honour too, 
 
 To peculators of the public gold : 
 
 That thieves at home must hang; but he that puts 
 Into his overgorg’d and bloated purse 
 The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes. 
 
 Nor is it well, nor can it come to good, 
 
 That, through profane and infidel contempt 
 Of holy writ, she has presum’d to annul 
 And abrogate, as roundly as she may, 
 
 The total ordinance and will of God ; 
 
 Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth, 
 
 And cent’ring all authority in modes 
 And customs of her own, till sabbath rites 
 Have dwindled into unrespected forms, 
 
 And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorc’d. 
 
 God made the country, and man made the town. 
 What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, 
 That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, 
 That life holds out to all, should most abound 
 And least be threaten’d in the fields and groves? 
 Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about 
 
THE SOFA. 
 
 29 
 
 In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue 
 But that of idleness, and taste no scenes 
 But such as art contrives, possess ye still 
 Your element; there only can ye shine; 
 
 There only minds like yours can do no harm. 
 Our groves were planted to console at noon 
 The pensive wand’rer in their shades. At eve 
 The moon-beam, sliding softly in between 
 The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, 
 Birds warbling all the music. We can spare 
 The splendour of your lamps; they but eclipse 
 Our softer satellite. Your songs confound 
 Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs 
 Scar’d, and th’ offended nightingale is mute. 
 There is a public mischief in your mirth; 
 
 It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, 
 Grac’d with a sword, and worthier of a fan. 
 
 Has made, what enemies could ne’er have done, 
 Our arch of empire, stedfast but for you, 
 
 A mutilated structure, soon to fall. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former book.— Peace 
 among the nations recommended, on the ground of their common 
 fellowship in sorrow. — Prodigies enumerated.— Sicilian earthquakes. 
 — Man rendered obnoxious to these calamities by sin. — God the 
 agent in them. — The philosophy that stops at secondary causes re- 
 proved.— Our own late miscarriages accounted for.— Satirical notice 
 taken of our trips to Fontainbleau. — But the pulpit, not satire, the 
 proper engine of reformation. — The Reverend Advertiser of engraved 
 Sermons. — Petit-maitre parson. — The good preacher. — Pictures of a 
 theatrical clerical coxcomb. — Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit 
 reproved. — Apostrophe to popular applause. — Retailers of ancient 
 philosophy expostulated with. — Sum of the whole matter.— Effects 
 of sacerdotal mismanagement on the laity. — Their folly and extra- 
 vagance. — The mischiefs of profusion.— Profusion itself, with all 
 its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its principal cause, to the want 
 of discipline in the universities. 
 
 O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
 Some boundless contiguity of shade, 
 Where rumour of oppression and deceit. 
 Of unsuccessful or successful war, 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK l\. 
 
 :32 
 
 Might never reach me more. My ear is pain’d, 
 My soul is sick, with ev’ry day’s report 
 Of wrong and outrage, with which Earth is fill’d. 
 There is no flesh in man’s obdurate heart, 
 
 It does not feel for man ; the nat’ral bond 
 Of brotherhood is sever’d as the flax, 
 
 That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 
 
 He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
 Not colour’d like his own ; and having pow’r 
 T’ enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 
 Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey. 
 
 Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
 Abhor each other. Mountains interpos’d 
 Make enemies of nations, who had else 
 Like kindred drops been mingled into one. 
 
 Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 
 And, worse than all, and most to be deplor’d 
 As human nature’s broadest, foulest blot, 
 
 Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
 With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart 
 Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
 
 Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, 
 And having human feelings, does not blush, 
 
 And hang his head, to think himself a man? 
 
 I would not have a slave to till my ground, 
 
 To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 
 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth, 
 That sinews bought and sold have ever earn’d. 
 No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart’s 
 Just estimation priz’d above all price, 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 33 
 
 I had much rather be myself the slave, 
 
 And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
 
 We have no slaves at home — Then why abroad? 
 And they themselves once ferried o’er the wave, 
 That parts us, are emancipate and loos’d. 
 
 Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 
 Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
 
 They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
 That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
 And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, 
 
 And let it circulate through ev’ry vein 
 
 Of all your empire ; that, where Britain’s pow’r 
 
 Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 
 
 Sure there is need of social intercourse, 
 Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, 
 
 Between the nations in a world, that seems 
 To toll the death-bell of its own decease, 
 
 And by the voice of all its elements 
 
 To preach the gen’ral doom *. When were the winds 
 
 Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ? 
 
 When did the waves so haughtily o’erleap 
 Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry? 
 
 Fires from beneath, and meteors f from above, 
 Portentous, unexampled, unexplain’d, 
 
 Have kindled beacons in the skies ; and th’ old 
 And crazy Earth has had her shaking fits 
 More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. 
 
 Is it a time to wrangle when the props 
 
 * Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica. 
 
 c 8 
 
 t August 18, 1783. 
 
34 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 And pillars of our planet seem to fail. 
 
 And Nature with a dim and sickly eye* 
 
 To wait the close of all? But grant her end 
 More distant, and that prophecy demands 
 A longer respite, unaccomplish’d yet ; 
 
 Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak 
 Displeasure in His breast, who smites the Earth 
 Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. 
 
 And ’tis but seemly, that, where all deserve 
 And stand expos’d by common peccancy 
 To what no few have felt, there should be peace, 
 And brethren in calamity should love. 
 
 Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now 
 Lie scatter’d, where the shapely column stood. 
 
 Her palaces are dust. In all her streets 
 The voice of singing and the sprightly chord 
 Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show 
 Suffer a syncope and solemn pause; 
 
 While- God performs upon the trembling stage 
 Of his own works his dreadful part alone. 
 
 How does the Earth receive him? — with what signs 
 Of gratulation and delight her king? 
 
 Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad. 
 
 Her sweetest flow’rs, her aromatic gums, 
 
 Disclosing Paradise where’er he treads? 
 
 She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb, 
 Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps 
 And fiery caverns, roars beneath his foot. 
 
 * Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Asia during 
 the whole summer of 1783. 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 35 
 
 The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, 
 For he lias touch’d them. From th’ extremest point 
 Of elevation down into the abyss 
 His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt. 
 
 The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, 
 
 The rivers die into olfensive pools, 
 
 And, charg’d with putrid verdure, breathe a gross 
 And mortal nuisance into all the air. 
 
 What solid was, by transformation strange, 
 
 Grows fluid; and the fix’d and rooted earth, 
 Tormented into billows, heaves and swells, 
 
 Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl 
 Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense 
 The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs 
 And agonies of human and of brute 
 Multitudes, fugitive on ev’ry side, 
 
 And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene 
 Migrates uplifted; and, with all its soil 
 Alighting in far distant fields, finds out 
 A new possessor, and survives the change. 
 
 Ocean has caught the frenzy, and upwrought 
 To an enormous and o’erbearing height, 
 
 Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice, 
 
 Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore 
 Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, 
 
 Upridg’d so high, and sent on such a charge, 
 Possess’d an inland scene. Where now' the throng, 
 That press’d the beach, and, hasty to depart, 
 
 Look'd to the sea for safety? They are gone, 
 
 Gone with the refluent wave into the deep — 
 
30 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IT. 
 
 A prince with half his people! Ancient tow’rs, 
 And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes, 
 Where beauty oft and letter’d worth consume 
 Life in the unproductive shades of death, 
 
 Fall prone : the pale inhabitants come forth, 
 
 And, happy in their unforeseen release 
 From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy 
 The terrors of the day, that sets them free. 
 
 Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast. 
 Freedom ! whom they that lose thee so regret, 
 That e’en a judgment, making way for thee, 
 Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake. 
 
 Such evil Sin hath wrought ; and such a flame 
 Kindled in Heav’n, that it burns down to Earth, 
 And in the furious inquest, that it makes 
 On God’s behalf, lays waste his fairest works. 
 
 The very elements, though each be meant 
 The minister of man, to serve his wants, 
 
 Conspire against him. With his breath he draws 
 A plague into his blood ; and cannot use 
 Life’s necessary means, but he must die. 
 
 Storms rise t’ o’erwhelm him ; or, if stormy winds 
 Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, 
 
 And, needing none assistance of the storm. 
 
 Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there. 
 The earth shall shake him out of all his holds, 
 
 Or make his house his grave: nor so content, 
 Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood, 
 
 And drown hint in her dry and dusty gulfs. 
 
 What then! — Were they the wicked above all. 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 37 
 
 And we the righteous, whose fast anchor’d isle 
 Mov’d not, while theirs 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 choose his mark : 
 May punish, if he please, the less, to warn 
 The more malignant. If he spar’d not them, 
 Tremble and be amaz’d at thine escape, 
 
 Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee! 
 
 Happy the man, who sees a God employ’d 
 In all the good and ill, that checker life ! 
 
 Resolving all events, with their effects 
 And manifold results, into the will 
 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 surpris’d, and unforeseen 
 Contingence might alarm him, and disturb 
 The smooth and equal course of his affairs. 
 
 This truth Philosophy, though eagle-ey’d 
 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’ns 
 
38 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 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 l’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 Iris 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-salve ; ask of him, 
 
 Or ask of whomsoever he has taught; 
 
 And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. 
 
 England, with all thy faults, I love thee still — 
 
 My country ! and, while yet a nook is left, 
 
 Where English minds and manners may be found, 
 Shall be constrain’d to love thee. Though thy clime 
 Be fickle, and thy year most part deform’d 
 
the time-piece. 
 
 39 
 
 With dripping rains, or wither’d by a frost, 
 
 I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, 
 
 And fields without a flow’r, for warmer France 
 With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia’s groves 
 Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow’rs. 
 
 To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 
 Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire 
 Upon thy foes, w as 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 at effeminates, whose very looks 
 Reflect dishonour on the land I love. 
 
 Flow, in the name of soldiership and sense, 
 
 Should England prosper, w hen such things, as smooth 
 And tender as a girl, all essenc’d o’er 
 With odours, and as profligate as sweet; 
 
 Who sell 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 honours, and farewell with them 
 The hope of such hereafter ! They have fall’ll 
 
40 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Each in his field of glory ; one in arms, 
 
 And one in council.— Wolfe upon the lap 
 Of smiling Victory that moment won, 
 
 And Chatham heart-sick of his country’s shame I 
 They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still 
 Consulting England’s happiness at home, 
 
 Secur’d it by an unforgiving frown, 
 
 If any wrong’d her. Wolfe, where’er he fought, 
 Put so much of his heart into his act, 
 
 That his example had a magnet’s force, 
 
 And all were swift to follow whom all lov’d. 
 Those suns are set. O rise some other such ! 
 
 Or all that we have left is empty talk 
 Of old achievements, and despair of new. 
 
 Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float 
 Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck 
 With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets, 
 
 That no rude savour maritime invade 
 The nose of nice nobility ! Breathe soft 
 Ye clarionets; and softer still ye flutes; 
 
 That winds and waters, lull’d by magic sounds, 
 May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore ! 
 
 True, we have lost an empire — let it pass. 
 
 True ; we may thank the perfidy of France, 
 
 That pick’d the jewel out of England’s crown. 
 With all the cunning of an envious shrew. 
 
 And let that pass— 'twas but a trick of state — 
 
 A brave man knows no malice, but at once 
 Forgets in peace the injuries of war, 
 
 And gives his direst foe a friend’s embrace. 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 41 
 
 And, sham’d as we have been, to the very beard 
 Brav’d and defied, and in our own sea prov’d 
 T90 weak for those decisive blows, that once 
 Ensur’d us mast’ry there, we yet retain 
 Some small pre-eminence; we justly boast 
 At least superior jockeyship, and claim 
 The honours of the turf as all our own ! 
 
 Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek, 
 
 And show the shame, ye might conceal at home, 
 In foreign eyes ! be grooms and win the plate, 
 Where once your nobler fathers won a crown ! — 
 ’Tis gen’rous to communicate your skill 
 To those that need it. Folly is soon learn’d : 
 And under such preceptors who can fail ! 
 
 There is a pleasure in poetic pains. 
 
 Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, 
 Th’ expedients and inventions multiform, 
 
 To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms 
 Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win— 
 
 To arrest the fleeting images, that fill 
 The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, 
 
 And force them sit, till he has pencil’d off 
 A faithful likeness of the forms he views; 
 
 Then to dispose his copies with such art, 
 
 That each may find its most propitious light. 
 And shine by situation, hardly less 
 Than by the labour and the skill it cost ; 
 
 Are occupations of the poet’s mind 
 So pleasing, and that steal away the thought 
 With such address from themes of sad import, 
 
42 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IT. 
 
 That, lost in his own musings, happy man ! 
 
 He feels th’ anxieties of life, denied 
 Their wonted entertainment, all retire. 
 
 Such joys has he that sings. But ah ! not such, 
 Or seldom such, the hearers of his song. 
 Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps 
 Aware of nothing arduous in a task 
 They never undertook, they little note 
 His dangers or escapes, and haply find 
 Their least amusemen,t where he found the most. 
 But is amusement all? studious of song, 
 
 And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, 
 
 I would not trifle merely, though the world 
 Be loudest in their praise, who do no more. 
 
 Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? 
 
 It may correct a foible, may chastise 
 The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, 
 Retrench a swordblade, or displace a patch ; 
 
 But where are its sublimer trophies found? 
 
 What vice has it subdu’d? whose heart reclaim’d 
 By rigour, or whom laugh’d into reform ? 
 
 Alas ! Leviathan is not so tam’d : 
 
 Laugh’d at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard, 
 Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales, 
 
 That fear no discipline of human hands. 
 
 The pulpit, therefore (and I name it fill’d 
 With solemn awe, that bids me well beware 
 With what intent I touch that holy thing)— 
 
 The pulpit (when the sat’rist has at last, 
 
 Strutting and vap’riug in an empty school, 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 43 
 
 Spent all his force, and made no proselyte) — 
 
 I say the pulpit (in the sober use 
 Of its legitimate, peculiar pow’rs) 
 
 Must stand acknowledg’d, while theworld shall stand, 
 The most important and effectual guard, 
 
 Support, and ornament of Virtue’s cause. 
 
 There stands the messenger of truth : there stands 
 The legate of the skies !— His theme divine, 
 
 His office sacred, his credentials clear. 
 
 By him the violated law speaks out 
 
 Its thunders ; and by him, in strains as sweet 
 
 As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace. 
 
 He stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 
 Reclaims the wand’rer, binds the broken heart, 
 
 And, arm’d himself in panoply complete 
 Of heav’nly temper, furnishes with arms 
 Bright as his own, and trains, by ev’ry rule 
 Of holy discipline, to glorious war 
 The sacramental host of God’s elect ! 
 
 Are all such teachers?— would to Heav’n all were! 
 But hark— the doctor’s voice !— fast wedg’d between 
 Two empirics he stands, and with swoln cheeks 
 Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far 
 Than all invective is his bold harangue, 
 
 While through that public organ of report 
 He hails the clergy ; and, defying shame, 
 
 Announces to the world his own and theirs ! 
 
 He teaches those to read, whom schools dismiss’d, 
 And colleges, untaught ; sells accent, tone, 
 
 And emphasis in score, and gives to pray’r 
 
44 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Th’ adagio and andante it demands. 
 
 He grinds divinity of other days 
 Down into modern use ; transforms old print 
 To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes 
 Of gall’ry critics by a thousand arts. 
 
 Are there who purchase of the doctor’s ware? 
 
 O, name it not in Gath ! — it cannot be, 
 
 That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. 
 He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, 
 Assuming thus a rank unknown before — 
 
 Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church ! 
 
 I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, 
 
 Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, 
 Coincident, exhibit lucid proof, 
 
 1 hat lie is honest in the sacred cause. 
 
 To such I render more than mere respect, 
 
 Whose actions say, that they respect themselves. 
 But loose in morals, and in manners vain, 
 
 In conversation frivolous, in dress 
 Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse ; 
 
 Frequent in park with lady at his side, 
 
 Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes ; 
 
 But rare at home, and never at his books, 
 
 Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card ; 
 Constant at routs, familiar with a round 
 Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor; 
 
 Ambitious of preferment for its gold, 
 
 And well prepar’d, by ignorance and sloth, 
 
 By infidelity and love of world, 
 
 To make God’s work a sinecure ; a slave 
 
THE TIME-PIECE, 
 
 4 ) 
 
 To his own pleasures and his patron’s pride : 
 
 From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, 
 
 Preserve the church ! and lay not careless hands 
 On sculls, that cannot teach, and will not learn. 
 
 Would I describe a preacher such as Paul, 
 Were he on Earth, would hear, approve, and own, 
 Paul should himself direct me. I would trace 
 His master-strokes, and draw from his design. 
 
 I would express him simple, grave, sincere; 
 
 In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, 
 
 And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, chaste. 
 And natural in gesture ; much impress’d 
 Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
 
 And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
 May feel it too ; affectionate in look, 
 
 And tender in address, as well becomes 
 A messenger of grace to guilty men. 
 
 Behold the picture !— Is it like ?— Like whom ? 
 
 The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, 
 And then skip down again ; pronounce a text ; 
 Cry — hem; and reading what they never wrote, 
 Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work. 
 
 And with a well-bred whisper close the scene ! 
 
 In man or woman, but far most in man, 
 
 And most of all in man, that ministers 
 And serves the altar, in my soul I loath 
 All affectation. ’Tis my perfect scorn; 
 
 Object of my implacable disgust. 
 
 What ! — will a man play tricks, will he indulge 
 A silly fond conceit of his fair form. 
 
46 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 And just proportion, fashionable mien, 
 
 And pretty face, in presence of his God? 
 
 Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes. 
 
 As with the diamond on his lily hand, 
 
 And play his brilliant parts before my eyes, 
 
 When I am hungry for the bread of life ? 
 
 He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames 
 His noble office, and instead of truth, 
 
 Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock ! 
 Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare, 
 
 And start theatric, practis’d at the glass ! 
 
 I seek divine simplicity in him. 
 
 Who handles things divine ; and all besides, 
 
 Though team'd with labour, and though much admir’d 
 By curious eyes and judgments ill-inform’d, 
 
 To me is odious as the nasal twang 
 Heard at conventicle, where worthy men, 
 
 Misled by custom, strain celestial themes 
 Through the press’d nostril, spectacle-bestrid. 
 
 Some decent in demeanour while they preach, 
 
 That task perform’d, relapse into themselves; 
 
 And, having spoken wisely, at the close 
 Grow w anton, and give proof to ev’ry eye, 
 
 Whoe’er was edified, themselves were not ! 
 
 Forth comes the pocket mirror.— First we stroke 
 An eyebrow ; next compose a straggling lock ; 
 
 Then with an air most gracefully perform’d 
 Fall back into our seat, extend an arm 
 /Vnd lay it at its ease with gentle care, 
 
 With handkerchief in hand depending low; 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 47 
 
 The better hand more busy gives the nose 
 Its bergamot, or aids th’ indebted eye 
 With opera-glass, to watch the moving scene, 
 
 And recognize the slow-retiring fair. — 
 
 Now this is fulsome ; and offends me more 
 Than in a churchman slovenly neglect 
 And rustic coarseness would. A heav’nly mind 
 May be indilFrent to her house of clay. 
 
 And slight the hovel as beneath her care; 
 
 But how a body so fantastic, trim, 
 
 And quaint in its deportment and attire, 
 
 Can lodge a heav’nly mind— demands a doubt. 
 
 He, that negociates between God and man 
 As God’s ambassador, the grand concerns 
 Of judgment and of mercy, should beware 
 Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful 
 To court a grin, when you should woo a soul; 
 
 To break a jest, when pity would inspire 
 Pathetic exhortation ; and t’ address 
 The skittish fancy with facetious tales, 
 
 When sent with God’s commission to the heart ! 
 So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip 
 Or merry turn in all he ever wrote, 
 
 And I consent you take it for your text, 
 
 Your only one, till sides and benches fail. 
 
 No : he was serious in a serious cause. 
 
 And understood too well the weighty terms 
 That he had tak’n in charge. He would not stoop 
 To conquer those by jocular exploits, 
 
 Whom truth and soberness assail’d in vaiu. 
 
48 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 1 1. 
 
 O Popular Applause ! what heart of man 
 Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms ? 
 
 The wisest and the best feel urgent need 
 Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales ; 
 
 But swell’d into a gust — who then alas! 
 
 With all his canvass set, and inexpert, 
 
 And therefore heedless, can withstand thy pow’r? 
 Praise from the rivell’d lips of toothless bald 
 Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean 
 And craving Poverty, and in the bow 
 Respectful of the smutch’d artificer, 
 
 Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb 
 The bias of the purpose. How much more, 
 Pour’d forth by beauty splendid and polite, 
 
 In language soft as adoration breathes ! 
 
 Ah spare your idol ! think him human still. 
 Charms he may have, but he has frailties too ! 
 Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. 
 
 All truth is from the sempiternal source 
 Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 
 Drew from the stream below. More favour’d we 
 Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head. 
 To them it flow’d much mingled and defil’d 
 With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams 
 Illusive of philosophy, so call’d, 
 
 But falsely. Sages after sages strove 
 In vain to filter off a crystal draught 
 Pure from the lees, which often more enhanc’d 
 The thirst that slak’d it, and not seldom bred 
 Intoxication and delirium wild. 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 49 
 
 In vain they push’d inquiry to the birth 
 
 And springtime of the world ! ask’d, Whence is man? 
 
 Why form’d at all? and wherefore as he is? 
 
 Where must he find his Maker? with what rites 
 Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless? 
 
 Or does he sit regardless of his works? 
 
 Has man within him an immortal seed ? 
 
 Or does the tomb take all? If he survive 
 His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe? 
 
 Knots worthy of solution, which alone 
 A Deity could solve. Their answers, vague 
 And all at random, fabulous and dark, 
 
 Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life 
 Defective and unsanction’d, prov’d too weak 
 To bind the roving appetite, and lead 
 Blind nature to a God not yet reveal’d. 
 
 ’Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, 
 
 Explains all mysteries, except her own, 
 
 And so illuminates the path of life, 
 
 That fools discover it, and stray no more. 
 
 Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir, 
 
 My man of morals, nurtur’d in the shades 
 Of Academus — is this false or true? 
 
 Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools? 
 
 If Christ, then why resort at ev’ry turn 
 To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short 
 Of man’s occasions, when in him reside 
 Grace, know ledge, comfort— an unfathom’d store ? 
 How oft, when Paul has serv’d us with a text, 
 
 Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preach’d ! 
 
 i) 
 
50 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 Men that, if now alive, would sit content 
 And humble learners of a Saviour’s worth, 
 
 Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth, 
 Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too ! 
 
 And thus it is. — The pastor, either vain 
 By nature, or by flatt’ry made so, taught 
 To gaze at his own splendour, and t’ exalt 
 Absurdly, not his office, but himself ; 
 
 Or unenlighten’d, and too proud to learn ; 
 
 Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach ; 
 Perverting often, by the stress of lewd 
 And loose example, whom he should instruct ; 
 Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace, 
 
 The noblest function, and discredits much 
 The brightest truths, that man has ever seen. 
 
 For ghostly counsel ; if it either fall 
 Below the exigence, or be not back’d 
 With show of love, at least with hopeful proof 
 Of some sincerity on the giver’s part; 
 
 Or be dishonour’d in th’ exterior form 
 And mode of its conveyance by such tricks, 
 
 As move derision, or by foppish airs 
 And histrionic mumm’ry, that let down 
 The pulpit to the level of the stage ; 
 
 Drops from the lips a disregarded thing. 
 
 The weak perhaps are mov’d, but are not taught, 
 While prejudice in men of stronger minds 
 Takes deeper root, confirm’d by what they see. 
 
 A relaxation of religion’s hold 
 Upon the roving and untutor’d heart 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 51 
 
 Soon follows, and, the curb of conscience snapp’d, 
 The laity run wild. — But do they now ? 
 
 Note their extravagance, and he convinc’d. 
 
 As nations, ignorant of God, contrive 
 A wooden one ; so we, no longer taught 
 By monitors, that mother church supplies, 
 
 Now make our own. Posterity will ask 
 (If e’er posterity see verse of mine) 
 
 Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence, 
 
 What was a monitor in George’s days ? 
 
 My very gentle reader, yet unborn, 
 
 Of whom I needs must augur better things, 
 
 Since Heav’n would sure grow weary of a world 
 Productive only of a race like ours, 
 
 A monitor is wood — plank shaven thin. 
 
 We wear it at our backs. There, closely brac’d 
 And neatly fitted, it compresses hard 
 The prominent and most unsightly bones, 
 
 And binds the shoulder flat. We prove its use 
 Sov’reign and most effectual to secure 
 A form, not now gymnastic as of yore, 
 
 From rickets and distortion, else our lot. 
 
 But, thus admonish’d, we can walk erect — 
 
 One proof at least of manhood ! while the friend 
 Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge. 
 
 Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore, 
 
 And by caprice as multiplied as his, 
 
 Just please us while the fashion is at full, 
 
 But change with ev’ry moon. The sycophant, 
 Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date; 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye ; 
 
 Finds one ill made, another obsolete, 
 
 This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived ; 
 
 And, making prize of all that he condemns, 
 
 With our expenditure defrays his own. 
 
 Variety’s the very spice of life, 
 
 That gives it all its flavour. We have run 
 Through ev’ry change, that Fancy, at the loom 
 Exhausted, has had genius to supply; 
 
 And, studious of mutation still, discard 
 A real elegance, a little us’d, 
 
 For monstrous novelty and strange disguise. 
 
 We sacrifice to dress, till household joys 
 And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar djy, 
 And keeps our larder lean ; puts out our fires ; 
 And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, 
 
 Where peace and hospitality might reign. 
 
 What man that lives, and that knows how to livs. 
 Would fail t’ exhibit at the public shows 
 A form as splendid as the proudest there, 
 
 Though appetite raise outcries at the cost? 
 
 A man o’th’ town dines late, but soon enough, 
 With reasonable forecast and dispatch, 
 
 T’ ensure a sidebox station at half price. 
 
 You think perhaps, so delicate his dress, 
 
 His daily fare as delicate. Alas ! 
 
 He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems 
 With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet! 
 
 The rout is Folly’s circle, which she draws 
 With magic wand. So potent is the spell, 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 5a 
 
 That none, decoy’d into that fatal ring, 
 
 Unless by Heav’n’s peculiar grace, escape. 
 
 There we grow early grey, but never wise ; 
 
 There form connexions, but acquire no friend ; 
 Solicit pleasure hopeless of success ; 
 
 Waste youth in occupations only fit 
 For second childhood, and devote old age 
 To sports, which only childhood could excuse. 
 There they are happiest, who dissemble best 
 Their weariness ; and they the most polite, 
 
 Who squander time and treasure with a smile, 
 Though at their own destruction. She, that asks 
 Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, 
 And hates their coming. They (what can they less?) 
 Make just reprisals; and with cringe, and shrug. 
 And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. 
 
 All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace, 
 Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, 
 And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, 
 
 To her, who, frugal only that her thrift 
 May feed excesses she can ill afford, 
 
 Is hackney’d home unlackey’d ; who, in haste 
 Alighting, turns the key in her own door, 
 
 And, at the watchman’s lantern borr’wing light, 
 Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. 
 
 Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, 
 
 On Fortune’s velvet altar off’ring up 
 
 Their last poor pittance — Fortune, most severe 
 
 Of goddesses, yet known, and costlier far 
 
 Than all, that held their routs in Juno’s Heav’n.— 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 54 
 
 So fare we in this prison-house the World; 
 
 And ’tis a fearful spectacle to see 
 So many maniacs dancing in their chains. 
 
 They gaze upon the links, that hold them fast, 
 With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, 
 
 Then shake them in despair, and dance again ! 
 
 Now basket up the family of plagues, 
 
 That waste'our vitals ; peculation, sale 
 Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds 
 By forgery, by subterfuge of law, 
 
 By tricks and lies as num’rous and as keen 
 As the necessities their authors feel; 
 
 Then cast them, closely bundled, ev’ry brat 
 At the right door. Profusion is the sire. 
 Profusion unrestrain’d with all that’s base 
 In character has litter’d all the land, 
 
 And bred, within the mem’ry of no few, 
 
 A priesthood, such as Baal’s was of old, 
 
 A people, such as never was till now. 
 
 It is a hungry vice:— it eats up all, 
 
 That gives society its beauty, strength, 
 Convenience, and security, and use: 
 
 Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapp’d 
 And gibbeted, as fast as catchpole claws 
 Can seize the slipp’ry prey: unties the knot 
 Of union, and converts the sacred band, 
 
 That holds mankind together, to a scourge. 
 Profusion deluging a state with lusts 
 Of grossest nature and of worst effects, 
 Prepares it for its ruin : hardens, blinds, 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 OO 
 
 And warps, the consciences of public men, 
 
 Till they can laugh at virtue; mock the fools 
 That trust them ; and in th’ end disclose a face, 
 That would have shock’d Credulity herself, 
 Unmask’d, vouchsafing this their sole excuse— 
 Since all alike are selfish, why not they? 
 
 This does Profusion, and th’ accursed cause 
 Of such deep mischief has itself a cause. 
 
 In colleges and halls in ancient days, 
 
 When learning, virtue, piety, and truth, 
 
 Were precious, and inculcated with care, 
 
 There dwelt a sage call’d Discipline. His head, 
 Not yet by time completely silver’d o’er 4 
 Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, 
 
 But strong for service still, and unimpair’d. 
 
 His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile 
 Play’d on his lips ; and in his speech was heard 
 Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love. 
 
 The occupation dearest to his heart 
 
 Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke 
 
 The head of modest and ingenuous worth, 
 
 That blush’d at its own praise ; and press the youth 
 Close to his side, that pleas’d him. Learning grew 
 Beneath his care a thriving vig’rous plant; 
 
 The mind was well inform’d, the passions held 
 Subordinate, and diligence was choice. 
 
 If e’er it chanc’d, as sometimes chance it must, 
 That one among so many overleap’d 
 The limits of control, his gentle eye 
 Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke : 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK ]I. 
 
 His frown was full of terror, and his voice 
 Shook the delinquent with such tits of awe, 
 
 As left him not, till penitence had won 
 Lost favour hack again, and clos’d the breach. 
 
 But Discipline, a faithful servant Jong, 
 
 Declin’d at length into the vale of years : 
 
 A palsy struck his arm ; his sparkling eye 
 Was quench’d in rheums of age: his voice, unstrun 
 Grew tremulous, and mov’d derision more 
 Than rev’rencc in perverse rebellious youth. 
 
 So colleges and halls neglected much 
 Their good old friend ; and Discipline at length, 
 O’erlook’d and unemploy’d, fell sick and died. 
 Then Study languish’d, Emulation slept. 
 
 And Virtue fled. The schools became a scene 
 Of solemn farce, where Ignorance in stilts, 
 
 His cap well lined with logic not his own, 
 
 With parrot tongue perform’d the scholar’s part, 
 Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. 
 
 Then compromise had place, and scrutiny 
 Became stone blind; precedence went in truck, 
 And he was competent whose purse was so, 
 
 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 massy gates 
 Forgot their office, op’ning with a touch ; 
 
 Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade, 
 The tassell’d cap and the spruce band a jest, 
 
 A moek’ry of the world ! What need of these 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 57 
 
 For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure, 
 Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, oft’ner seen 
 With belted waist and pointers at their heels, 
 Than in the bounds of duty? What was learn’d. 
 
 If aught was learn’d in childhood, is forgot: 
 
 And such expense, as pinches parents blue, 
 
 And mortifies the lib’ral hand of love, 
 
 Is squander’d 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 aftergames 
 Of riper joys, and commerce with the world, 
 
 The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon, 
 Add to such erudition, thus acquir’d, 
 
 Where science and where virtue are profess’d? 
 They may confirm his habits, rivet fast 
 His folly, but to spoil him is a task, 
 
 That bids defiance to th’ united pow’rs 
 Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews. 
 
 Now blame we most the nurselings or the nurse ? 
 The children crook’d, and twisted, and deform’d, 
 Through want of care ; or her, whose winking eye 
 And slum b ’ring oscitancy mars the brood? 
 
 The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge, 
 She needs herself correction; needs to learn, 
 
 That it is dang’rous sporting with the world, 
 
 With things so sacred as a nation’s trust, 
 
 The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge. 
 
 AH are not such. I had a brother once — 
 
 D 3 
 
58 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK 1L. 
 
 Peace to the mem’ry of a man of worth, 
 
 A man of letters, and of manners too! 
 
 Of manners sweet as Virtue always w r ears, 
 
 When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles. 
 
 He grac’d a college, in which order yet 
 
 Was sacred; and was honour’d, lov’d, and wept, 
 
 By more than one, themselves conspicuous there. 
 Some minds are temper’d happily, and mix’d 
 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 circumscribe 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 
 Expos’d their inexperience to the snare, 
 
 And left them to an undirected choice. 
 
 See then the quiver broken and decay’d, 
 
 In which are kept our arrows ! Rusting there 
 In wild disorder, and unfit for use, 
 
 What wonder, if, discharg’d 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 arm’d. Vice parries wide 
 
THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 59 
 
 Th’ undreaded volley with a sword of straw, 
 
 And stands an impudent and fearless mark. 
 
 Have we not track’d the felon home, and found 
 His birthplace and his dam ? The country mourns, 
 Mourns because ev’ry plague, that can infest 
 Society, and that saps and worms the base 
 Of th’ edifice, that policy has rais’d, 
 
 Swarms in all quarters : meets the eye, the ear, 
 And suffocates the breath at ev’ry 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 rob’d pedagogue! Else let th’ arraign’d 
 Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge. 
 
 So, when the Jewish leader stretch’d his arm, 
 
 And wav’d his rod divine, a race obscene, 
 
 Spawn’d in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth, 
 Polluting Egypt : gardens, fields, and plains, 
 
 Were cover’d with the pest; the streets were fill’d ; 
 The croaking nuisance lurk’d in ev’ry nook; 
 
 Nor palaces, nor even chambers, ’scap’d : 
 
 And the land stank — so num’rous was the fry. 
 
THE 
 
 B©®K.HS. 
 
 and neatly tied. 
 
 Are wedded thus like "beauty to old ag*e, 
 For int'rest sake, the living* to the dead. 
 
 DRAWN BY RICHARD WE S TALL R A. ENGRAVED BY J.H. ROBINS ON 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY. 
 
 OCT. 1.1817. 
 
THE TASK 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE GARDEN. 
 
 Self-recollection, and reproof— Address to domestic liappiness — 
 Some account of myself.— The vanity of many of their pursuits, 
 who are reputed wise.— Justification of my censures— Divine illu- 
 mination necessary to the most expert philosopher. — The question, 
 What is truth 1 answered by other questions.— Domestic happiness 
 addressed again.— Few lovers of the country.— My tame hare.— 
 Occupations of a retired gentleman in his garden— Pruning— 
 Framing— Greenhouse.— Sowing of flower seeds— The country pre- 
 ferable to the town even in the winter— Reasons why it is deserted 
 at that season— Ruinous etfects of gaming and of expensive improve- 
 ment. — Book concludes with an apostrophe to the metropolis. 
 
 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 foil’d 
 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, 
 
62 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 He chernps brisk his ear-erecting steed, 
 
 And winds his way with pleasure and w'ith ease ; 
 So I, designing other themes, and call’d 
 T’ 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 deserv’d), 
 
 Long held, and scarcely disengag’d at last. 
 
 But now with pleasant pace a cleanlier road 
 I mean to tread. I feel myself at large, 
 Courageous and refresh’d 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, enamour’d of sequester’d scenes, 
 
 And charm’d 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 shelter’d Sofa, while the nitrous air 
 
 Feeds a blue flame, and makes a cheerful hearth ; 
 
 There, undisturb’d by Folly, and appris’d 
 
 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 conceal’d 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 63 
 
 Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault 
 Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach. 
 
 Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
 Of Paradise, that has surviv’d the fall! 
 
 Though few now taste thee unimpair’d and pure, 
 Or tasting long enjoy thee ! too infirm. 
 
 Or too incautious, to preserve thy sweets 
 Unmix’d 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, 
 Heav’n-born, and destin’d to the skies again. 
 Thou art not knovfn where Pleasure is ador’d, 
 That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist 
 Aud wand’ring 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 prostitution elbows us aside 
 
 In all our crowded streets ; and senates seem 
 
 Conven’d for purposes of empire less, 
 
 Than to release th’ adultress from her bond. 
 
 Th’ adultress! what a theme for angry verse! 
 What provocation to th’ indignant heart, 
 
 That feels for injur’d love ! but I disdain 
 The nauseous task, to paint her as she is, 
 
 Cruel, abandon’d, glorying in her shame! 
 
64 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 No:— let her pass, and chariotted along 
 In guilty splendour shake the public ways ; 
 
 The frequency of crimes has wash’d them white, 
 And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch, 
 Whom matrons now of character unsmirch’d, 
 
 And chaste themselves, are not asham’d to own. 
 Virtue and vice had bound’ries in old time 
 Not to be pass’d : and she, that had renounc’d 
 Her sex’s honour, was renounc’d herself 
 By all that priz’d it ; not for prud’ry’s sake, 
 
 But dignity’s, resentful of the wrong. 
 
 ’Twas hard perhaps on here and there a waif, 
 Desirous to return, and not receiv’d : 
 
 But w as a wholesome rigour in the main, 
 
 And taught th’ unblemish’d to preserve w ith care 
 That purity, whose loss was loss of all. 
 
 Men too were nice in honour in those days. 
 
 And judg’d offenders well. Then he that sharp’d, 
 And pocketted a prize by fraud obtain’d. 
 
 Was mark’d and shunn’d as odious. He that sold 
 His country, or was slack when she requir’d 
 His ev’ry nerve in action and at stretch, 
 
 Paid with the blood, that he had basely spar’d, 
 
 The price of his default. But now— yes, now, 
 
 We are become so candid and so fair, 
 
 So lib’ral in construction, and so rich 
 Jn Christian charity, (good-natur’d age !) 
 
 That they are safe, sinners of either sex. 
 
 Transgress what laws they may. Well dress’d, well 
 Well equipag’d, is ticket good enough, [bred. 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 (>5 
 
 To pass us readily through ev’ry door. 
 
 Hypocrisy, detest her as we may 
 
 (And no man’s hatred ever wrong’d 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 infix’d 
 My panting side was charg’d, when I withdrew 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 
 There was I found by one, who had himself 
 Been hurt by th’ 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 heal’d, and bade me live. 
 Since then, with few associates, in remote 
 And silent woods I wander, far from those 
 My former partners of the peopled scene: 
 
 With few associates, 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 wand’rers, gone astray 
 Bach 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. 
 
CG 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 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 th’ eye of noon. 
 To sport their season, and be seen no more. 
 
 The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise, 
 
 And pregnant with discov’ries 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 wrapp'd 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 conceal’d. 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 reveal’d 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 fix’d, 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 07 
 
 And planetary some ; what gave them first 
 Rotation, from what fountain flow’d 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 th’ 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 
 Play’d by the creatures of a Pow’r, who swears 
 That he will judge the Earth, and call the fool 
 To a sharp reck’ning, that has liv’d in vain ; 
 
 And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well, 
 
 And prove it in th’ infallible result 
 So hollow and so false — I feel my heart 
 Dissolve in pity, and account the learn’d, 
 
 If this be learning, most of all deceiv’d. 
 
 Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps, 
 While thoughtful man is plausibly amus’d. 
 
 Defend me therefore common sense, say I, 
 
 Prom reveries so airy, from the toil 
 
6*8 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 
 
 And growing old in drawing nothing up ! 
 
 ’Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound. 
 Terribly arch’d 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 breasts. 
 
 I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, 
 
 And exercise all functions of a mau. 
 
 How then should I and any man that lives 
 Be strangers to each other ? Pierce my vein, 
 
 Take of the crimson stream meand’ring there, 
 
 And catechise it Well ; apply thy glass, 
 
 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 earth beneath ; 
 
 I cannot analyse the air, nor catch 
 The parallax of yonder lum’nous point, 
 
 That seems half quench’d in the immense abyss j 
 Such pow’rs I boast not — neither can I rest 
 A silent witness of the headlone: rase. 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 GO 
 
 Or heedless folly, by which thousands die, 
 
 Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine. 
 
 God never meant, that man should scale the Heav’nS 
 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, enlighten’d 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 undiscern’d but by that holy light ; 
 
 Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptiz’d 
 In the pure fountain of eternal love, 
 
 Has eyes indeed ; and viewing all she sees 
 As meant to indicate a God to man, 
 
 Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. 
 Learning has borne such fruit in other days 
 
70 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 On all her branches ; piety has found 
 Friends in the friends of science, and true pray’r 
 Has flow’d from lips wet with Castalian dews. 
 Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage! 
 Sagacious reader of the works of God, 
 
 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 prais’d, 
 And sound integrity, not more than fam’d 
 For sanctity of manners undefil’d. 
 
 All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades 
 Like the fair flow’r dishevell’d in the wind ; 
 Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream ; 
 
 The man we celebrate must find a tomb. 
 
 And we that worship him ignoble graves. 
 
 Nothing is proof against the gen’ral curse 
 Of vanity, that seizes all below. 
 
 The only amaranthine flow’r on Earth 
 Is virtue ; th’ only lasting treasure, truth. 
 
 But what is truth ? ’twas Pilate's question put 
 To Truth itself, that deign’d him no reply. 
 
 And wherefore ? will not God 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 who writes it, though the style be neat, 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 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 God’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 despis’d of all, 
 
 Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? 
 
 Tell me — and I will tell thee what is truth. 
 
 O friendly to the best pursuits of man. 
 Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
 Domestic life in rural leisure pass’d ! 
 
 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, 
 
 Ev’n as his first progenitor, and quits, 
 
 Though plac’d in Paradise (for earth has still 
 Some traces of her youthful beauty left), 
 Substantial happiness for transient joy. 
 
 Scenes form’d for contemplation, and to nurse 
 The growing seeds of wisdom ; that suggest, 
 
 By ev’ry pleasing image they present, 
 
 Reflections such as meliorate the heart, 
 
 Compose the passions, 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 
 
72 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Wc 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 quell’d 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 nurs’ries 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 
 Cultur’d 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 endu’d 
 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 shelter’d 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 car e 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 73 
 
 Has made at last familiar ; she has lost 
 Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, 
 
 Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. 
 
 Yes — thou may’st eat thy bread, and lick the hand 
 That feeds thee ; thou may’st frolic on the floor 
 At ev’ning, and at night retire secure 
 To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm’d; 
 
 For I have gain’d thy confidence, have pledg’d 
 All that is human in me, to protect 
 Thine unsuspecting gratitude 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 w ho justly in return 
 Esteems that busy world an idler too ! 
 
 Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen. 
 Delightful industry enjoy’d at home, 
 
 And Nature in her cultivated trim 
 Dress’d to his taste, inviting him abroad — 
 
 Can he want occupation, who has these ? 
 
 Will he be idle, who has much t’ 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 
 Ev’n here : while sedulous I seek t’ improve, 
 
 At least neglect not, or leave unemploy’d, 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III, 
 
 The mind he gave me ; driving it, though slack 
 Too oft, and much impeded in its work 
 By causes not to be divulg’d 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 engag’d t’ achieve 
 No unimportant, though a silent, task. 
 
 A life all turbulence and noise may seem 
 To him that leads it wise, and to be prais’d ; 
 
 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. 
 
 The morning finds the self-sequester’d man 
 Fresh for his task, intend what task he may. 
 Whether inclement seasons recommend 
 His warm but simple home, where he enjoys 
 With her, who shares his pleasures and his heart, 
 Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph, 
 Which neatly she prepares; then to his book 
 Well chosen, and not sullenly perus’d 
 In selfish silence, but imparted oft, 
 
 As aught occurs, that she may smile to hear. 
 
 Or turn to nourishment, digested well. 
 
 Or if the garden with its many cares,. 
 
 All well repaid, demand him, he attends 
 
THE GAKDEN. 
 
 The welcome call, conscious how much the hand 
 Of lubbard Labour needs his watchful eye, 
 
 Oft loit’ring lazily, if not o’erseen, 
 
 Or misapplying his unskilful strength. 
 
 Nor does he govern only or direct, 
 
 But much performs himself. No works indeed, 
 That ask robust, tough sinews, bred to toil, 
 
 Servile employ ; but such as may amuse. 
 
 Not tire, demanding rather skill than force. 
 
 Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees, 
 That meet, no barren interval between, 
 
 With pleasure more than ev’n their fruits afford, 
 Which, save himself who trains them^ione can feel. 
 These therefore are his own peculiar charge; 
 
 No meaner hand may discipline the shoots, 
 
 None but his steel approach them. What is weak, 
 Distemper’d, or has lost prolific pow’rs, 
 
 Impair’d by age, his unrelenting hand 
 Dooms to the knife : nor does he spare the soft 
 And succulent, that feeds its giant growth, 
 
 But barren, at th’ expense of neighb’ring twigs 
 Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick 
 With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left 
 That may disgrace his art, or disappoint 
 Large expectation, he disposes neat 
 At measur’d distances, that air and sun, 
 
 Admitted freely, may afford their aid, 
 
 And ventilate and warm the swelling buds. 
 
 Hence Summer has her riches, Autumn hence. 
 
 And hence ev’n Winter fills his wither’d hand 
 
 F “2 
 
7G 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III'. 
 
 With blushing fruits, and plenty not his own f. 
 
 Fair recompense of labour well bestow’d, 
 
 And w ise precaution ; which a clime so rude 
 Makes needful still, whose Spring is but the child 
 Of churlish Winter, in her froward moods 
 Discov’ring much the temper of her sire. 
 
 For oft, as if in her the stream of mild 
 Maternal nature had revers’d its course, 
 
 She brings her infants forth with many smiles; 
 
 But once deliver’d kills them with a frown. 
 
 He therefore timely warn’d himself supplies 
 Her want of care, screening and keeping warm 
 The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweep 
 His garlands from the boughs. Again, as oft 
 As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild, 
 
 The fence withdrawn, he gives them ev’ry beam, 
 And spreads his hopes before the blaze of day. 
 
 To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd, 
 
 So grateful to the palate, and when rare 
 So covetted, else base and disesteem’d — 
 
 Food for the vulgar merely — is an art, 
 
 That toiling ages have but just matur’d, 
 
 And at this moment unassay’d in song. 
 
 Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice, long since. 
 Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard, 
 
 And these the Grecian, in ennobling strains ; 
 
 And in thy numbers, Phillips, shines for aye 
 The solitary shilling. Pardon then, 
 
 Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame, 
 
 Th’ ambition of one meaner far, wdiose pow’rs, 
 
 * Miraturque uovos fructus et non sua ponia. Virg. 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 77 
 
 Presuming an attempt not less sublime, 
 
 Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste 
 Of critic appetite, no sordid fare, 
 
 A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce. 
 
 The stable yields a stercoraceous heap, 
 Impregnated with quick fermenting salts, 
 
 And potent to resist the freezing blast: 
 
 For, ere the beech and elm have cast their leaf 
 Deciduous, when now November dark 
 Checks vegetation in the torpid plant 
 Expos’d to his cold breath, the task begins. 
 Warily therefore, and with prudent heed, 
 
 He seeks a favour’d spot; that where he builds 
 Th’ agglomerated pile his frame may front 
 The sun’s meridian disk, and at the back 
 Enjoy close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedge 
 Impervious to the wind. First he bids spread 
 Dry fern or litter’d hay, that may imbibe 
 Th’ ascending damps ; then leisurely impose, 
 And lightly, shaking it with agile hand 
 From the full fork, the saturated straw. 
 
 What longest binds the closest forms secure 
 The shapely side, that as it rises takes, 
 
 By just degrees, an overhanging breadth, 
 Shelt’ring the base with its projected eaves ; 
 
 Th’ uplifted frame, compact at ev’ry joint, 
 
 And overlaid with clear translucent glass, 
 
 He settles next upon the sloping mount, 
 
 Whose sharp declivity shoots off secure 
 From the dash’d pane the deluge as it falls. 
 
7 « 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 He shuts it close, and the first labour ends. 
 
 Thrice must the voluble and restless Earth 
 Spin round dpon her axle, ere the warmth, 
 
 Slow gathering in the midst, through the square mass 
 Diffus’d, attain the surface : when, behold ! 
 
 A pestilent and most corrosive steam, 
 
 Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast, 
 
 And fast condens’d upon the dewy sash, 
 
 Asks egress; which obtain’d, the overcharg’d 
 And drench’d conservatory breathes abroad, 
 
 In volumes wheeling slow, the vapour dank; 
 
 And, purified, rejoices to have lost 
 Its foul inhabitant. But to assuage 
 Th' impatient fervour, which it first conceives 
 Within its reeking bosom, threat’ning death 
 To his young hopes, requires discreet delay. 
 Experience, slow preceptress, teaching oft 
 The way to glory by miscarriage foul, 
 
 Must prompt him, and admonish how to catch 
 Th’ auspicious moment, when the temper’d heat, 
 Friendly to vital motion, may afford 
 Soft fomentation, and invite the seed. 
 
 The seed, selected wisely, plump, and smooth, 
 
 And glossy, he commits to pots of size 
 Diminutive, well fill’d with well prepar’d 
 And fruitful soil, that has been treasur’d long, 
 
 And drank no moisture from the dripping clouds. 
 These on the warm and genial earth, that hides 
 The smoking manure, and o’erspreads it all, 
 
 He places lightly, and, as time subdues 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 ID 
 
 The rage of fermentation, plunges deep 
 In the soft medium, till they stand immers’d. 
 
 Then rise the tender germes, upstarting quick, 
 
 And spreading wide their spongy lobes; at first 
 Pale, wan, and livid ; but assuming soon, 
 
 If fann’d by balmy and nutritious air, 
 
 Strain’d through the friendly mats, a vivid green. 
 Two leaves produc’d, two rough indented leaves, 
 Cautious he pinches from the second stalk 
 A pimple, that portends a future sprout, 
 
 And interdicts its growth. Thence straight succeed 
 The branches, sturdy to his utmost wish ; 
 
 Prolific all, and harbingers of more. 
 
 The crowded roots demand enlargement now, 
 
 And transplantation in an ampler space. 
 
 Indulg’d in what they wish, they soon supply 
 Large foliage, overshad’wing golden flow’rs, 
 
 Blown on the summit of th’ apparent fruit. 
 
 These have their sexes ! and, when summer shines, 
 The bee transports the fertilizing meal 
 From tlow’r to flow’r, and ev’n the breathing air 
 Wafts the rich prize to its appointed use. 
 
 Not so when winter scowls. Assistant art 
 Then acts in nature’s office, brings to pass 
 The glad espousals, and ensures the crop. 
 
 Grudge not ye rich (since Luxury must have 
 His dainties, and the World’s more num’rous half 
 Lives by contriving delicates for you), 
 
 Grudge not the cost. Ye little know the -cares. 
 
 The vigilance, the labour, and the skill, 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 COOK III. 
 
 SO 
 
 That day and night are exercis’d, and hang 
 Upon the ticklish balance of suspense, 
 
 That ye may garnish your profuse regales 
 
 With summer fruits brought forth by wintry suns. 
 
 Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwart 
 
 The process. Heat and cold, and wind and steam, 
 
 Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming 
 
 Minute as dust, and numberless, oft work [flies, 
 
 Dire disappointment, that admits no cure, 
 
 And which no care can obviate. It were long, 
 
 Too long, to tell th’ expedients and the shifts, 
 
 Which be that fights a season so severe 
 Devises, while he guards his tender trust; 
 
 And oft at last in vain. The learn’d and wise 
 Sarcastic would exclaim, and judge the song 
 Cold as its theme, and like its theme the fruit 
 Of too much labour, worthless when produc’d. 
 
 W ho loves a garden loves a greenhouse too. 
 Unconscious of a less propitious clime, 
 
 There blooms exotic beauty, w arm and snug, 
 
 While the winds whistle, and the snows descend. 
 The spiry myrtle with unwith’ring leaf 
 Shines there, and flourishes. The golden boast 
 Of Portugal and western India there, 
 
 The ruddier orange, and the paler lime, 
 
 Peep through their polish’d foliage at the storm, 
 
 And seem to smile at what they need not fear. 
 
 Th’ amomum there with intermingling flow’rs 
 And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts 
 Her crimson honours, and the spangled beaux. 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 81 
 
 Ticoides, glitters bright the winter long. 
 
 All plants, of ev’ry leaf, that can endure 
 
 The winter’s frown, if screen’d from his shrew’d bite, 
 
 Live there, and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, 
 
 Levantine regions these ; th’ Azores send 
 
 Their jessamine, her jessamine remote 
 
 Caffraia: foreigners from many lands, 
 
 They form one social shade, as if conven’d 
 By magic summons of the Orphean lyre. 
 
 Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass 
 But by a master’s hand, disposing well 
 The gay diversities of leaf and flow’r, 
 
 Must lend its aid t’ illustrate all their charms, 
 
 And dress the regular yet various scene. 
 
 Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van 
 The dwarfish, in the rear retir’d, but still 
 Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand. 
 
 So once were rang’d the sons of ancient Rome, 
 
 A noble show' ! while Roscius trod the stage ; 
 
 And so, while Garrick, as renown’d as he, 
 
 The sons of Albion; fearing each to lose 
 Some note of Nature’s music from his lips, 
 
 And covetous of Shakspeare’s beauty, seen 
 In ev’ry flash of his far-beaming eye. 
 
 Nor taste alone and well-contriv’d display 
 Sullice to give the marshall’d ranks the grace 
 Of their complete effect. Much yet remains 
 Unsung, and many cares are yet behind, 
 
 And more laborious; cares on which depend 
 Their vigour, injur’d soon, not soon restor’d. 
 
 E 3 
 
82 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 The soil must be renew’d, which often wash’d 
 Loses its treasure of salubrious salts, 
 
 And disappoints the roots; the slender roots 
 Close interwoven, where they meet the vase, 
 
 Must smooth be shorn away ; the sapless branch 
 Must fly before the knife ; the wither’d leaf 
 Must be detach’d, and where it strews the floor 
 Swept with a woman’s neatness, breeding else 
 Contagion, and disseminating death. 
 
 Discharge but these kind offices, (and Avho 
 Would spare, that loves them, offices like these ?) 
 Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleas’d, 
 The scent regal’d, each odorif’rous leaf, 
 
 Each op’ning blossom, freely breathes abroad 
 Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets. 
 
 So manifold, all pleasing in their kind, 
 
 All healthful, are th' employs of rural life, 
 
 Reiterated as the wheel of time 
 
 Runs round; still ending, and beginning still. 
 
 Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knoll, 
 
 That softly swell’d and gaily dress’d appears 
 A flow’ry island, from the dark green lawn 
 Emerging, must be deem’d a labour due 
 To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste. 
 
 Here also grateful mixture of well-match’d 
 And sorted hues (each giving each relief, 
 
 And by contrasted beauty shining more) 
 
 Is needful. Strength may wield the pond’rous spade. 
 May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home ; 
 But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 83 
 
 And most attractive, is the fair result 
 Of thought, the creature of a polish’d mind. 
 Without it all is Gothic as the scene, 
 
 To which th’ insipid citizen resorts 
 
 Near yonder heath ; where Industry mispent, 
 
 But proud of his uncouth ill-chosen task, 
 
 Had made a Heav’n on Earth ; with suns and moons 
 Of close-ramm’d stones has charg’d th' encumber’d 
 And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust. [soil, 
 
 He therefore, who would see his flow’rs dispos’d 
 Sightly and in just order, ere he gives 
 The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds, 
 Forecasts the future whole; that when the scene 
 Shall break into its preconceiv’d display, 
 
 Each for itself, and all as with one voice 
 Conspiring, may attest his bright design. 
 
 Nor even then, dismissing as perform’d 
 His pleasant work, may he suppose it done; 
 
 Few self-supported flow’rs endure the wind 
 Uninjur’d, but expect th’ upholding aid 
 Of the smooth-shaven prop, and, neatly tied, 
 
 Are wedded thus, like beauty to old age 
 For int’rest sake, the living to the dead. 
 
 Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffus’d 
 And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair, 
 
 Like virtue, thriving most where little seen: 
 
 Some more aspiring catch the neighbour shrub 
 With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 
 
 Else unadorn’d, with many a gay festoon 
 And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 
 
84 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK Ifl. 
 
 The strength they borrow with the grace they lend. 
 All hate the rank society of weeds, 
 
 Noisome, and ever greedy to exhaust 
 Th’ impoverish'd earth ; an overbearing race, 
 
 That, like the multitude made faction-mad, 
 
 Disturb good order, and degrade true worth. 
 
 O blest seclusion from a jarring world, 
 
 Which he, thus occupied, enjoys! Retreat 
 Cannot indeed to guilty man restore 
 Lost innocence, or cancel follies past ; 
 
 But it has peace, and much secures the mind 
 From all assaults of evil ; proving still 
 A faithful barrier, not o’erleap’d with ease 
 By vicious custom, raging uncontroll’d 
 Abroad, and desolating public life. 
 
 When fierce temptation, seconded within 
 By traitor appetite, and arm’d with darts 
 Temper’d in Hell, invades the throbbing breast, 
 
 To combat may be glorious, and success 
 Perhaps may crown us ; but to fly is safe. 
 
 Had I the choice of sublunary good, 
 
 What could I wish, that I possess not here ? 
 
 Health, leisure, means t’ improve it, friends!. ip, peace, 
 No loose or wanton, though a wand’ring, muse, 
 
 And constant occupation without care. 
 
 Thus blest I draw a picture of that bliss ; 
 
 Hopeless indeed, that dissipated minds, 
 
 And profligate abusers of a world 
 Created fair so much in vain for them, 
 
 Should seek the guiltless joys, that I describe, 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 8 
 
 Allur’d by my report: but sure no less, 
 
 That self-condemn’d they must neglect the prize, 
 And what they will not taste must yet approve. 
 What we admire we praise ; and when we praise. 
 Advance it into notice, that, its worth 
 Acknowledg’d, others may admire it too. 
 
 I therefore recommend, though at the risk 
 Of popular disgust, yet boldly still, 
 
 The cause of piety, and sacred truth, 
 
 And virtue, and those scenes, which God ordain’d 
 Should best secure them and promote them most ; 
 Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive 
 Forsaken, or through folly not enjoy’d. 
 
 Pure is the nymph, though lib’ral of her smiles, 
 And chaste, though unconfin’d, whom I extol. 
 
 Not as the prince in Shushan, when he call’d, 
 Vain-glorious of her charms, his Vashti forth 
 To grace the full pavilion. His design 
 Was but to boast his own peculiar good, 
 
 Which all might view with envy, none partake. 
 My charmer is not mine alone ; my sweets, 
 
 And she that sweetens all my bitters too, 
 
 Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form 
 And lineaments divine I trace a hand, 
 
 That errs not, and find raptures still renew’d, 
 
 Is free to all men — universal prize. 
 
 Strange that so fair a creature should yet want 
 Admirers, and be destin’d to divide 
 With meaner objects ev’n the few she finds ! 
 Stripp’d of her ornaments, her leaves and flow’rs, 
 
8(5 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 She loses all her influence. Cities then 
 Attract us, and neglected Nature pines 
 Abandon’d, as unworthy of our love. 
 
 But are not wholesome airs, though unperfum’d 
 By roses; and clear suns, though scarcely felt; 
 
 And groves, if unharmouious, yet secure » 
 
 From clamour, and whose very silence charms ; 
 
 To be preferr’d to smoke, to the eclipse, 
 
 That Metropolitan volcanoes make, 
 
 Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long; 
 And to the stir of Commerce, driving slow, 
 
 And thund’ring loud, with his ten thousand wheels? 
 They would be, were not madness in the head, 
 
 And folly in the heart; were England now, 
 
 What England was, plain, hospitable, kind, 
 
 And undebauch’d. But we have bid farewell 
 To all the virtues of those better days, 
 
 And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once 
 Knew their own masters ; and laborious hinds, 
 
 Who had surviv’d the father, serv’d the son. 
 
 Now the legitimate and rightful lord 
 Is but a transient guest, newly arriv’d, 
 
 And soon to be supplanted. He, that saw 
 His patrimonial timber cast its leaf, 
 
 Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price 
 To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again. 
 
 Estates are landscapes, gaz’d upon awhile, 
 
 Then advertis’d, and auctioneer’d away. 
 
 The country starves, and they, that feed th’ o’erelnug’d 
 And surfeited lewd town with her fair dues, 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 87 
 
 By a just judgment strip and starve themselves. 
 The wings, that waft our riches out of sight, 
 
 Grow on the gamester’s elbows ; and th’ alert 
 And nimble motion of those restless joints, 
 
 That never tire, soon fans them all away. 
 Improvement too, the idol of the age, 
 
 Is fed with many a victim. Lo, he comes ! 
 
 Th’ omnipotent magician, Brown, appears ! 
 
 Down falls the venerable pile, th’ abode 
 Of our forefathers— a grave whisker’d race, 
 
 But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, 
 
 But in a distant spot; where more expos’d 
 It may enjoy th’ advantage of the north, 
 
 And aguish east, till time shall have transform’d 
 Those naked acres to a shelt’ring grove. 
 
 He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn ; 
 Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise ; 
 
 And streams, as if created for his use. 
 
 Pursue the track of his directing wand, 
 
 Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, 
 
 Now murm’ring soft, now roaring in cascades — 
 Ev’n as he bids ! Th’ enraptur’d owner smiles. 
 
 ’Tis finish’d, and yet, finish’d as it seems, 
 
 Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show, 
 
 A iniue to satisfy th’ enormous cost. 
 
 Drain’d to the last poor item of his wealth, 
 
 He sighs, departs, and leaves th’ accomplish’d plan, 
 That he has touch’d, retouch’d, many a long day 
 Labour’d, and many a night pursu’d in dreams, 
 
 Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the Heav’n 
 
aa 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy ! 
 
 And now perhaps the glorious hour is come, 
 
 When, having no stake left, no pledge t’ endear 
 Her int’rests, or that gives her sacred cause 
 A moment’s operation on his love, 
 
 He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal 
 To serve his country. Ministerial grace 
 Deals him out money from the public chest ; 
 
 Or, if that mine be shut, some private purse 
 Supplies his need with an usurious loan, 
 
 To be refunded duly, when his vote 
 Well-manag’d shall have earn’d its worthy price. 
 
 O innocent, compar’d with arts like these, 
 
 Crape, and cock’d pistol, and the whistling ball 
 Sent through the traveler’s temples ! He, that finds 
 One drop of Heav’n’s sw eet mercy in his cup, 
 
 Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content, 
 
 So he may wrap himself in honest rags 
 At his last gasp ; but could not for a world 
 Fish up his dirty and dependent bread 
 From pools and ditches of the commonwealth, 
 Sordid and sick’ning at his own success. 
 
 Ambition, av’rice, penury incurr’d 
 By endless riot, vanity, the lust 
 Of pleasure and variety, dispatch, 
 
 As duly as the swallows disappear, 
 
 The world of wand’ring knights and squires to town. 
 London ingulfs them all ! The shark is there, 
 
 And the shark’s prey; the spendthrift, and the leech 
 That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he 
 
THE GARDEN. 
 
 80 
 
 Who, with bareheaded and obsequious bows, 
 
 Begs a warm office, doom’d to a cold jail 
 And groat per diem, if his patron frown. 
 
 The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp 
 Were character’d on ev’ry stateman’s door, 
 
 “ Batter’d and bankrupt fortunes mended here.” 
 These are the charms, that sully and eclipse 
 The charms of nature. ’Tis the cruel gripe, 
 
 That lean, hard-handed Poverty inflicts, 
 
 The hope of better things, the chance to win, 
 
 The wish to shine, the thirst to be amus’d, 
 
 That at the sound of winter’s hoary wing 
 Unpeople all our counties of such herds 
 Of flutt’ring, loit’ring, cringing, begging, loose 
 And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast 
 And boundless as it is, a crowded coop. 
 
 O thou, resort and mart of all the Earth, 
 Checker’d with all complexions of mankind, 
 
 And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see 
 Much that I love, and more that I admire, 
 
 And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, 
 
 That pleasest and yet sliock’st me, I can laugh, 
 
 And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, 
 
 Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee ! 
 
 Ten righteous would have sav’d a city once, 
 
 And thou hast many righteous. — Well for thee — 
 That salt preserves thee ; more corrupted else, 
 
 And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour, 
 
 Than Sodom in her day had pow’r to be, 
 
 For whom God heard his Abr’ham plead in vain. 
 
THE TASK 
 
 IV, 
 
 Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas ! 
 "Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd, 
 And sweet colloquial pleasures axe hut few: 
 
 DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALLR.A. ENGRAVED BY J. H. ROBIN SO 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE. PICCADILLY. 
 
 OCT. 1,1817. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
THE TASK 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 THE WINTER EVENING. 
 
 The post comes in.— The newspaper is read. —The World contem- 
 plated at a distance. — Address to Winter. — The rural amusements 
 of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones— Address 
 to evening. — A brown study.— Fall of snow in the evening — The 
 waggoner.— A poor family piece — The rural thief.— Public houses. 
 —The multitude of them censured.— The farmer’s daughter: what 
 she was — what she is. — The simplicity of country manners almost 
 lost. — Causes of the change. — Desertion of the country by the rich. 
 
 —Neglect of magistrates.— The militia principally in fault The 
 
 new recruit and his transformation.— Reflection on bodies corpo- 
 rate.— The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be 
 totally extinguished. 
 
 Hark ! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge, 
 That with its wearisome but needful length 
 Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
 Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; — 
 
 He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 
 
 With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks ; 
 News from all nations lumb’ring at his back. 
 
 True to his charge, the close pack’d load behind, 
 
02 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 
 Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn ; 
 
 And, having dropp’d th’ expected bag, pass on. 
 
 He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, 
 
 Cold and yet cheerful ; messenger of grief 
 Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; 
 
 To him indiff’rent whether grief or joy. 
 
 Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, 
 
 Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 
 With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks 
 Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 
 
 Or charg’d with am’rous sighs of absent swains, 
 
 Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 
 
 His horse and him, unconscious of them all. 
 
 But O th’ important budget! usher’d in 
 With such heart-shaking music, who can say 
 What are its tidings? have our troops awak’d? 
 
 Or do they still, as if with opium drugg’d, 
 
 Snore to the murmurs of th’ Atlantic wave ? 
 
 Is India free? and does she wear her plum’d 
 And jewell'd turban with a smile of peace, 
 
 Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, 
 
 The popular harangue, the tart reply, 
 
 The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, 
 
 And the loud laugh — I long to know them all ; 
 
 I burn to set th’ imprison’d wranglers free, 
 
 And give them voice and utt’rance once again. 
 
 Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
 Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
 
 And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 93 
 
 Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 
 
 That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
 
 So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in. 
 
 Not such his ev’ning, who with shining face 
 Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeez’d 
 And bor’d with elbow points through both his sides, 
 Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage : 
 
 Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb. 
 
 And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 
 Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, 
 
 Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles. 
 
 This folio of four pages, happy work! 
 
 Which not ev’n critics criticise ; that holds 
 inquisitive Attention, while I read, 
 
 Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 
 Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; 
 What is it, but a map of busy life, 
 
 Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? 
 
 Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge, 
 
 That tempts Ambition. On the summit see 
 The seals of office glitter in his eyes ; 
 
 He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ! At his heels. 
 Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, 
 
 And with a dext’rous jerk soon twists him down, 
 And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. 
 
 Here rills of oily eloquence in soft 
 Meanders lubricate the course they take; 
 
 The modest speaker is asham’d and griev’d, 
 
 T’ engross a moment’s notice, and yet begs, 
 
 Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts. 
 
94 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 However trivial all that he conceives. 
 
 Sweet bash fulness ! it claims at least this praise; 
 The dearth of information and good sense, 
 
 That it foretels us, always comes to pass. 
 
 Cat’racts of declamation thunder here ; 
 
 There forests of no meaning spread the page, 
 
 In which all comprehension wanders lost; 
 
 While fields of pleasantry amuse us there 
 With merry descants on a nation’s woes. 
 
 The rest appears a w ilderness of strange 
 But gay contusion; roses for the cheeks, 
 
 And lilies for the brows of faded age. 
 
 Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 
 Heav’n, earth, and ocean, plunder’d of their sweet 
 Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, 
 
 Sermons, and city feasts, and fav’rite airs, 
 ^Ethereal journies, submarine exploits, 
 
 And Katterfelto, with his hair on end 
 At his own wonders, wond’ring for his bread. 
 
 ’Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, 
 To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 
 Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 
 
 To hear the roar she sends through all her gates 
 At a safe distance, where the dying sound 
 Falls a soft murmur on th’ uninjur’d ear. 
 
 Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease 
 The globe and its concerns, I seem advanc'd 
 To some secure and more than mortal height, 
 
 That lib’rates and exempts me from them all. 
 
 It turns submitted to my view, turns round 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 95 
 
 With ail its generations ; I behold 
 
 The tumult, and am still. The sound of war 
 
 Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me ; 
 
 Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride 
 And av’rice that make man a wolf to man ; 
 
 Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats, 
 
 By which he speaks the language of his heart, 
 
 And sigh, but never tremble at the sound. 
 
 He travels and expatiates, as the bee 
 From flow’r to flow’r, so he from land to land ; 
 
 The manners, customs, policy, of all 
 Pay contribution to the store he gleans ; 
 
 He sucks intelligence in ev’ry clime, 
 
 And spreads the honey of his deep research 
 At his Veturn — a rich repast for me. 
 
 He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, 
 
 Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes 
 Discover countries, with a kindred heart 
 Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes ; 
 
 While fancy, like the finger of a clock, 
 
 Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. 
 
 O Winter, ruler of th’ inverted year, 
 
 Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d, 
 
 Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks 
 Fring’d with a beard made white with other snows 
 Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp’d in clouds, 
 A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne 
 A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, 
 
 But urg’d by storms along its slipp’ry way, 
 
 I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st, 
 
96 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 And dreaded as thou art ! Thou hold’st the sun 
 A pris’ner in the yet undawning east, 
 
 Short’ning his journey between morn and noon, 
 And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, 
 
 Down to the rosy west; but kindly still 
 Compensating his loss with added hours 
 Of social converse and instructive ease, 
 
 And gath’ring, at short notice, in one group 
 The family dispers’d, and fixing thought, 
 
 Not less dispers’d by daylight and its cares. 
 
 I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
 
 Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness, 
 
 And all the comforts, that the lowly roof 
 Of undisturb’^ Retirement, and the hours 
 Of long uninterrupted ev’ning, know. 
 
 No rattling wheels stop short before these gates; 
 
 No powder’d pert proficient in the art 
 Of sounding an alarm assaults these doors 
 Till the street rings ; no stationary steeds 
 Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound 
 The silent circle fan themselves, and quake: 
 
 But here the needle plies its busy task, 
 
 The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow’r, 
 Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, 
 
 Unfolds its bosom,; buds, and leaves, and sprig?. 
 And curling tendrils gracefully dispos’d, 
 
 Follow the nimble finger of the fair; 
 
 A wreath, that cannot fade, or flowTs, that blow 
 With most success when all besides decay. 
 
 The poet’s or historian’s page by one 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 5)7 
 
 Made vocal for th’ amusement of the rest; 
 
 The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 
 The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out; 
 And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, 
 
 And in the charming strife triumphant still ; 
 
 Beguile the night, and set a keener edge 
 On female industry : the threaded steel 
 Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. 
 
 The volume clos’d, the customary rites 
 Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal ; 
 
 Such as the mistress of the world once found 
 Delicious, when her patriots of high note, 
 
 Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, 
 
 And under an old oak’s domestic shade. 
 
 Enjoy’d, spare feast ! a radish and an egg. 
 
 Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, 
 
 Nor such as with a frown forbids the play 
 Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth ; 
 
 Nor do we madly, like an impious World, 
 
 Who deem religion frenzy, and the God, 
 
 That made them, an intruder on their joys, 
 
 Start at his awful name, or deem his praise 
 A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone, 
 
 Exciting oft our gratitude and love, 
 
 While we retrace with Mem’ry’s poinling wand, 
 That calls the past to our exact review, 
 
 The dangers we have scap’d, the broken snare. 
 
 The disappointed foe, deliv’rance found 
 Unlook’d for, life preserv’d and peace restor’d. 
 
 Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. 
 
 F 
 
OB 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 O ev’nings worthy of the gods ! exclaim’d 
 The Sabine bard. O ev’nings, I reply, 
 
 More to be priz’d and coveted than yours, 
 
 As more illumin’d, and with nobler truths, 
 
 That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy. 
 
 Is Winter hideous in a garb like this? 
 
 Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, 
 
 The pent up breath of an unsav’ry throng, 
 
 To thaw him into feeling ; or the smart 
 And snappish dialogue, that flippant wits 
 Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile? 
 
 The self-complacent actor, when he views 
 (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) 
 
 The slope of faces, from the floor to th’ roof 
 (As if one master-spring controll’d them all), 
 Relax’d into a universal grin, 
 
 Sees not a count’nance there, that speaks of joy 
 Half so refin’d or so sincere as ours. 
 
 Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks, 
 That idleness has ever yet contriv’d, 
 
 To fill the void of an unfurnish’d brain, 
 
 To palliate dulness, and give time a shove. 
 
 Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing, 
 
 Unsoil’d, and swift, and of a silken sound; 
 
 But the World’s Time is Time in masquerade! 
 Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledg’d 
 With motley plumes; and, where the peacock shows 
 His azure eyes, is tinctur’d black and red 
 With spots quadrangular of diamond form, 
 Ensanguin’d hearts, clubs typical of strife, 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 99 
 
 And spades, the emblem of untimely graves. 
 
 What should be, and what was an hour-glass once, 
 Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mace 
 Well does the work of his destructive sitho. 
 
 Thus deck’d, he charms a World whom Fashion blinds 
 To his true worth, most pleas’d when idle most; 
 Whose only happy are their wasted hours. 
 
 Ev’n misses, at whose age their mothers wore 
 The backstring and the bib, assume the dress 
 Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school 
 Of card-devoted Time, and night by night 
 Plac’d at some vacant corner of the board, 
 
 Learn ev’ry trick, and soon play all the game. 
 
 But truce with censure. Roving as I rove, 
 
 Where shall I find an end, or how proceed? 
 
 As he that travels far oft turns aside, 
 
 To view some rugged rock or mould’ring tow’r, 
 Which seen delights him not; then coming home 
 Describes and prints it, that the world may know 
 How far he went for what was nothing worth ; 
 
 So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread, 
 
 With colours mix’d for a far dilf’rent use, 
 
 Paint cards, and dolls, and ev’ry idle thing, 
 
 That Fancy finds in her excursive flights. 
 
 Come Ev’ning, once again, season of peace; 
 Return sweet Ev’ning, and continue long ! 
 
 Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, 
 
 With matron step slow moving, while the night 
 treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ’d 
 In letting fall the curtain of repose 
 
100 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 On bird and beast, the other charg’d for man 
 With sweet oblivion of the cares of day : 
 
 Not sumptuously adorn’d, nor needing aid, 
 
 Like homely-featur’d Night, of clust’ring gems ; 
 
 A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow, 
 
 Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 
 No less than hers, not worn indeed on high 
 With ostentatious pageantry, but set 
 With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 
 Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 
 
 Come then, and thou shalt find thy vot’ry calm. 
 
 Or make me so. Composure is thy gift ; 
 
 And, whether I devote thy gentle hours 
 To books, to music, or the poet’s toil ; 
 
 To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit; 
 
 Or twining silken threads round iv’ry reels, 
 
 When they command whom man was born to please ; 
 I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still. 
 
 Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze 
 With lights, by clear reflection multiplied 
 From many a mirror, in which he of Gath, 
 
 Goliah, might have seen his giant bulk 
 Whole without stooping, tow’ring crest and all. 
 
 My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps 
 The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile 
 With faint illumination, that uplifts 
 The shadows to the ceiling, there by fits 
 Dancing uncouthly to the quiv’ring flame. 
 
 Not undelightful is an hour to me 
 So spent in parlour twilight: such a gloom 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 101 
 
 Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind, 
 
 The mind contemplative, with some new theme 
 Pregnant, or indispos’d alike to all. 
 
 Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial pow’rs, 
 That never feel a stupor, know no pause, 
 
 Nor need one ; I am conscious, and confess 
 Fearless a soul, that does not always think. 
 
 Me oft has Fancy ludicrous and wild 
 Sooth’d with a waking dream of houses, tow’rs. 
 Trees, churches, and strange visages, express’d 
 In the red cinders, while with poring eye 
 I gaz’d, myself creating what I saw. 
 
 Nor less amus’d have I quiescent watch’d 
 The sooty films, that play upon the bars 
 Pendulous, gmd foreboding in the view 
 Of superstition, prophesying still, 
 
 Though situ deceiv'd, some stranger's near approach. 
 ’Tis thus the understanding takes repose 
 In indolent vacuity of thought, 
 
 And sleeps and is refresh’d. Meanwhile the face 
 
 Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask 
 
 Of deep deliberation, as the man 
 
 Were task’d to his full strength, absorb’d and lost. 
 
 Thus oft, reclin’d at ease, I lose an hour 
 
 At ev’ning, till at length the freezing blast, 
 
 That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home 
 The recollected pow’rs ; and snapping short 
 The glassy threads, with which the Fancy weaves 
 Her brittle toils, restores me to myself. 
 
 IIow calm is my recess ; and how the frost, 
 
102 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK ]V. 
 
 Raging abroad, and the rough wind endear 
 The silence and the warmth enjoy’d within! 
 
 I saw the woods and fields at close of day 
 A. variegated show ; the meadows green, 
 
 Though faded; and the lands, where lately wav’d 
 The golden harvest, of a mellow brow n, 
 
 Upturn’d so lately by the forceful share. 
 
 I saw far off the weedy fallows smile 
 With verdure not unprofitable, graz’d 
 By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each 
 His fav’rite herb; while all the leafless groves, 
 That skirt th’ horizon, wore a sable hue, 
 
 Scarce notic’d in the kindred dusk of eve. 
 To-inorrow brings a change, a total change! 
 Which even now, though silently perform’d, 
 
 And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face 
 Of universal nature undergoes. 
 
 Fast falls a fleecy show’r: the downy flakes 
 Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse, 
 
 Softly alighting upon all below', 
 
 Assimilate all objects. Earth receives 
 Gladly the thick’ning mantle ; and the green 
 And tender blade, that fear’d the chilling blast, 
 Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil. 
 
 In such a world, so thorny, and U'here none 
 Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, 
 
 Without some thistly sorrow' at its side ; 
 
 It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin 
 Against the law of love, to measure lots 
 With less distinguish’d than ourselves ; that thus 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 103 
 
 We may with patience bear our mod’rate ills, 
 
 And sympathize with others suffering more. 
 
 Ill fares the trav’ller now, and he that stalks 
 In pond’rous boots beside his reeking team. 
 
 The wain goes heavily, impeded sore 
 By congregated loads adhering close 
 To the clogg’d wheels ; and in its sluggish pace 
 Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. 
 
 The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide, 
 
 While ev’ry breath, by respiration strong 
 Forc'd downward, is consolidated soon 
 Upon their jutting chests. He, form’d to bear 
 The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night, 
 
 With half-shut eyes, and pucker’d checks, and teeth 
 Presented bare against the storm, plods on. 
 
 One hand secures his hat, save when with both 
 
 He brandishes his pliant length of whip, 
 Resounding oft, and never heard in vain. 
 
 O happy; and in my account, denied 
 That sensibility of pain, with which 
 Refinement is endu’d, thrice happy thou ! 
 
 Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed 
 The piercing cold, but feels it unimpair’d. 
 
 The learned finger never need explore 
 Thy vig’rous pulse; and the unhealthful east, 
 
 That breathes the spleen, and searches ev’ry bone 
 Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. 
 
 Thy days roll on exempt from household care; 
 
 Thy waggon is thy wife ; and the poor beasts, 
 
 That drag the dull companion to and fro, 
 
1 04 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK !V. 
 
 Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. 
 
 Ah treat them kindly ! rude as thou appear’st, 
 Yet show that thou hast mercy! which the great, 
 With needless hurry whirl’d from place to place. 
 Humane as they would seem, not always show. 
 
 Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat, 
 
 Such claim compassion in a night like this, 
 
 And have a friend in ev’ry feeling heart. 
 
 Warm’d, while it lasts, by labour, all day long 
 They brave the season, and yet find at eve, 
 
 111 clad and fed but sparely, time to cool. 
 
 The frugal housewife trembles when she lights 
 Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear, 
 But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. 
 
 The few small embers left she nurses well ; 
 
 And, while her infant race, with outspread hands 
 
 And crowded knees, sit cow’ring o’er the sparks. 
 Retires, content to quake, so they be tvarm’d. 
 
 The man feels least, as more inur’d than she 
 To winter, and the current in his veins 
 More briskly mov’d by his severer toil ; 
 
 Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs. 
 
 The taper soon extinguish’d, which I saw 
 Dangled along at the cold finger’s end 
 Just when the day declin’d ; and the brown loaf 
 Lodg’d on the shelf, half eaten without sauce 
 Of sav’ry cheese, or butter, costlier still ; 
 
 Sleep seems their only refuge : for alas, 
 
 Where penury is felt the thought is chain’d. 
 
 And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few 1 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 105 
 
 With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care, 
 Ingenious Parsimony takes, but just 
 Saves the small inventory, bed, and stool, 
 
 Skillet, and old carv’d chest, from public sale. 
 
 They live, and live without extorted alms 
 From grudging hands ; but other boast have none. 
 To sooth their honest pride, that scorns to beg, 
 
 Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 
 
 I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair, 
 
 For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far 
 A dry but independent crust, hard earn’d, 
 
 And eaten with a sigh, than to endure 
 Thfi rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs 
 Of knaves in office, partial in the work 
 Of distribution; lib’ral of their aid 
 To clam’rous Importunity in rags, 
 
 But ofttimes deaf to suppliants, who would blush 
 To wear a tatter’d garb however coarse, 
 
 Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth : 
 
 These ask with painful shyness, and, refus’d 
 Because deserving, silently retire ! 
 
 But be ye of good courage ! Time itself 
 Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase ; 
 And all your num’rous progeny, well-train’d 
 But helpless, in few years shall find their hands, 
 And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not want 
 What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare, 
 
 Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send. 
 
 I mean the man, who, when the distant poor 
 Need help, denies them nothing but his name. 
 
 F 3 
 
106 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 But poverty with most, who whimper forth 
 Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe ; 
 
 The effect of laziness or sottish waste. 
 
 Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad 
 For plunder ; much solicitous how best 
 He may compensate for a day of sloth 
 By w'orks of darkness and nocturnal wrong. 
 
 Woe to the gard’ner’s pale, the farmer’s hedge, 
 Plash’d neatly, and secur’d with driven stakes 
 Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength, 
 Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame 
 To better deeds, he bundles up to the spoil, 
 
 An ass’s burden, and, when laden most 
 And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away. 
 
 Nor does the boarded hovel better guard 
 The well-stack’d pile of riven logs and roots 
 From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave 
 Unwrench’d the door, however well secur’d. 
 Where Chanticleer amidst his liaram sleeps 
 In unsuspecting pomp. Tw'itch’d from the perch, 
 He gives the princely bird, with all his wives, 
 
 To his voracious bag, struggling in vain, 
 
 And loudly wond’ring at the sudden change. 
 
 Nor this to feed his own. ’Twere some excuse, 
 Did pity of their suff’rings warp aside 
 His principle, and tempt him into sin 
 For their support, so destitute. But they 
 Neglected pine at home; themselves, as more 
 Expos’d than others, with less scruple made 
 His victims, robb’d of their defenceless all. 
 
W1NTEK EVENING. 
 
 107 
 
 Cruel is all he does. ’Tis quenchless thirst 
 
 Of ruinous ebriety, that prompts 
 
 His ev’ry action, and imbrutes the man. 
 
 O for a law to noose the villain’s neck, 
 
 Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood 
 He gave them in his childrens' veins, and hates 
 And wrongs the woman, he has sworn to love ! 
 
 Pass where we may, through city or through town, 
 Village or hamlet, of this merry land, 
 
 Though lean and beggar’d, ev’ry twentieth pace 
 Conducts th’ unguarded nose to such a whiff 
 Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes, 
 
 That Law has licens’d, as makes Temp’rance reel. 
 There sit, involv’d and lost in curling clouds 
 Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, 
 
 The lackey, and the groom : the craftsman there 
 Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil ; 
 
 Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, 
 
 And he that kneads the dough; all loud alike, 
 
 All learned, and all drunk ! The fiddle screams 
 Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail’d 
 Its wasted tones and harmony unheard : 
 
 Fierce the dispute whate’er the theme ; while she, 
 Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, 
 
 Perch’d on the signpost, holds with even hand 
 Her undecisive scales. In this she lays 
 A weight of ignorance ; in that, of pride ; 
 
 And smiles delighted with the eternal poise. 
 
 Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound 
 The cheek-distending oath, not to be prais’d 
 
108 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 As ornamental, musical, polite, 
 
 Like those, which modern senators employ, 
 
 Whose oath is rhet’ric, and who swear for fame ! 
 Behold the schools, in which plebeian minds 
 Once simple are initiated in arts, 
 
 Which some may practise with politer grace, 
 
 But none with readier skill ! — 7 tis here they learn 
 The road, that leads from competence and peace 
 To indigence and rapine; till at last 
 Society, grown weary of the load, 
 
 Shakes her encumber’d lap, and casts them out. 
 
 But censure profits little: vain th’ attempt 
 To advertise in verse a public pest, 
 
 That like the filth, with which the peasant feeds 
 His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. 
 
 Th’ excise is fatten’d with the rich result 
 Of all this riot ; and ten thousand casks, 
 
 For ever dribbling out their base contents. 
 
 Touch’d by the Midas finger of the state, 
 
 Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. 
 
 Drink, and be mad then ; ’tis your country bids ! 
 Gloriously drunk obey th’ important call ! 
 
 Her cause demands th’ assistance of your throats 
 Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. 
 
 Would I had fall’n upon those happier days, 
 That poets celebrate ; those golden times, 
 
 And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings, 
 
 And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose. 
 
 Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts. 
 That felt their virtues ; Innocence, it seems, 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 109 
 
 From courts dismiss’d, found shelter in the groves ; 
 The footsteps of Simplicity, impress’d 
 Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing), 
 
 Then were not all effac’d: then speech profane, 
 
 And manners profligate, were rarely found, 
 
 Observ’d as prodigies, and soon reclaim’d. 
 
 Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreams 
 Sat for the picture: and the poet’s hand, 
 
 Imparting substance to an empty shade, 
 
 Impos’d a gay delirium for a truth. 
 
 Grant it: I still must envy them an age, 
 
 That favour’d such a dream; in days like these 
 Impossible, when Virtue is so scarce, 
 
 That to suppose a scene where she presides, 
 
 Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief. 
 
 No : we are polish’d now. The rural lass, 
 
 Whom once her virgin modesty and grace, 
 
 Her artless manners, and her neat attire, 
 
 So dignified, that she was hardly less 
 Than the fair shepherdess of old romance, 
 
 Is seen no more. The character is lost ! 
 
 Her head, adorn’d with lappets pinn’d aloft, 
 
 And ribbands streaming gay, superbly rais’d, 
 
 And magnified beyond all human size, 
 
 Indebted to some smart wig-weaver’s hand 
 For more than half the tresses it sustains ; 
 
 Her elbows ruffled, and her tott’ring form 
 III propp’d upon French heels; she might be deem’d 
 (But that the basket dangling on her arm 
 Interprets her more truly) of a rank 
 
110 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Too proud for dairy work, or sale of eggs. 
 
 Expect her soon with footboy at her heels, 
 
 No longer blushing for her awkward load, 
 
 Her train and her umbrella all her care ! 
 
 The town has ting’d the country ; and the stain 
 Appears a spot upon a vestal’s robe, 
 
 The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs 
 Down into scenes still rural ; but alas, 
 
 Scenes rarely grac’d with rural manners now ! 
 
 Time was when in the pastoral retreat 
 
 Tli’ unguarded door was safe ; men did not watch 
 
 T’ invade another’s right, or guard their own. 
 
 Then sleep was undisturb’d by fear, unscar’d 
 By drunken howlings ; and the chilling tale 
 Of midnight murder was a wonder heard 
 With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes. 
 
 But farewell now to unsuspicious nights, 
 
 And slumbers unalarm’d! Now, ere you sleep, 
 
 See that your polish’d arms be prim’d with care, 
 And drop the nightbolt ruffians are abroad ; 
 
 And the first larum of the cock’s shrill throat 
 May prove a trumpet, summoning your ear 
 To horrid sounds of hostile feet within. 
 
 Ev’n daylight has its dangers; and the walk 
 Through pathless wastes and woods, unconscious once 
 Of other tenants than melodious birds, 
 
 Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold. 
 
 Lamented change ! to which full many a cause 
 Invet’rate, hopeless of a cure, conspires. 
 
 The course of human things from good to ill, 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 Ill 
 
 From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. 
 
 Increase of power begets increase of wealth ; 
 Wealth luxury, and luxury excess; 
 
 Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague, 
 
 That seizes first the opulent, descends 
 To the next rank contagious, and in time 
 Taints downward all the graduated scale 
 Of order, from the chariot to the plough. 
 
 The rich, and they that have an arm to check 
 The license of the lowest in degree, 
 
 Desert their office ; and themselves, intent 
 On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus 
 To all the violence of lawless hands 
 Resign the scenes, their presence might protect. 
 Authority itself not seldom sleeps, 
 
 Though resident, and witness of the wrong. 
 
 The plump convivial parson often bears 
 The magisterial sword in vain, and lays 
 His rev’rence and his worship both to rest 
 On the same cushion of habitual sloth. 
 
 Perhaps timidity restrains his arm ; 
 
 When he should strike he trembles, and sets free, 
 Himself enslav’d by terror of the band, 
 
 Til’ audacious convict, whom he dares not bind. 
 Perhaps though by profession ghostly pure, 
 
 He too may have his vice, and sometimes prove 
 Less dainty than becomes his grave outside 
 In lucrative concerns. Examine well 
 His milk-white hand ; the palm is hardly clean — 
 But here and there an ugly smutch appears. 
 
112 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Foh ! ’twas a bribe that left it : he has touch’d 
 Corruption. Whoso seeks an audit here 
 Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish, 
 Wildfowl or ven’son; and his errand speeds. 
 
 But faster far, and more than all the rest, 
 
 A noble cause, which none who bears a spark 
 Of public virtue, ever wish’d remov’d, 
 
 Works the deplor’d and mischievous elfect. 
 
 'Tis universal soldiership has stabb’d 
 The heart of merit in the meaner class. 
 
 Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage 
 Of those that bear them, in whatever cause, 
 
 Seem most at variance with all moral good. 
 
 And incompatible with serious thought. 
 
 The clown, the child of nature, without guile, 
 Blest with an infant’s ignorance of all 
 But his own simple pleasures ; now and then 
 A wrestling match, a foot race, or a fair; 
 
 Is ballotted, and trembles at the news: 
 
 Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears 
 A bible-oath to be whate’er they please, 
 
 To do he knows not what. The task perform’d, 
 That instant he becomes the sergeant’s care, 
 
 His pupil, and his torment, and his jest. 
 
 His awkward gait, his introverted toes, 
 
 Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks , 
 Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees, 
 Unapt to learn, and form’d of stubborn stuff, 
 
 He yet by slow degrees puts off himself, 
 
 Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well : 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 He stands erect; bis slouch becomes a walk; 
 
 He steps right onward, martial in his air, 
 
 His form, and movement; is as smart above 
 As meal and larded locks can make him ; wears 
 His hat, or his plum’d helmet, with a grace; 
 
 And, his three years of heroship expir’d, 
 
 Returns indignant to the slighted plough. 
 
 He hates the field in which no fife or drum 
 Attends him ; drives his cattle to a march; 
 
 And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. 
 ’Twere well if his exterior change were all — 
 
 But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost 
 His ignorance and harmless manners too. 
 
 To swear, to game, to drink ; to show at home 
 By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach, 
 
 The great proficiency he made abroad : 
 
 T’ astonish and to grieve his gazing friends; 
 
 To break some maiden’s and his mother’s heart; 
 To be a pest where he was useful once ; 
 
 Are his sole aim, and all his glory, now. 
 
 Man in society is like a flow’r 
 Blown in its native bed : ’tis there alone 
 His faculties, expanded in full bloom, 
 
 Shine out ; there only reach their proper use. 
 But man, associated and leagu’d with man 
 By regal warrant, or self-join’d by bond 
 For int’rest sake, or swarming into clans 
 Beneath one head for purposes of war, 
 
 Like flow’rs selected from the rest, and bound 
 And bundled close to fill some crowded vase. 
 
114 . 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Fades rapidly, and, by compression marr’d, 
 Contracts defilement not to be endur’d. 
 
 Hence charter’d boroughs are such public plagues; 
 And burghers, men immaculate perhaps 
 In all their private functions, once combin’d, 
 Become a loathsome body, only fit 
 For dissolution, hurtful to the main. 
 
 Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin 
 Against the charities of domestic life, 
 
 Incorporated seem at once to lose 
 Their nature ; and disclaiming all regard 
 For mercy and the common rights of man, 
 
 Build factories with blood, conducting trade 
 At the sword’s point, and dyeing the white robe 
 Of innocent commercial Justice red. 
 
 Hence too the field of glory, as the world 
 Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array, 
 
 With all its majesty of thund’ring pomp, 
 Enchanting music, and immortal wreaths, 
 
 Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught 
 On principle, where foppery atones 
 For folly, gallantry for ev’ry vice. 
 
 But slighted as it is, and by the great 
 Abandon’d, and, which still I more regret, 
 
 Infected with the manners and the modes, 
 
 It knew not once, the country wins me still. 
 
 I never fram’d a wish, or form’d a plan, 
 
 That flatter’d me Avith hopes of earthly bliss, 
 
 But there I laid the scene. There early stray’d 
 My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 115 
 
 Had found me, or the hope of being free. 
 
 My very dreams were rural ; rural too 
 The first-born efforts of my youthful muse, 
 
 Sportive and jingling her poetic bells, 
 
 Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow’rs. 
 
 No bard could please me, but whose lyre was tun’d 
 To Nature’s praises. Heroes and their feats 
 Fatigu’d me, never weary of the pipe 
 Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang, 
 
 The rustic throng beneath his fav’rite beech. 
 
 Then Milton had indeed a poet’s charms : 
 
 New to my taste his Paradise surpass’d 
 The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue 
 To speak its excellence. I danc’d for joy. 
 
 I marvell’d much, that, at so ripe au age 
 As twice seven years, bis beauties bad then first 
 Engag’d my wonder; and admiring still, 
 
 And still admiring, with regret suppos’d 
 The joy half lost because not sooner found. 
 
 There too enamour’d of the life I lov’d, 
 
 Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit 
 Determin’d, and possessing it at last 
 With transports, such as favour’d lovers feel, 
 
 I studied, priz’d, and wish’d that I had known, 
 Ingenious Cowley ! and, though now reclaim’d 
 By modern lights from an erroneous taste, 
 
 I cannot but lament thy splendid wit 
 Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. 
 
 I still revere thee, courtly though retir’d; 
 
 Though stretch’d at ease in Chertsey’s silent bow’rs, 
 
1 1G 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Not unemploy’d ; and finding rich amends 
 For a lost world in solitude and verse. 
 
 ’Tis born with all: the love of Nature’s works 
 Is an ingredient in the compound man, 
 
 Infus’d at the creation of the kind. 
 
 And, though th’ Almighty Maker has throughout 
 Discriminated each from each, by strokes 
 And touches of his hand, with so much art 
 Diversified, that two were never found 
 Twins at all points— yet this obtains in all, 
 
 That all discern a beauty in his works, 
 
 And all can taste them : minds, that have been form’d 
 And tutor’d, with a relish more exact, 
 
 But none without some relish, none unmov’d. 
 
 It is a flame, that dies not even there, 
 
 Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds. 
 Nor habits of luxurious city life. 
 
 Whatever else they smother of true worth 
 In human bosoms ; quench it or abate. 
 
 The villas, with which London stands begirt, 
 
 Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads, 
 
 Prove it. A breath of unadult’rate air, 
 
 The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer 
 The citizen, and brace his languid frame ! 
 
 Ev’n in the stifling bosom of the town 
 A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms. 
 That sooth the rich possessor ; much consol’d 
 That here and there some sprigs of mournful mini, 
 Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well 
 tie cultivates. These serve him with a hint. 
 
WINTER EVENING. 
 
 117 
 
 That Nature lives ; that sight-refreshing green 
 Is still the liv’ry she delights to wear, 
 
 Though sickly samples of th’ exub’rant whole. 
 What are the casements lin’d with creeping herbs, 
 The prouder sashes fronted with a range 
 Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed, 
 
 The Frenchman’s darling*? are they not all proofs, 
 That man, immur’d in cities, still retains 
 His inborn inextinguishable thirst 
 Of rural scenes, compensating his loss 
 By supplemental shifts, the best he may? 
 
 The most unfurnish’d with the means of life, 
 
 And they, that never pass their brick-wall bounds, 
 To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air, 
 Yet feel the burning instinct: over head 
 Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick. 
 
 And water’d duly. There the pitcher stands 
 A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there; 
 
 Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets 
 The country, with what ardour he contrives 
 A peep at Nature, when he can no more. 
 
 Hail, therefore, patroness of health, and ease, 
 And contemplation, heart-consoling joys 
 And harmless pleasures, in the throng’d abode 
 Of multitudes unknown ; hail, rural life ! 
 
 Address himself who will to the pursuit 
 Of honours, or emolument, or fame ; 
 
 I shall not add myself to such a chase, 
 
 Thwart his attempts, or envy his success. 
 
 * Miguomiette. 
 
118 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK LV. 
 
 Some must be great. Great offices will have 
 Great talents. And God gives to ev’ry man 
 The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, 
 
 That lifts him into life, and lets him fall 
 Just in the niche, he was ordain’d to fill. 
 
 To the deliv’rer of an injur’d land 
 He gives a tongue t’ enlarge upon, a heart 
 To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs ; 
 To monarchs dignity; to judges sense; 
 
 To artists ingenuity and skill ; 
 
 To me an unambitious mind, content 
 In the low vale of life, that early felt 
 A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long 
 Found here that leisure and that ease I wish’d. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 Forth goes the woodman, leaving- unconcerned 
 The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe 
 And drive the wedg-e in yonder forest drear, 
 
 DEIAWN BY RICHARD WE STALL RA. ENGRAVED BY F. ENGLE HEART; 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY . 
 
 OCT. 1.1817. 
 

THE TASK 
 
 book y. 
 
 THE WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 A frosty morning. — The foddering of cattle.— The woodman and his 
 dog. — The poultry.— Whimsical effects of a frost at a waterfall.— The 
 Empress of Russia’s palace of ice — Amusements of monarchs. — 
 War, one of them. — Wars, whence — And whence monarchy. — The 
 evils of it.— English and French loyalty contrasted. — The Bastile, 
 
 and a prisoner there Liberty the chief recommendation of this 
 
 country. — Modern patriotism questionable, and u'liy. — The perish- 
 able nature of the best human institutions.— Spiritual liberty not 
 perishable — The slavish state of man by nature.— Deliver him, 
 Deist, if you can. — Grace must do it. — The respective merits of 
 patriots and martyrs stated. — Their different treatment. — Happy 
 freedom of the man whom grace makes free. — His relish of the 
 works of God — Address to the Creator. 
 
 Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb 
 Ascending, fires th’ horizon; while the clouds, 
 That crowd aw ay before the driving wind, 
 
 More ardent as the disk emerges more, 
 
 Resemble most some city in a blaze, 
 
 Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray 
 
120 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, 
 
 And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, 
 
 From ev’ry herb and ev’ry spiry blade 
 Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. 
 
 Mine, spindling into longitude immense, 
 
 In spite of gravity, and sage remark 
 That I myself am but a fleeting shade, 
 
 Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance 
 I view the muscular proportion’d limb 
 Transform’d to a lean shank. The shapeless pair, 
 As they design’d to mock me, at my side 
 Take step for step ; and, as I near approach 
 The cottage, walk along the plaster’d wall, 
 Prepost’rous sight ! the legs without the man. 
 
 The verdure of the plain lies buried deep 
 Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, 
 
 And coarser grass, upspearing o’er the rest, 
 
 Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine 
 Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, 
 
 And, fledg’d with icy feathers, nod superb. 
 
 The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence 
 Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep 
 In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait 
 Their wonted fodder ; not like hung’ring man. 
 Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek, 
 
 And patient of the slow-pac’d swain’s delay. 
 
 He from the stack carves out th’ accustom’d load, 
 Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, 
 
 His broad keen knife into the solid mass: 
 
 Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands. 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 121 
 
 With such undeviating and even force 
 He severs it away: no needless care, 
 
 Lest storms should overset the leaning pile 
 Deciduous, or its own unbalanc’d weight. 
 
 Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern’d 
 The cheerful haunts of man ; to wield the axe, 
 
 And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear, 
 
 From morn to eve his solitary task. 
 
 Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears 
 And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur, 
 His dog attends him. Close behind his heel 
 Now creeps he slow ; and now, with many a frisk 
 Wide-scamp’ring, snatches up the drifted snow 
 With iv’ry teeth, or ploughs it with his snout ; 
 
 Then shakes his powder’d coat, and barks for joy. 
 Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl 
 Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught, 
 But now and then with pressure of his thumb 
 T’ adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, 
 
 That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud 
 Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. 
 
 Now from the roost, or from the neighb’ring pale, 
 Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam 
 Of smiling day, they gossip’d side by side, 
 
 Come trooping at the housewife’s well-known call 
 The feather’d tribes domestic. Half on wing, 
 
 And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, 
 Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. 
 
 The sparrows peep, and quit the shelt’ring eaves, ' 
 To seize the fair occasion ; well they eye 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 The scatter’d grain, and thievishly resolv’d 
 T’ escape th’ impending famine, often scar’d 
 As oft return, a pert voracious kind. 
 
 Clean riddance quickly made, one only care 
 Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, 
 
 Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign’d 
 To sad necessity, the cock foregoes 
 His wonted strut ; and, wading at their head 
 With well-consider’d steps, seems to resent 
 His alter’d gait and stateliness retrench’d. 
 
 How find the myriads, that in summer cheer 
 The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, 
 
 Due sustenance, or where subsist they now ? 
 
 Earth yields them nought; th’ imprison’d worm is safe 
 Beneath the frozen clod ; all seeds of herbs 
 Lie cover’d close ; and berry-bearing thorns, 
 
 That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose), 
 Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. 
 
 The long protracted rigour of the year 
 
 Thins all their nnm’rous flocks. In chinks and holes 
 
 Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, 
 
 As instinct prompts ; self-buried ere they die. 
 
 The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, 
 
 Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now 
 Repays their labour more ; and perch’d aloft 
 By the w ay side, or stalking in the path, 
 
 Lean pensioners upon the traveller’s track, 
 
 Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them, 
 Of voided pulse or half-digested grain. 
 
 The streams are lost amid the splendid blank, 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 123 
 
 O’erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, 
 Indurated and fix’d, the snowy weight 
 Lies undissolv’d ; while silently beneath, 
 
 And unperceiv’d, the current steals away. 
 
 Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps 
 The milldam, dashes on the restless wheel, 
 
 And wantons in the pebbly gulf below : 
 
 No frost can bind it there; its utmost force 
 Can but arrest the light and smoky mist. 
 
 That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. 
 
 And see where it has hung th’ embroider’d banks 
 With forms so various, that no pow’rs of art, 
 
 The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene ! 
 
 Here glitt’ring turrets rise, upbearing high 
 (Fantastic misarrangement !) on the roof 
 Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees 
 And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops, 
 
 That trickle down the branches, fast congeal’d, 
 Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, 
 
 And prop the pile they but adorn’d before. 
 
 Here grotto within grotto safe defies 
 
 The sunbeam ; there, emboss’d and fretted wild, 
 
 The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes 
 Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain 
 The likeness of some object seen before. 
 
 Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art, 
 
 And in defiance of her rival pow’rs; 
 
 By these fortuitous and random strokes 
 Performing such inimitable feats, 
 
 As she with all her rules can never reach. 
 
 c, 2 
 
124 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Less worthy of applause, though more admir’d, 
 Because a novelty, the work of man, 
 
 Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ, 
 
 Thy most magnificent and mighty freak, 
 
 The wonder of the North. No forest fell, 
 
 When thou wouldst build ; no quarry sent its stores, 
 T’ enrich thy walls ; but thou didst hew the floods, 
 And make thy marble of the glassy wave. 
 
 In such a palace Aristaeus found 
 Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale 
 Of his lost bees to her maternal ear : 
 
 In such a palace Poetry might place 
 The armory of Winter ; where his troops, 
 
 The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, 
 Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, 
 
 And snow, that often blinds the traveler’s course. 
 And wraps him in an unexpected tomb. 
 
 Silently as a dream the fabric rose ; 
 
 No sound of hammer or of saw was there : 
 
 Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts 
 Were soon conjoin’d, nor other cement ask’d 
 Than water interfus’d to make them one. 
 
 Lamps gracefully dispos’d, and of all hues, 
 
 Illumin’d ev’ry side: a wat’ry light 
 Gleam’d through the clear transparency, that seem’d 
 Another moon new ris’n, or meteor fall’n 
 From Heav’n to Earth, of lambent flame serene. 
 
 So stood the brittle prodigy ; though smooth 
 And slipp’ry the materials, yet frost-bound 
 Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within, 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 1 25 
 
 That royal residence might well befit, 
 
 For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths 
 Of flow’rs, that fear’d no enemy but warmth, 
 Blush’d on the pannels. Mirror needed none 
 Where all was vitreous ; but in order due 
 Convivial table and commodious seat 
 (What seem’d at least commodious seat) were there ; 
 Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august. 
 
 The same lubricity was found in all, 
 
 And all w'as moist to the warm touch ; a scene 
 Of evanescent glory, once a stream, 
 
 And soon to slide into a stream again. 
 
 Alas ! ’twas but a mortifying stroke 
 Of undesign’d severity, that glanc’d 
 (Made by a monarch) on her own estate, 
 
 On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 
 
 ’Twas transient in its nature, as in show 
 ’Twas durable ; as worthless, as it seem’d 
 Intrinsically precious ; to the foot 
 Treach’rous and false; it smil’d, and it was cold. 
 
 Great princes have great playthings. Some have 
 At hewing mountains into men, and some [play’d 
 At building human wonders mountain-high. 
 
 Some have amus’d the dull sad years of life 
 (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad), 
 
 With schemes of monumental fame; and sought 
 By pyramids and mausolean pomp, 
 
 Shortliv’d themselves, t’ immortalize their bones. 
 Some seek diversion in the tented field, 
 
 And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 
 
I 2t> 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, 
 Kings would not play at. Nations would do well, 
 T’ extort 1 heir truncheons from the puny hands 
 Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds 
 Are gralificd with mischief; and who spoil. 
 
 Because men suffer it, their toy the world. 
 
 When Babel was confounded, and the great 
 Confed’racy of projectors wild and vain 
 Was split into diversity of tongues, 
 
 Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, 
 
 These to the upland, to the valley those, 
 
 God drove asunder, and assign’d their lot 
 
 To all the nations. Ample was the boon 
 
 He gave them, in its distribution fair 
 
 And equal : and he bade them dwell in peace. 
 
 Peacewas awhile their care: they plough’d, and sow* ’d, 
 
 And reap’d their plenty without grudge or strife. 
 
 But violence can never longer sleep 
 Than human passions please. In ev’ry heart 
 Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war; 
 
 Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze. 
 
 Cain had already shed a brother’s blood : 
 
 The deluge wash’d it out; but left unquench’d 
 The seeds of murder in the breast of man. 
 
 Soon by a righteous judgment in the line 
 Of his descending progeny was found 
 The first artificer of death ; the shrewd 
 Contriver, who first sweated at the forge, 
 
 And forc’d the blunt and yet unbloodied steel 
 To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 127 
 
 Him, Tubal nam’d, the Vulcan of old times, 
 
 The sword and falchion their inventor claim ; 
 
 And the first smith was the first murd’rer’s son. 
 
 His art surviv’d the waters ; and ere long, 
 
 When man was multiplied and spread abroad 
 In tribes and clans, and had begun to call 
 These meadows and that range of hills his own, 
 
 The tasted sweets of property begat 
 Desire of more ; and industry in some, 
 
 T’ improve and cultivate their just demesne, 
 
 Made others covet what they saw so fair. 
 
 Thus war began on Earth: these fought for spoil, 
 And those in self-defence. Savage at first 
 The onset, and irregular. At length 
 One eminent above the rest for strength, 
 
 For stratagem, for courage, or for all, 
 
 Was chosen leader; him they serv’d in war, 
 
 And him in peace, for sake of w arlike deeds, 
 Kev’renc’d no less. Who could with him compare ? 
 Or who so worthy to control themselves, 
 
 As he, whose prowess had subdu’d their foes? 
 
 Thus war, affording field for the display 
 Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, 
 Which have their exigencies too, and call 
 For skill in government, at length made king. 
 
 King was a name too proud for man to w'car 
 With modesty and meekness; and the crown, 
 
 So dazzling in their eyes, who set it on, 
 
 Was sure t’ intoxicate the brows it bound. 
 
 It is the abject property of most, 
 
28 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 HOOK V. 
 
 That, being parcel of the common mass, 
 
 And destitute of means to raise themselves, 
 They sink, and settle lower than they need. 
 They know not what it is to feel within 
 A comprehensive faculty, that grasps 
 Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields. 
 Almost without an effort, plans too vast 
 For their conception, which they cannot move. 
 Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunk 
 With gazing, when they see an able man 
 Step forth to notice: and besotted thus 
 Build him a pedestal, and say, “ Stand there, 
 And be our admiration and our praise.” 
 
 They roll themselves before him in the dust, 
 Then most deserving in their own account, 
 When most extravagant in his applause, 
 
 As if exalting him they rais’d themselves. 
 
 Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound 
 And sober judgment, that he is but man, 
 
 They demi-deify and fume him so, 
 
 That in due season he forgets it too. 
 
 Inflated and astrut with self-conceit, 
 
 He gulps the windy diet ; and ere long, 
 Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks 
 The World was made in vain, if not for him. 
 Thenceforth they are his cattle : drudges, born 
 To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears, 
 
 And sweating in his service, his caprice 
 Becomes the soul that animates them all. 
 
 He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives. 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 129 
 
 Spent in the purchase of renown for him, 
 
 An easy reckoning ; and they think the same. 
 
 Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings 
 Were burnish’d into heroes, and became 
 The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp ; 
 
 Storks among frogs, that have but croak’d and died. 
 Strange, that such folly, as lifts bloated man 
 To eminence fit only for a god, 
 
 Should ever drivel out of human lips, 
 
 Even in the cradled weakness of the world ! 
 
 Still stranger much, that when at length mankind 
 Had reach’d the sinewy firmness of their youth, 
 
 And could discriminate and argue well 
 On subjects more mysterious, they were yet 
 Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear 
 And quake before the gods themselves bad made : 
 But above measure strange, that neither proof 
 Of sad experience, nor examples set 
 By some whose patriot virtue has prevail’d, 
 
 Can even now, when they are grown mature 
 In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds 
 Familiar, serve t’ emancipate the rest! 
 
 Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone 
 To rev’rence what is ancient, and can plead 
 A course of long observance for its use, 
 
 That even servitude, the worst of ills, 
 
 Because deliver’d down from sire to son, 
 
 Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. 
 
 But is it fit, or can it bear the shock 
 Of rational discussion, that a man, 
 
 0 3 
 
130 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Compounded and made up like other men 
 Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust 
 And folly in as ample measure meet, 
 
 As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, 
 
 Should be a despot absolute, and boast 
 Himself the only freeman of his land? 
 
 Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will, 
 Wage war, with any or with no pretence 
 Of provocation giv’n, or wrong sustain’d, 
 
 And force the beggarly last doit by means, 
 
 That his own humour dictates, from the clutch 
 Of Poverty, that thus he may procure 
 His thousands, weary of penurious life, 
 
 A splendid opportunity to die ? 
 
 Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old 
 Jotham ascrib’d to his assembled trees 
 In politic convention) put your trust 
 I’tli’ shadow of a bramble, and reclin’d 
 In fancied peace beneath his dang’rous branch, 
 Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway, 
 
 Where find ye passive fortitude ? Whence springs 
 Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good 
 To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang 
 His thorns with streamers of continual praise ? 
 We too are friends to loyalty. We love 
 The king, who loves the law, respects his bounds. 
 And reigns content within them ; him we serve 
 Freely and with delight, who leaves us free : 
 
 But, recollecting still, that he is man, 
 
 We trust him not too far. King though he be, 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 And king in England too, he may be weak, 
 
 And vain enough to be ambitious still; 
 
 May exercise amiss his proper pow’rs, 
 
 Or covet more than freemen choose to grant ! 
 Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, 
 
 T’ administer, to guard, t’ adorn, the state, 
 
 But not to warp or change it. We are his, 
 
 To serve him nobly in the common cause, 
 
 True to the death, but not to be his slaves. 
 
 Mark now the diff’rence, ye that boast your love 
 Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. 
 
 We love the man, the paltry pageant you : 
 
 We the chief patron of the commonwealth, 
 
 You the regardless author of its woes: 
 
 We for the sake of liberty a king, 
 
 You chains and bondage for a tyrant’s sake. 
 
 Our love is principle, and has its root 
 In reason, is judicious, manly, free ; 
 
 Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 
 
 And licks the foot, that treads it in the dust. 
 Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, 
 Sterling, and worthy of a wise man’s wish, 
 
 I would not be a king to be belov’d 
 Causeless, and daub’d with undiscerning praise, 
 Where love is mere attachment to the throne, 
 Not to the man, who fills it as he ought. 
 
 Whose freedom is by suff’rance, and at will 
 Of a superior, he is never free. 
 
 Who lives, and is not weary of a life 
 Expos’d to manacles, deserves them well. 
 
13 > 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 The state that strives for liberty, though foil’d. 
 
 And forc’d to abandon what she bravely sought, 
 Deserves at least applause for her attempt, 
 
 And pity for her loss. But that’s a cause 
 Not often unsuccessful ; pow’r usurp’d 
 Is weakness when oppos’d ; conscious of wrong, 
 ’Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. 
 
 But slaves, that once conceive the glowing thought 
 
 Of freedom, in that hope itself possess 
 
 All that the contest calls for ; spirit, strength, 
 
 The scorn of danger, and united hearts; 
 
 The surest presage of the good they seek *. 
 
 Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more 
 To France than all her losses and defeats, 
 
 Old or of later date, by sea or land, 
 
 Her house of bondage, worse than that of old 
 Which God aveng’d on Pharaoh — the Bastile. 
 
 Ye horrid tow’rs, the abode of broken hearts; 
 
 Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair, 
 
 That monarchs have supplied from age to age 
 With music, such as suits their sov’reign ears, 
 
 The sighs and groans of miserable men ! 
 
 There’s not an English heart, that would not leap 
 To hear that ye were fall’n at last; to know, 
 
 That ev’n our enemies, so oft employ’d 
 
 * The author hopes, that he shall not he censured for unnecessary 
 warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware, that it is become 
 almost fashionable, to stigmatize such sentiments as no better than 
 empty declamation ; but it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern 
 times. 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 133 
 
 In forging chains for us, themselves were free. 
 
 For he, who values Liberty, confines 
 His zeal for her predominance within 
 No narrow bounds ; her cause engages him 
 Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man. 
 
 There dwell the most forlorn of humankind, 
 Immur’d though unaccus’d, condemn’d untried, 
 Cruelly spar’d, and hopeless of escape. 
 
 There, like the visionary emblem seen 
 By him of Babylon, life stands a stump, 
 
 And, filletted about with hoops of brass, 
 
 Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone. 
 To count the hour-bell and expect no change; 
 
 And ever, as the sullen sound is heard, 
 
 Still to reflect, that, though a joyless note 
 To him, whose moments all have one dull pace, 
 Ten thousand rovers in the World at large 
 Account it music; that it summons some 
 To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball : 
 
 The wearied hireling finds it a release 
 From labour ; and the lover, who has chid 
 Its long delay, feels ev’ry welcome stroke 
 Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight — 
 To fly for refuge from distracting thought 
 To such amusements, as ingenious woe 
 Contrives, hard-shifting, and without her tools— 
 
 To read engraven on the mouldy walls, 
 
 In stagg’ring types, his predecessor’s tale, 
 
 A sad memorial, and subjoin his own — 
 
 To turn purveyor to an overgorg’d 
 
134 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 And bloated spider, till the pamper’d pest 
 Is made familiar, watches his approach, 
 
 Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend-^- 
 To wear out time in numb’ring to and fro 
 The studs, that thick emboss his iron door; 
 
 Then downward and then upward, then aslant 
 And then alternate; with a sickly hope 
 By dint of change to give his tasteless task 
 Some relish ; till, the sum exactly found 
 In all directions, he begins again— 
 
 Oh comfortless existence ! hemm’d around 
 With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel 
 And beg for exile, or the pangs of death? 
 
 That man should thus encroach on fellow man, 
 Abridge him of his just and native rights, 
 Eradicate him, tear him from his hold 
 Upon th’ endearments of domestic life 
 And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, 
 
 And doom him for perhaps a heedless word 
 To barrenness, and solitude, and tears, 
 
 Moves indignation ; makes the name of king 
 (Of king whom such prerogative can please) 
 
 As dreadful as the Manichean god, 
 
 Ador’d through fear, strong only to destroy. 
 
 'Tis liberty alone, that gives the tlow’r 
 Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; 
 
 And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
 Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 
 
 Is evil : hurts the faculties, impedes 
 Their progress in the road of science ; blinds 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 135 
 
 The eyesight of Discov’ry ; and begets 
 In those that suffer it a sordid mind 
 Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 
 To be the tenant of man’s noble form. 
 
 Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art, 
 With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez’d 
 By public exigence, till annual food 
 Fails for the craving hunger of the state, 
 
 Thee I account still happy, and the chief 
 Among the nations, seeing thou art free; 
 
 My native nook of earth ! Thy clime is rude, 
 Replete with vapours, and disposes much 
 All hearts to saduess, and none more than mine : 
 Thine unadult’rate 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 starv’d 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, 
 Disgrac’d as thou hast been, poor as thou art, 
 
 To seek no sublunary rest beside. 
 
 But once enslav’d farewell! I could endure 
 Chains no where 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 
 
133 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 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, 
 
 And tremble at vain dreams ? Heav’n grant I may ! 
 But th’ 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 belov’d ? 
 
 ’Tis therefore sober and good men are sad 
 For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale 
 And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 137 
 
 >So loose to private duty, that no brain, 
 
 Healthful and undisturb’d by factious fumes, 
 
 Can dream them trusty to the gen’ral weal. 
 
 Such were not they of old, whose temper’d blades 
 Dispers’d the shackles of usurp’d control, 
 
 And hew’d them link from link: then Albion’s sons 
 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 promis’d 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 Heav’n 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 unprais’d, 
 
 Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the pow’rs 
 Of Barth and Hell confed’rate take away: 
 
138 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 A liberty, which persecution, fraud, 
 
 Oppression, prisons, have no pow’r to bind ; 
 Which whoso tastes can be enslav’d no more. 
 ’Tis liberty of heart deriv’d from Heav’n, 
 
 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 th’ 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, the visible display 
 Of all-creating energy and might. 
 
 Are grand no doubt, and worthy of the w ord, 
 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 th’ artificer divine 
 Meant it eternal, had he not himself 
 Pronounc’d it transient, glorious as it is, 
 
 And, still designing a more glorious far, 
 
 Doom’d it as insuflicient 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 serv’d, they must be sw'cpt away. 
 Not so the labours of his love: they shine 
 In other heav’ns than these that we behold, 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 13i) 
 
 And fade not. There is Paradise that fears 
 No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends 
 Large prelibation ofl 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 Ihem 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 pow’rs 
 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, and acquiescence of his soul 
 In Heav’n-renouncing exile, he endures — 
 
 What does he not, from lusts oppos’d in vain, 
 
 And self-reproaching conscience? He foresees 
 The fatal issue to his health, lame, peace. 
 
140 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 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 sins 
 Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes 
 Ages of hopeless mis’ry. 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 : 
 
 What none can prove a forg’ry may he true ; 
 
 What none but bad men wish exploded must. 
 
 That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud, 
 
 Nor drunk enough, to drown it. In the midst 
 Of laughter his compunctions are sincere ; 
 
 And he abhors the jest by which he shines. 
 
 Remorse begets reform. His master-lust 
 Falls first before his resolute rebuke, 
 
 And seems dethron’d and vanquish’d. Peace ensues, 
 But spurious and short liv’d ; the puny child 
 Of self-congratulating Pride, begot 
 On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, 
 
 And lights again ; but finds his best essay 
 A presage ominous, portending still 
 Its own dishonour by a worse relapse. 
 
 Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foil’d 
 So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, 
 
 Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now 
 Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause 
 Perversely, which of late she so condemn’d ; 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 141 
 
 With shallow shifts and old devices, worn 
 And tatter’d in the service of debauch, 
 
 Cov’ring his shame from his offended sight. 
 
 “ Hath God indeed giv’n appetites to man, 
 
 And stor’d the Earth so plenteously with means, 
 To gratify the hunger of his wish ; 
 
 And doth he reprobate, and will he damn, 
 
 The use of his own bounty ? making first 
 So frail a kind, and then enacting laws 
 So strict, that less than perfect must despair? 
 Falsehood ! which whoso but suspects of truth 
 Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man. 
 
 Do they themselves, who undertake for hire 
 The teacher’s office, and dispense at large 
 Their weekly dole of edifying strains, 
 
 Attend to their own music? have they faith 
 In what with such solemnity of tone 
 And gesture they propound to our belief? 
 
 Nay— conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice 
 Is but an instrument, on which the priest 
 May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, 
 
 The unequivocal, authentic deed, 
 
 We find sound argument, we read the heart.” 
 
 Such reas’nings (if that name must needs belong 
 T’ excuses in which reason has no part) 
 
 Serve to compose a spirit well inclin’d 
 To live on terms of amity with vice, 
 
 And sin without disturbance. Often urg’d 
 (As often as, libidinous discourse 
 Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes 
 
142 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Of theological and grave import), 
 
 They gain at last his unreserv’d assent ; 
 
 Till harden’d his heart’s temper in the forge 
 Of lust, and on the anvil of despair, 
 
 He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, 
 Or nothing much, his constancy in ill ; 
 
 Vain tamp’ring has but foster’d his disease ; 
 
 Tis desp’rate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. 
 Haste now, philosopher, and set him free. 
 
 Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear 
 Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth 
 How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, 
 Consulted and obey’d, to guide his steps 
 Directly to the first and only fair. 
 
 Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the pow’rs 
 Of rant and rhapsody in virtue’s praise : 
 
 Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, 
 
 And with poetic trappings grace thy prose, 
 
 Till it outmantle all the pride of verse. — 
 
 Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high sounding brass, 
 Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm 
 The eclipse, that intercepts truth’s heav’nly beam, 
 And chills and darkens a wide-wand’ring soul. 
 
 The STILL SMALL voice is wanted. He must speak, 
 Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect; 
 
 Who calls for things that are not, and they come. 
 
 Grace makes the slave a freeman. ’Tis a change, 
 That turns to ridicule the turgid speech 
 And stately tone of moralists, who boast, 
 
 As if, like him of fabulous renown, 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 143 
 
 They had indeed ability to smooth 
 The shag of savage nature, and were each 
 An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song: 
 
 But transformation of apostate man 
 From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, 
 
 Is work for Iiim that made him. He alone, 
 
 And he by means in philosophic eyes 
 Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves 
 The wonder; humanizing what is brute 
 In the lost kind, extracting from the lips 
 Of asps their venom, overpow’ring strength 
 By weakness, and hostility by love. 
 
 Patriots have toil’d, and in their country’s cause 
 Bled nobly ; and their deeds, as they deserve. 
 Receive proud recompense. We give in charge 
 Their names to the sweet lyre. Th’ historic muse, 
 Proud of the treasure, marches with it down 
 To latest times ; and Sculpture, in her turn, 
 
 Gives bond in stone and evcr-during brass 
 To guard them, and immortalize her trust; 
 
 But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, 
 
 To those, who, posted at the shrine of Truth, 
 
 Have fall’n in her defence. A patriot’s blood, 
 
 Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, 
 
 And for a time ensure, to his lov’d land 
 The sweets of liberty, and equal laws ; 
 
 But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, 
 
 And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed 
 In confirmation of the noblest claim, 
 
 Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, 
 
144 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 To walk with God, to be divinely free, 
 
 To soar, and to anticipate the skies. 
 
 Yet few remember them. They liv’d unknown, 
 Till persecution dragg’d them into fame, 
 
 And chas’d them up to Heav’n. Their ashes flew 
 — No marble tells us whither. With their names 
 No bard embalms and sanctifies his song: 
 
 And history, so warm on meaner themes, 
 
 Is cold on this. She execrates indeed 
 The tyranny that doom’d them to the fire, 
 
 But gives the glorious sufT’rers little praise. 
 
 He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free, 
 And all are slaves beside. There’s not a chain, 
 That hellish foes, confed’rate for his harm, 
 
 Can wind around him, but he casts it off, 
 
 With as much ease as Samson his green withes. 
 He looks abroad into the varied field 
 Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compar’d 
 With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 
 Calls the delightful scen’ry all his own. 
 
 His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 
 
 And the resplendent rivers. His t’ enjoy 
 With a propriety that none can feel, 
 
 But who with filial confidence inspir’d, 
 
 Can lift to Heav’n an unpresumptuous eye, 
 
 And smiling say — “My Father made them all !” 
 Are they not his by a peculiar right, 
 
 And by an emphasis of iut’rest his, 
 
 Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, 
 
 Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 145 
 
 With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, 
 That plann’d, and built, and still upholds, a world 
 So cloth’d with beauty for rebellious man? 
 
 Yes — ye may fill your garners, ye that reap 
 The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good 
 In senseless riot; but ye will not find 
 In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, 
 
 A liberty like his, who unimpeach’d 
 Of usurpation, and to no man’s wrong, 
 Appropriates nature as his Father’s work, 
 
 And has a richer use of jours than you. 
 
 He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth 
 Of no mean city ; plann’d or ere the hills, 
 
 Were built, the fountains open’d, or the sea 
 With all his roaring multitude of waves. 
 
 His freedom is the same in ev’ry state; 
 
 And no condition of this changeful life, 
 
 So manifold in cares, whose ev’ry day 
 Brings its own evil with it, makes it less : 
 
 For he has wings, that neither sickness, pain, 
 
 Nor penury, can cripple or confine. 
 
 No nook so narrow but he spreads them there 
 With ease, and is at large. Th’ oppressor holds 
 His body bound ; but knows not what a range 
 His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ; 
 
 And that to bind him is a vain attempt 
 Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells. 
 
 Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste 
 His works. Admitted once to his embrace, 
 
 Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Thine eye shall be instructed ; and thine heart 
 Made pure shall relish, with divine delight 
 Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. 
 Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone 
 And eyes intent upon the scanty herb 
 It yields them ; or, recumbent on its brow, 
 Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread 
 Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away 
 From inland regions to the distant main. 
 
 Man views it, and admires ; but rests content 
 With what he views. The landscape has his praise 
 But not its author. Unconcern’d who form’d 
 The Paradise he sees, he finds it such, 
 
 And, such well pleas’d to find it, asks no more. 
 
 Not so the mind, that has been touch’d from Heav’n 
 And in the school of sacred wisdom taught, 
 
 To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, 
 Fair as it is, existed ere it was. 
 
 Nor for its own sake merely, but for his 
 Much more, who fashion’d it, he gives it praise ; 
 Praise that from Earth resulting, as it ought. 
 
 To Earth’s acknowledg’d sov’reign, finds at once, 
 Its only just proprietor in Him. 
 
 The soul that sees him or receives sublim’d 
 New faculties, or learns at least t’ employ 
 More worthily the pow’rs she own’d before. 
 Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze 
 Of ignorance, till then she overlook’d, 
 
 A ray of heav’nly light, gilding all forms 
 Terrestrial in the vast and the minute; 
 
W INTER MORNING WALK. 147 
 
 The unambiguous footsteps of the God, 
 
 Who gives its lustre to an insect’s wing, 
 
 And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. 
 Much conversant with Heav’n, she often holds, 
 With those fair ministers of light to man, 
 
 That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, 
 
 Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were they, 
 With which Heav’n rang, when ev’ry star, in haste 
 To gratulate the new-created Earth, 
 
 Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God 
 Shouted for joy. — “Tell me, ye shining hosts, 
 
 That navigate a sea that know s no storms, 
 
 Beneath a vault unsullied w ith a cloud, 
 
 If from your elevation, whence ye view 
 Distinctly scenes invisible to man. 
 
 And systems, of w'hose birth no tidings yet 
 Have reach’d this nether world, ye spy a race 
 Favour’d as ours ; transgressors from the womb, 
 And hasting to a grave, yet doom’d to rise, 
 
 And to possess a brighter Heav’n than yours ? 
 
 As one, who, long detain’d on foreign shores, 
 
 Pants to return, and when he sees afar 
 His country’s weather-bleach’d and batter’d rocks, 
 From the green wave emerging, darts an eye 
 Radiant with joy towards the happy land; 
 
 So I with animated hopes behold, 
 
 And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, 
 
 That show like beacons in the blue abyss, 
 
 Ordain’d to guide th’ embodied spirit home 
 From toilsome life to never-ending rest. 
 
 H 2 
 
148 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires, 
 
 That give assurance of their own success, 
 
 And that, infus’d from Heav’n, must thither tend,” 
 So reads he nature, whom the lamp of truth 
 Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word ! 
 
 Which whoso sees no longer wanders lost, 
 
 With intellects bemaz’d in endless doubt, 
 
 But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built 
 With mean, that were not till by thee employ’d, 
 Worlds, that had never been hadst thou in strength 
 Been less, or less benevolent than strong. 
 
 They are thy witnesses, who speak thy pow ! r 
 And goodness infinite, but speak in ears 
 That hear not, or receive not their report. 
 
 In vain thy creatures testify of thee, 
 
 Till thou proclaim thyself. Theirs is indeed 
 A teaching voice ; but ’tis the praise of thine, 
 
 That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn, 
 And with the boon gives talents for its use. 
 
 Till thou art heard, imaginations vain 
 Possess the heart, and fables false as Hell ; 
 
 Yet, deem’d oracular, lure dowm to death 
 The uninform’d and heedless souls of men. 
 
 We give to chance, blind chance, ourselves as blind, 
 The glory of thy work ; which yet appears 
 Perfect and unimpeachable of blame, 
 
 Challenging human scrutiny, and prov’d 
 Then skilful most when most severely judg’d. 
 
 But chance is not; or is not where thou reign’s! : 
 Thy providence forbids that fickle pow ’r 
 
WINTER MORNING WALK. 
 
 140 
 
 (If pow’r she be, that works but to confound) 
 
 To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws. 
 
 Yet thus we dote, refusing while we can 
 
 Instruction, and inventing to ourselves 
 
 Gods such as guilt makes welcome; gods that sleep* 
 
 Or disregard our follies, or that sit 
 
 Amus’d spectators of this bustling stage. 
 
 Thee we reject,. unable to abide 
 Thy purity, till pure as thou art pure, 
 
 Made such by thee, we love thee for that cause, 
 
 For which we shuun’d and hated thee before. 
 
 Then we are free. Then liberty, like day, 
 
 Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heav’n 
 Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. 
 
 A voice is heard, that mortal ears hear not, 
 
 Till thou hast touch’d them ; ’tis the voice of song — 
 A loud Hosanna sent from all thy works ; 
 
 Which he that hears it with a shout repeats. 
 
 And adds his rapture to the gen’ral praise. 
 
 In that blest moment Nature, throwing wide 
 Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile 
 The author of her beauties, who, retir’d 
 Behind his own creation, works unseen 
 By the impure, and hears his pow’r denied. 
 
 Thou art the source and centre of all minds, 
 
 Their only point of rest, eternal Word! 
 
 From thee departing, they are lost, and rove 
 At random, without honour, hope, or peace. 
 
 From thee is all, that sooths the life of man, 
 
 His high endeavour, and his glad success, 
 
150 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. 
 
 But O thou bounteous giver of all good, 
 
 Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown ! 
 
 Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor; 
 And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away. 
 
_ 
 
 I® TAiK 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 That calls the unwonted villager abroad 
 'With all h.er little ones, a sportive train, 
 To g-ather ldng*-cups in the yellow mead , 
 
 LRAWIN BY RICHARD WE STALL R.A. ENGRAVED BY GEORGE CORBOULD; 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY. 
 
 OCT. 1.1817. 
 
THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 THE WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 Bells at a distance— Their effect.— A fine noon in winter.— A sheltered 
 walk. — Meditation better than books.— Our familiarity with the 
 course of nature makes it appear less wonderful than it is. — The 
 transformation that spring effects iu a shrubbery described.— A 
 mistake concerning the course of nature corrected.— God maintains 
 it by an unremitted act.— The amusements fashionable at this hour 
 of the day reproved.— Animals happy, a delightful sight.— Origin 
 of cruelty to animals.— That it is a great crime proved from Scrip- 
 ture.— That proof illustrated by a tale.— A line drawn between the 
 lawful and unlawful destruction of them.— Their good and useful 
 properties insisted on.— Apology for the encomiums bestowed by 
 the author on animals.— Instances of man’s extravagant praise of 
 man .—The groans of the creation shall have an end.— A view taken 
 of the restoration of all things.— An invocation and an invitation 
 of Him who shall bring it to pass — The retired man vindicated 
 from the charge of uselessness. — Conclusion. 
 
 There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, 
 And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleas’d 
 With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave ; 
 Some chord in unison with what we hear 
 
152 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies. 
 
 How soft the music of those village bells, 
 
 Falling at intervals upon the ear 
 In cadence sweet, now dying all away, 
 
 Now pealing loud again, and louder still. 
 
 Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on ! 
 
 With easy force it opens all the cells 
 Where Mem’ry slept. Wherever I have heard 
 A kindred melody, the scene recurs, 
 
 And with it all its pleasures and its pains. 
 
 Such comprehensive views the spirit takes, 
 
 That in a few short moments I retrace 
 (As in a map the voyager his course) 
 
 The windings of my way through many years. 
 
 Short as in retrospect the journey seems, 
 
 It seem’d not always short ; the rugged path, 
 
 And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn, 
 
 Mov’d many a sigh at its disheart’ning length. 
 
 Yet feeling present evils, while the past 
 Faintly impress the mind, or not at all, 
 
 How readily we wish time spent revok’d, 
 
 That we might try the ground again, where once 
 (Through inexperience, as we now perceive) 
 
 We miss’d, that happiness we might have found! 
 Some friend is gone, perhaps, his son’s best friend, 
 
 A father, whose authority 7 , in show 
 
 When most severe, and must’ring all its force. 
 
 Was but the graver countenance of love; 
 
 Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might low’r, 
 And utter now and then an awful voice. 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 153 
 
 But had a blessing in its darkest frown, 
 Threat’ning at once and nourishing the plant. 
 
 We lov’d, but not enough, the gentle hand. 
 
 That rear’d us. At a thoughtless age, allur’d 
 By ev’ry gilded folly, we renounc’d 
 His shelt’ring side, and wilfully forewent 
 That converse, which we now in vain regret. 
 
 How gladly would the man recall to life 
 The boy’s neglected sire ! a mother too, 
 
 That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, 
 Might he demand them at the gates of death. 
 Sorrow has, since they went, subdu’d and tam’d 
 The playful humour ; he could now endure 
 (Himself grown sober in the vale of tears), 
 
 And feel a parent’s presence no restraint. 
 
 But not to understand a treasure’s worth, 
 
 Till time has stol’n away the slighted good, 
 
 Is cause of half the poverty we feel, 
 
 And makes the World the wilderness it is. 
 
 The few that pray at all pray oft amiss. 
 
 And seeking grace t’ improve the prize they hold, 
 Would urge a w iser suit than asking more. 
 
 The night was w inter in his roughest mood ; 
 
 The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon 
 Upon the southern side of the slant hills, 
 
 And where the woods fence off the northern blast. 
 The season smiles, resigning all its rage, 
 
 And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue 
 Without a cloud, and white without a speck 
 The dazzling splendour of the scene below. 
 
 H 3 
 
154 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Again the harmony comes o’er the vale ; 
 
 And through the trees I view th’ embattled tow’r, 
 Whence all the music. I again perceive 
 The soothing influence of the wafted strains, 
 
 And settle in soft musings as I tread 
 
 The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, 
 
 Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. 
 
 The roof, though mov’able through all its length 
 As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic’d, 
 
 And, intercepting in their silent fall 
 
 The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. 
 
 No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. 
 
 The redbreast warbles still, but is content 
 With slender notes, and more than half suppress’d : 
 Pleas’d with his solitude, and flitting light 
 From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes 
 From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, 
 
 That tinkle in the wither’d leaves below. 
 
 Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, 
 
 Charms more than silence. Meditation here 
 May think down hours to moments. Here the heart 
 May give a useful lesson to the head, 
 
 And Learning wiser grow without his books. 
 Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 
 
 Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 
 Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass. 
 
 The mere materials with which wisdom builds, 
 
 Till smooth’d, and squar’d, and fitted to its place, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 1*35 
 
 Does but encumber whom it seems t’ enrich. 
 Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much ; 
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 
 
 Books are not seldom talismans and spells, 
 
 By which the magic art of shrewder wits 
 Hold an unthinking multitude enthrall’d. 
 
 Some to the fascination of a name 
 Surrender judgment hoodwink’d. Some the style 
 Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds 
 Of error leads them, by a tune entranc’d. 
 
 While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear 
 The insupportable fatigue of thought, 
 
 And swallowing therefore without pause or choice 
 The total grist unsifted, husks and all. 
 
 But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course 
 Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, 
 
 And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, 
 And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time 
 Peeps throu gh the moss, that clothes the h awthorn root, 
 Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, 
 
 Not shy, as in the world, and to be won 
 
 By slow solicitation, seize at once 
 
 The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. 
 
 What prodigies can pow’r divine perform 
 More grand than it produces year by year, 
 
 And all in sight of inattentive man ? 
 
 Familiar with the effect we slight the cause, 
 
 And in the constancy of nature’s course, 
 
 The regular return of genial months, 
 
 And renovation of a laded world, 
 
156 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 See nought to wonder at. Should God again, 
 
 As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race 
 Of the undeviating and punctual sun, 
 
 How would the World admire ! But speaks it less 
 
 An agency divine, to make him know 
 
 His moment when to sink and when to rise. 
 
 Age after age, than to arrest his course? 
 
 All we behold is miracle ; but, seen 
 So duly, all is miracle in vain. 
 
 Where now the vital energy, that mov’d, 
 
 While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph 
 Through th’ imperceptible meand’ring veins 
 Of leaf and flow’r? It sleeps; and th’ icy touch 
 Of unprolific winter has impress’d 
 A cold stagnation on th’ intestine tide. 
 
 But let the months go round, a few short months, 
 And all shall be restor’d. These naked shoots, 
 Barren as lances, among which the wind 
 Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes, 
 
 Shall put their graceful foliage on again, 
 
 And more aspiring, and with ampler spread. 
 
 Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. 
 Then each, in its peculiar honours clad, 
 
 Shall publish even to the distant eye 
 Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich 
 In streaming gold ; syringa, iv’ry pure ; 
 
 The scentless and the scented rose ; this red. 
 
 And of an humbler growth, the other* tall, 
 
 And throwing up into the darkest gloom 
 Of neighb’ring cypress, or more sable yew. 
 
 * The Guelder-rose. 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 157 
 
 Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf, 
 
 That the wind severs from the broken wave; 
 
 The lilac, various in array, now white, 
 
 Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set 
 
 With purple spikes pyramidal, as if 
 
 Studious of ornament, yet unresolv’d 
 
 Which hue she most approv’d, she chose them all ; 
 
 Copious of flow’rs the woodbine, pale and wan, 
 
 But well compensating her sickly looks 
 
 With never-cloying odours, early and late ; 
 
 Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm 
 
 Of llow’rs, like flies clothing her slender rods. 
 
 That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too, 
 
 Though leafless, well attir’d, and thick beset 
 With blushing wreaths, investing ev’ry spray ; 
 Althaea with the purple eye ; the broom, 
 
 Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy’d, 
 
 Her blossoms ; and luxuriant above all 
 The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 
 The deep dark green of whose unvarnish’d leaf 
 Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more 
 The bright profusion of her scatter’d stars. — 
 
 These have been, and these shall be in their day : 
 And all this uniform uncolour’d scene 
 Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, 
 
 And flush into variety again. 
 
 From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, 
 
 Is Nature’s progress, when she lectures man 
 In heav’nly truth : evincing, as she makes 
 The grand transition, that there lives and works 
 
158 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 A soul in all things, and that soul is God. 
 
 The beauties of the wilderness are his, 
 
 That makes so gay the solitary place, 
 
 Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, 
 That cultivation glories in, are his. 
 
 He sets the bright procession on its way, 
 
 And marshals all the order of the year; 
 
 He marks the bounds, which Winter may not pass, 
 And blunts his pointed fury ; in its case, 
 
 Russet and rude, folds up the tender germe, 
 Uninjur’d, with inimitable art; 
 
 And, ere one flow’ry season fades and dies, 
 
 Designs the blooming wonders of the next. 
 
 Some say that in the origin of things, 
 
 When all creation started into birth, 
 
 The infant elements receiv’d a law, 
 
 From which they swerve not since. That under force 
 Of that controlling ordinance they move, 
 
 And need not his immediate hand, who first 
 Prescrib’d their course, to regulate it now. 
 
 Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God 
 Th’ encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare 
 The great artificer of all that moves 
 The stress of a continual act, the pain 
 Of unremitted vigilance and care, 
 
 As too laborious and severe a task. 
 
 So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, 
 
 To span omnipotence, and measure might, 
 
 That knows no measure, by the scanty rule 
 And standard of his own, that is to-day, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 150 
 
 And is not, ere to-morrow’s sun go down. 
 
 But how should matter occupy a charge, 
 
 Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 
 So vast in its demands, unless imped'd 
 To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
 
 And under pressure of some conscious cause? 
 The Lord of all, himself through all diffus’d, 
 Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
 
 Nature is but a name for an effect, 
 
 Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire, 
 By which the mighty process is maintain’d, 
 
 Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight 
 Slow circling ages are as transient days ; 
 
 Whose work is without labour; whose designs 
 No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; 
 
 And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. 
 
 Him blind antiquity profan’d, not serv’d, 
 
 With self-taught rites, and under various names, 
 Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, 
 
 And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling Earth 
 With tutelary goddesses and gods, 
 
 That were not; and commending as they would 
 To each some province, garden, field, or grove. 
 
 But all are under one. One spirit— His, 
 
 Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows. 
 
 Rules universal nature. Not a flow’r 
 
 But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, 
 
 Of his unrivall’d pencil. He inspires 
 
 Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, 
 
 And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, 
 
1 GO 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, 
 
 The forms, with which he sprinkles all the Earth. 
 Happy who walks with him ! whom what he finds 
 Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flow’r, 
 
 Of what he view s of beautiful or grand 
 In nature, from the broad majestic oak 
 To the green blade, that twinkles in the sun, 
 Prompts with remembrance of a present God. 
 
 His presence, who made all so fair, perceiv’d 
 Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene 
 Is dreary, so with him all seasons please. 
 
 Though winter had been none, had man been true, 
 And Earth be punish’d for its tenant’s sake, 
 
 Yet not in vengeance, as this smiling sky, 
 
 So soon succeeding such an angry night, 
 
 And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream 
 Recov’ring fast its liquid music, prove. 
 
 Who then, that has a mind w ell strung and tun’d 
 To contemplation, and within his reach 
 A scene so friendly to his fav’rite task, 
 
 Would waste attention at the checker’d board, 
 
 His host of w ooden warriors to and fro 
 Marching and countermarching, with an eye 
 As fix’d as marble, with a forehead ridg’d 
 And furrow’d into storms, and with a hand 
 Trembling, as if eternity were hung 
 In balance on his conduct of a pin ? 
 
 Nor envies he aught more their idle sport, 
 
 Who pant with application misapplied 
 To trivial toys, and, pushing iv’ry balls 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 161 
 
 Across a velvet level, feel a joy 
 Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds 
 Its destin’d goal, of difficult access. 
 
 Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon 
 To miss, the mercer’s plague, from shop to shop 
 Wand’ring, and litt’ring with unfolded silks 
 The polish’d counter, and approving none, 
 
 Or promising with smiles to call again. 
 
 Nor him, who by his vanity seduc’d, 
 
 And sooth’d into a dream that he discerns 
 The diff’rence of a Guido from a daub, 
 
 Frequents the crowded auction : station'd there 
 As duly as the Laugford of the show, 
 
 With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand, 
 
 And tongue accomplish’d in the fulsome cant 
 And pedantry, that coxcombs learn with ease ; 
 
 Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls, 
 
 He notes it in his book, then raps his box, 
 
 Swears ’tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate. 
 
 That he has let it pass— but never bids 1 
 Here unmolested, through whatever sign 
 The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, 
 
 Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, 
 
 Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. 
 
 Ev’n in the spring and playtime of the year, 
 
 That calls th’ unwonted villager abroad 
 With all her little ones, a sportive train, 
 
 To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, 
 
 And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick 
 A cheap but wholesome salad from the brooV, 
 
162 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 These shades are all my own. The tim’rous hare 
 Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, 
 
 Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarm’d 
 Sits cooing in the pinetree, nor suspends 
 His long love-ditty for my near approach. 
 
 Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm, 
 
 That age or injury has hollow’d deep, 
 
 Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves, 
 
 He has outslept the winter, ventures forth 
 To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, 
 
 The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play: 
 
 He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, 
 
 Ascends the neighb’ring beech ; there whisks his brush, 
 And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud, 
 With all the prettiness of feign’d alarm, 
 
 And anger insignificantly fierce. 
 
 The heart is hard in nafure, and unfit 
 For human fellowship, as being void 
 Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 
 To love and friendship both, that is not pleas’d 
 With sight of animals enjoying life, 
 
 Nor feels their happiness augment his own. 
 
 The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade 
 When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, 
 And spirits buoyant with excess of glee; 
 
 The horse as wanton and almost as fleet, 
 
 That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, 
 Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heels, 
 Starts to the voluntary race again ; 
 
 The very kine, that gamble at high noon, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 1 03 
 
 The total herd receiving first from one, 
 
 That leads the dance, a summons to be gay, 
 
 Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth 
 Their efforts, yet resolv’d with one consent, 
 
 To give such act &nd utt’rance as they may 
 To ecstasy too big to be suppress’d — 
 
 These, and a thousand images of bliss, 
 
 With which kind Nature graces ev’ry scene, 
 
 Where cruel man defeats not her design, 
 
 Impart to the benevolent, who wish 
 All that are capable of pleasure pleas’d, 
 
 A far superior happiness to theirs, 
 
 The comfort of a reasonable joy. 
 
 Man scarce had ris’n, obedient to his call, 
 
 Who form’d him from the dust, his future grave, 
 When he was crown’d as never king was since. 
 
 God set the diadem upon his head, 
 
 And angel choirs attended. Wond’ring stood 
 The new-made monarch, while before him pass’d, 
 All happy, and all perfect in their kind, 
 
 The creatures, summon’d from their various haunts, 
 To see their sov’reign, and confess his sway. 
 
 Vast was his empire, absolute his pow’r, 
 
 Or bounded only by a law, whose force 
 ’Twas his sublimest privilege to feel 
 And own, the law of universal love. 
 
 He rul’d with meekness, they obey’d with joy ; 
 
 No cruel purpose lurk’d within his heart, 
 
 And no distrust of his intent in theirs. 
 
 So Eden was a scene of harmless sport, 
 
164 
 
 the task. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Where kindness on his part, who rul’d the whole, 
 Begat a tranquil confidence in all, 
 
 And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear. 
 
 But sin marr’d all; and the revolt of man, 
 
 That source of evils not exhausted yet, 
 
 IV as punish’d with revolt of his from him. 
 
 Garden of God, how terrible the change 
 Thy groves and lawns then witness’d! Ev’ry heart, 
 Each animal, of ev’ry name, conceiv’d 
 A jealousy and an instinctive fear, 
 
 And, conscious of some danger, either fled 
 Precipitate the loath’d abode of man, 
 
 Or growl’d defiance in such angry sort, 
 
 As taught him too to tremble in his turn. 
 
 Thus harmony and family accord 
 Were driv’n from Paradise; and in that hour 
 The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell’d 
 To such gigantic and enormous growth, 
 
 Were sown in human nature’s fruitful soil. 
 
 Hence date the persecution and the pain, 
 
 That man inflicts on all inferior kinds, 
 
 Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport, 
 To gratify the frenzy of his wrath, 
 
 Or his base gluttony, are causes good 
 And just in his account, why bird and beast 
 Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed 
 With blood of their inhabitants impal’d. 
 
 Earth groans beneath the burden of a war 
 Wag’d with defenceless innocence, while he. 
 
 Not satisfied to prey on all around, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs 
 Needless, and first torments ere he devours. 
 Now happiest they, that occupy the scenes 
 The most remote from his abhorr’d resort, 
 Whom once, as delegate of God on Earth, 
 They fear’d, and as his perfect image lov’d. 
 The wilderness is theirs, with all its -caves, 
 
 Its hollow glens, its thickets, -and its plains 
 Unvisited by man. There they are free, 
 
 And howl and roar as likes them, uncontroll’d; 
 Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play. 
 
 Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude 
 Within the confines of their wild domain : 
 
 The lion tells him — I am monarch here — 
 
 And, il he spare him, spares him on the terms 
 Of royal mercy, and through gen’rous scorn. 
 To rend a victim trembling at his foot. 
 
 In measure, as by force of instinct drawn-, 
 
 Or by necessity constrain’d, they live 
 Dependent upon man ; those in his fields, 
 These at his crib, and some beneath his roof. 
 They prove too often at how dear a rate 
 He sells protection — Witness at his foot 
 The spaniel dying for some venial fault 
 Under dissection of the knotted scourge ; 
 Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells 
 Driv’n to the slaughter, goaded, as he runs, 
 
 To madness ; while the savage at his heels 
 Laughs at the frantic sufi’rer’s fury, spent 
 Upon the guiltless passenger o’erthrown. 
 
 105 
 
1G6* 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 ROOK VI. 
 
 He too is witness, noblest of the train 
 
 That wait on man, the flight-performing horse: 
 
 With unsuspecting readiness he takes 
 
 His murd’rer on his hack, and, push’d all day 
 
 With bleeding sides and flanks, that heave for life, 
 
 To the far distant goal, arrives and dies. 
 
 So little mercy shows who needs so much ! 
 
 Does law, so jealous in the cause of man, 
 Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None. 
 
 He lives, and o’er his brimming beaker boasts 
 (As if barbarity were high desert) 
 
 Th’ inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise 
 Of the poor brute, seems wisely lo suppose 
 The honours of his matchless horse his own. 
 
 But many a crime, deem’d innocent on Earth, 
 
 Is register’d in Heav’n ; and these no doubt 
 Have each their record, with a curse annex’d. 
 
 Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, 
 
 But God will never. When he charg’d the Jew, 
 T’ assist his foe’s down-fallen beast to rise ; 
 
 And when the bush-exploring boy, that seiz’d 
 The young, to let the parent bird go free ; 
 
 Prov’d he not plainly, that his meaner works 
 Are yet his care, and have an int’rest all, 
 
 All, in the universal Father’s love? 
 
 On Noah, and in him on all mankind, 
 
 The charter was conferr’d, by which we hold 
 The flesh of animals in fee, and claim 
 O’er all we feed on pow’r of life and death. 
 
 But read the instrument, and mark it well: 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 167 
 
 Th’ oppression of a tyrannous control 
 Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield 
 Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin, 
 Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute ! 
 
 The Governor of all, himself to all 
 So bountiful, in whose attentive ear 
 The unfledg’d raven and the lion’s whelp 
 Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs 
 Of hunger unassuag’d has interpos’d, 
 
 Not seldom, his avenging arm, to smite 
 Th’ injurious trampler upon Nature’s law, 
 
 That claims forbearance even for a brute. 
 
 He hates the hardness of a Balaam’s heart; 
 
 And, prophet as he was, he might not strike 
 The blameless animal, without rebuke, 
 
 On which he rode. Her opportune offence 
 Sav’d him, or tli’ unrelenting seer had died. 
 
 He secs that human equity is slack 
 To interfere, though in so just a cause ; 
 
 And makes the task his own. Inspiring dumb 
 And helpless victims with a sense so keen 
 Of inj’ry, with such knowledge of their strength, 
 And such sagacity to take revenge, 
 
 That oft the beast has seem’d to judge the man. 
 
 An ancient, not a legendary tale, 
 
 By one of sound intelligence rehears’d 
 
 (If such who plead for Providence may seem 
 
 In modern eyes), shall make the doctrine clear. 
 
 Where England, stretch’d towards the setting sun 
 Narrow and long, o’erlooks the western wave, 
 
1G8 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Dwelt young Misagatlius ; a scorner he 
 Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent, 
 
 Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce. 
 
 He journey’d ; and his chance was as he went, 
 
 To join a trav’ller of far different note, 
 
 Evander, fam’d for piety, for years 
 Deserving honour, but for wisdom more. 
 
 Fame had not'left the venerable mail 
 A stranger to the manners of the youth, 
 
 Whose face too was familiar to his view. 
 
 Their way was on the margin of the laud, 
 
 O’er the green summit of the rocks, whose base 
 Beats back the roaring surge, scarce heard so high. 
 The charity, that warm’d his heart, was mov’d 
 At sight of the man monster. With a smile 
 Gentle, and affable, and full of grace, 
 
 As fearful of offending whom he wish’d 
 Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truth’s 
 Not harshly thunder’d forth, or rudely press’d. 
 
 But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet. 
 “And dost thou dream,” th’ impenetrable man 
 Exclaim’d, “ that me the lullabies of age, 
 
 And fantasies of dotards such as thou, 
 
 Can cheat, or move a moment’s fear in me ? 
 
 Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave 
 Need no such aids, as superstition lends, 
 
 To steel their hearts against the dread of death.” 
 
 He spoke, and to the precipice at hand 
 Push’d with a madman’s fury. Fancy shrinks, 
 
 And the blood thrills and curdles, at the thought 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 169 
 
 Of such a gulf as he design’d his grave. 
 
 But, though the felon on his back could dare 
 The dreadful leap, more rational, his steed 
 Declin’d the death, and wheeling swiftly round, 
 
 Or e’er his hoof had press’d the crumbling verge, 
 Baffled his rider, sav’d against his will. 
 
 The frenzy of the brain may be redress’d 
 By med’eine well applied, but without grace 
 The heart’s insanity admits no cure. 
 
 Enrag’d the more, by what might have reform’d 
 His horrible intent, again he sought 
 Destruction, with a zeal to be destroy’d, 
 
 With sounding whip, and rowels died in blood. 
 
 But still in vain. The Providence, that meatit 
 A longer date to the far nobler beast, 
 
 Spar’d yet again th’ ignobler for his sake. 
 
 And now, his prowess prov’d, and his sincere 
 Incurable obduracy evinc’d, 
 
 His rage grew cool ; and, pleas’d perhaps to have earn’d 
 So cheaply the renown of that attempt, 
 
 With looks of some complacence he resum’d 
 His road, deriding much the blank amaze 
 Of good Evander, still where he was left 
 Fix’d motionless, and petrified with dread. 
 
 So on they far’d. Discourse on other themes 
 Ensuing seem’d t’ obliterate the past; 
 
 And tamer far for so much fury show'n 
 (As is the course of rash and fiery men), 
 
 The rude companion smil’d, as if transform’d. 
 
 But ’twas a transient calm. A storm was near. 
 
 i 
 
170 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 An unsuspected storm. His hour was come. 
 
 The impious challenger of Pow’r divine 
 
 Was now to learn, that Heav’n, though slow to wrath, 
 
 Is never with impunity defied. 
 
 His horse, as he had caught his master’s mood, 
 Snorting, and starting into sudden rage, 
 
 Unbidden, and not now to be controll’d, 
 
 Rush’d to the cliff', and, having reach’d it, stood. 
 
 At once the shock unseated him : he flew 
 Sheer o’er the craggy barrier ; and immers’d 
 Deep in the flood, found, when he sought it not, 
 
 The death he had deserv’d, and died alone. 
 
 So God wrought double justice; made the fool 
 The victim of his own tremendous choice, 
 
 And taught a brute the way to safe revenge. 
 
 I would not enter on my list of friends 
 (Though grac’d with polish’d manners and fine sense, 
 Yet wanting sensibility) the man, 
 
 Who needlessly sets foot upon a w r orm. 
 
 An inadvertent step may crush the snail, 
 
 That crawls at ev’ning in the public path ; 
 
 But he that has humanity, forewarn’d, 
 
 Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 
 
 The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 
 
 And charg’d perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 
 
 A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 
 Sacred to neatness and repose, th’ alcove, 
 
 The chamber, or refectory, may die : 
 
 A necessary act incurs no blame. 
 
 Not so when, held within their proper bounds, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 171 
 
 And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 
 
 Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 
 There they are privileg’d ; and he that hunts 
 Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 
 Disturbs the economy of Nature’s realm, 
 
 Who, when she form’d, design’d them an abode. 
 The sum is this. If man’s convenience, health. 
 Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 
 Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 
 
 Else they are all— the meanest things that are, 
 As free to live, and to enjoy that life, 
 
 As God was free to form them at the first, 
 
 Who in his sov’reign wisdom made them all. 
 
 Ye therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons, 
 To love it too. The spring-time of our years 
 Is soon dishonour’d and defil’d in most 
 By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand, 
 
 To check them. But alas ! none sooner shoots, 
 If unrestrain’d, into luxuriant growth, 
 
 Than cruelty, most dev’lish of them all. 
 
 Mercy to him, that shows it, is the rule 
 And righteous limitation of its act, 
 
 By which Heav’n moves in pard’ning guilty man ; 
 And he that shows none, being ripe in years, 
 
 And conscious of the outrage he commits, 
 
 Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn. 
 
 Distinguish’d much by reason, and still more 
 By our capacity of grace divine, 
 
 From creatures, that exist but for oar sake, 
 Which, having serv’d us, perish, we are held 
 
172 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Accountable ; and God some future day 
 Will reckon with us roundly for th’ abuse 
 Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust. 
 
 Superior as we are, they yet depend 
 Not more on human help than we on theirs. 
 
 Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were giv’n 
 In aid of our defects. In some are found 
 Such teachable and apprehensive parts, 
 
 That mau’s attainments in his own concerns, 
 Match’d with th’ expertness of the brutes in theirs, 
 Are ofttimes vanquish’d and thrown far behind. 
 Some show that nice sagacity of smell, 
 
 And read with such discernment, in the port 
 And figure of the man, his secret aim, 
 
 That oft we owe our safety to a skill 
 We could not teach, and must despair to learn. 
 
 But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop 
 To quadruped instructors, many a good 
 And useful quality, and virtue too, 
 
 Rarely exemplified among ourselves. 
 
 Attachment never to be wean’d, or chang’d 
 By any change of fortune ; proof alike 
 Against unkindness, absence, and neglect ; 
 Fidelity, that, neither bribe nor threat 
 Can move or warp ; and gratitude for small 
 And trivial favours, lasting as the life, 
 
 And glist’ning even in the dying eye. 
 
 Man praises man. Desert in arts or arms 
 Wins public honour; and ten thousand sit 
 Patiently present at a sacred song, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 173 
 
 Commemoration-mad; content to hear 
 (O wonderful effect of music’s power!) 
 
 Messiah’s eulogy for Handel’s sake. 
 
 But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve — 
 (For was it less? What heathen would have dar’d 
 To strip Jove’s statue of his oaken wreath, 
 
 And hang it up in honour of a man?) 
 
 Much less might serve, when all that we design 
 Is but to gratify an itching ear, 
 
 And give the day to a musician’s praise. 
 
 Remember Handel? Who, that was not born 
 Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets, 
 
 Or can, the more than Homer of his age ? 
 
 Yes — we remember him ; and while we praise 
 A talent so divine, remember too, 
 
 That His most holy book, from w hom it came, 
 
 Was never meant, was never us’d before. 
 
 To buckram out the mem’ry of a man. 
 
 But hush ! — the muse perhaps is too severe; 
 
 And with a gravity beyond the size 
 And measure of th’ offence, rebukes a deed 
 Less impious than absurd, and owing more 
 To want of judgment than to wrong design. 
 
 So in the chapel of old Ely House, 
 
 When wand’ring Charles, who meant to be the third, 
 Had fled from William, and the news was fresh, 
 
 The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce, 
 
 And eke did rear right merrily, twm staves, 
 
 Sung to the praise and glory of King George ! 
 
 Man praises man ; and Garrick’s mem’ry next, 
 
174 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 When lime hath somewhat mellow’d it, and made 
 The idol of our worship w hile he liv’d 
 The god of our idolatry once more, 
 
 Shall have its altar; and the World shall go 
 In pilgrimage to bow before his slnine. 
 
 The theatre too small shall suffocate 
 
 Its squeez’d contents, and more than it admits 
 
 Shall sigh at their exclusion, and return 
 
 Ungratitied : for there some noble lord 
 
 Shall stuff his shoulders with king Richard’s bunch. 
 
 Or wrap himself in Hamlet’s inky cloak, 
 
 And strut, and storm, and straddle, stamp and stare, 
 To show the world how Garrick did not act. 
 
 For Garrick was a worshipper himself ; 
 
 He drew the liturgy, and fram’d the rites 
 And solemn ceremonial of the day, 
 
 And call’d the World to worship on the banks 
 Of Avon, fam’d in song. Ah, pleasant proof, 
 
 That piety has still in human hearts 
 Some place, a spark or two not yet extinct. 
 
 The mulb’rry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths ; 
 The lnnlb’rry-tree stood centre of the dance; 
 
 The mulb’rry-tree was hymn’d with dulcet airs; 
 
 And from his touchwood trunk the mulb’rry-tree 
 Supplied such relics as devotion holds 
 Still sacred, and preserves w ith pious care. 
 
 So ’twas a hallow’d time : decorum reign’d, 
 
 And mirth without offence. No few return’d, 
 Doubtless, much edified, and all refresh’d. 
 
 — Man praises man. The rabble all alive 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 175 
 
 Prom tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes, 
 Swarm in the streets. The statesmen of the day, 
 
 A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes. 
 
 Some shout him, and some hang upon his car, 
 
 To gaze in’s eyes, and bless him. Maidens wave 
 Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy: 
 
 While others, not so satisfied, unhorse 
 The gilded equipage, and turning loose 
 His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve. 
 
 Why? what has charm’d them? Hath he sav’d the state? 
 No. Doth he purpose its salvation? No. 
 Enchanting novelty, that moon at full, 
 
 That finds out ev’ry crevice of the head, 
 
 That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs 
 Wrought this disturbance. But the w ane is near, 
 And his ow r n cattle must suffice him soon. 
 
 Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, 
 
 And dedicate a tribute, in its use 
 And just direction sacred, to a thing 
 Doom’d to the dust, or lodg’d already there. 
 Encomium in old time was poet’s work : 
 
 But poets, having lavishly long since 
 Exhausted all materials of the art, 
 
 The task now falls into the public hand ; 
 
 And I, contented with an humbler theme, 
 
 Have pour’d my stream of panegyric down 
 The vale of nature, where it creeps, and winds 
 Among her lovely works with a secure 
 And unambitious course, reflecting clear. 
 
 If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes. 
 
170 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK Vi. 
 
 And I am recompens’d, and deem the toils 
 Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine 
 May stand between an animal and woe, 
 
 And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge. 
 
 The groans of nature in this nether world, 
 Which Heav’n has heard for ages, have an end. 
 Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, 
 
 Whose fire was kindled at the prophets’ lamp. 
 The time of rest, the promis’d sabbath, comes. 
 Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh 
 Fulfill’d their tardy and disastrous course 
 Over a sinful world ; and what remains 
 Of this tempestuous state of human things 
 Is merely as the working of a sea 
 Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest : 
 
 For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds 
 The dust, that waits upon his sultry march, 
 When sin hath mov’d him, and his wrath is hot, 
 Shall visit Earth in mercy ; shall descend 
 Propitious in his chariot pav’d with love ; 
 
 And what his storms have blasted and defac’d 
 For man’s revolt shall with a smile repair. 
 
 Sweet is the harp of prophecy ; too sweet 
 Not to be w rong’d by a mere mortal touch : 
 
 Nor can the wonders it records be sung 
 To meaner music, and not suffer loss. 
 
 But when a poet, or when one like me, 
 
 Happy to rove among poetic flow’rs, 
 
 Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last 
 On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 177 
 
 Such is the impulse and the spur he feels, 
 
 To give it praise proportion’d to its worth, 
 
 That not t’ attempt it, arduous as he deems 
 The labour, were a task more arduous still. 
 
 O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, 
 
 Scenes of accomplish’d bliss ; which who can see, 
 Though but in distant prospect, and not feel 
 His soul refresh’d with foretaste of the joy ? 
 
 Rivers of gladness water all the Earth, 
 
 And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach 
 Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field 
 Laiighs with abundance; and the land, once lean, 
 Or fertile only in its own disgrace, 
 
 Exults to see its thistly curse repeal’d. 
 
 The various seasons woven into one, 
 
 And that one season an eternal spring, 
 
 The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, 
 
 For there is none to covet, all are full. 
 
 The lion, and the libbard, and the bear 
 
 Graze with the fearless flocks ; all bask at noon 
 
 Together, or all gambol in the shade 
 
 Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. 
 
 Antipathies are none. No foe to man 
 
 Lurks in the serpent now : the mother sees. 
 
 And smiles to see, her infant’s playful hand 
 Stretch’d forth to dally with the crested worm, 
 
 To stroke his azure neck, or to receive 
 The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. 
 
 All creatures worship man, and all mankind 
 One Lord, one Father. Error has no place: 
 
 1 3 
 
173 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 That creeping pestilence is driv’n away; 
 
 The breath of Heav’n has chas’d it. In the heart 
 No passion touches a discordant string, 
 
 But all is harmony and love. Disease 
 Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood 
 Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. 
 
 One song employs all nations ; and all cry, 
 “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!” 
 
 The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
 Shout to each other, and the mountain tops 
 From distant mountains catch the flying joy ; 
 
 Till, nation after nation taught the strain, 
 
 Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. 
 
 Behold the measure of the promise fill’d ; 
 
 See Salem built, the labour of a God ! 
 
 Bright as a sun the sacred city shines ; 
 
 All kingdoms and all princes of the Earth 
 Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands 
 Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, 
 
 And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, 
 Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there*; 
 
 The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, 
 
 And Saba’s spicy groves, pay tribute there. 
 
 Praise is in all her gates ; upon her walls, 
 
 And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, 
 
 Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there 
 Kneels with the native of the furthest west; 
 
 * Nebaioth and Kedar, the sons of Ishmael, and progenitors of the 
 Arabs, in the prophetic Scripture here alluded to, may be reasonably 
 considered as representatives of the Gentiies at large. 
 
WINTEK WALK AT NOON. 
 
 170 
 
 And .Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, 
 
 And worships. Her report has travell’d forth 
 Into all lands. From ev’ry clime they come, 
 
 To see thy beauly, and to share thy joy, 
 
 O Sion ! an assembly such as Earth 
 
 Saw never, such as Heav’n stoops down to see. 
 
 Thus Heav’nward all things tend. For all were once 
 Perfect, and all must be at length restor’d. 
 
 So God has greatly purpos’d ; who would else 
 In his dishonour’d works himself endure 
 Dishonour, and be wrong’d without redress. 
 
 Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’d world, 
 
 Ye slow revolving seasons! we would see 
 (A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) 
 
 A world, that does not dread and hate his laws. 
 
 And suffer for its crime; w'ould learn how fair 
 The creature is, that God pronounces good, 
 
 How pleasant in itself what pleases him, 
 
 Here ev’ry drop of honey hides a sting ; 
 
 Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow Vs, 
 And ev’n the joy, that haply some poor heart 
 Derives from Heav’n, pure as the fountain is, 
 
 Is sullied in the stream, taking a taint 
 From touch of human lips, at best impure. 
 
 O for a world in principle as chaste 
 As this is gross and selfish ! over which 
 Custom and Prejudice shall bear no sway, 
 
 That govern all things here, should’ring aside 
 The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her 
 To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife 
 
180 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men : 
 Where violence shall never lift the sword, 
 
 Nor cunning justify the proud man’s wrong, 
 Leaving the poor no remedy but tears : 
 
 Where he, that fills an office, shall esteem 
 Th’ occasion it presents of doing good 
 More than the perquisite: where Law shall speak 
 Seldom, and never but as Wisdom prompts 
 And Equity; not jealous more to guard 
 A worthless form, than to decide aright : 
 
 Where Fashion shall not sanctify abuse, 
 
 Nor smooth Good-breeding (supplemental grace) 
 With lean performance ape the w'ork of Love ! 
 
 Come then, and added to thy many crowns, 
 Receive yet one, the crown of all the Earth, 
 
 Thou who alone art worthy ! It was thine 
 By ancient covenant, ere nature’s birth ; 
 
 And thou hast made it thine by purchase since 
 And overpaid its value with thy blood. 
 
 Thy saints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts 
 Thy title is engraven with a pen 
 Dipp’d in the fountain of eternal love. 
 
 Thy saints proclaim thee king; and thy delay 
 Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see 
 The dawn of thy last advent, long desir’d, 
 
 Would creep into the bowels of the hills, 
 
 And flee for safety to the falling rocks. 
 
 The very spirit of the world is tir’d 
 
 Of its own taunting question, ask’d so long, 
 
 “Where is the promise of your Lord’s approach?’’ 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 181 
 
 The infidel has shot his bolts away, 
 
 Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, 
 
 He gleams the blunted shafts, that have recoil'd. 
 And aims them at the shield of Truth again. 
 
 The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, 
 
 That hides divinity from mortal eyes ; 
 
 And all the mysteries to faith propos’d, 
 
 Insulted and traduc’d, are cast aside, 
 
 As useless, to the moles and to the bats. 
 
 They now are deem’d the faithful, and are prais’d, 
 Who, constant only in rejecting thee, 
 
 Deny thy Godhead with a martyr’s zeal, 
 
 And quit their office for their error’s sake. 
 
 Blind, and in love with darkness ! yet ev’n these 
 Worthy, compar’d with sycophants, who knee 
 Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man ! 
 
 So fares thy church. But how thy church may fare, 
 The world takes little thought. Who will may preach. 
 And what they will. All pastors are alike 
 To wand’ring sheep, resolv’d to follow none. 
 
 Two gods divide them all — Pleasure and Gain: 
 
 For these thej 7 live, they sacrifice to these, 
 
 And in their service wage perpetual war 
 With Conscience and with thee. Lust in their hearts, 
 And mischief in their hands, they roam the Earth 
 To prey upon each other; stubborn, fierce, 
 High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. 
 
 Thy prophets speak of such ; and, noting down 
 The features of the last degen’rate times, 
 
 Exhibit ev’ry lineament of these. 
 
182 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Come then, and, added to thy many crowns, 
 
 Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, 
 
 Due to thy last and most effectual work, 
 
 Thy word fulfill’d, the conquest of a world ! 
 
 He is the happy man, whose life e’en now 
 Shows somewhat of that happier life to come ; 
 
 Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state, 
 
 Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to choose, 
 Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit 
 Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, 
 
 Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one 
 Content indeed to sojourn while he must 
 Below the skies, but having there his home. 
 
 The World o’erlooks him in her busy search 
 Of objects, more illustrious in her view; 
 
 And, occupied as earnestly as she, 
 
 Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the World. 
 
 She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not ; 
 He seeks not hers, for he has prov’d them vain. 
 
 He cannot skim the ground like summer birds 
 Pursuing gilded flies ; and such he deems 
 Her honours, her emoluments, her joys. 
 
 Therefore in Contemplation is his bliss, 
 
 Whose pow’r is such, that whom she lifts from Earth 
 She makes familiar with a Heav’n unseen, 
 
 And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d. 
 
 Not slothful he, though seeming unemploy’d, 
 
 And censur’d oft as useless. Stillest streams 
 Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird, 
 
 That flutters least, is longest on the wing. 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 183 
 
 Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has rais’d, 
 
 Or what achievements of immortal fame 
 He purposes, and he shall answer — None. 
 
 His warfare is within. There unfatigu’d 
 His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, 
 
 And there obtains fresh triumphs o’er himself, 
 
 And never with’ring wreaths, compar’d with which 
 The laurels that a Caesar reaps are weeds. 
 
 Perhaps the self-approving haughty World, 
 
 That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks 
 Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, 
 
 Deems him a cipher in the works of God, 
 
 Receives advantage from his noiseless hours, 
 
 Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes 
 Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 
 And plenteous harvest, to the pray’r he makes, 
 When, Isaac like, the solitary saint 
 Walks forth to meditate at eventide, 
 
 And think on her, who thinks not for herself. 
 Forgive him then, thou bustler in concerns 
 Of little worth, an idler in the best, 
 
 If, author of no mischief and some good, 
 
 He seek his proper happiness by means, 
 
 That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine. 
 
 Nor, though he tread the secret path of life, 
 Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease, 
 
 Account him an encumbrance on the state, 
 Receiving benefits, and rend’ring none. 
 
 His sphere though humble, if that humble sphere 
 Shine with his fair example, and though small 
 
184 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 His influence, if that influence all be spent 
 In soothing sorrow, and in quenching strife, 
 
 In aiding helpless indigence, in w orks, 
 
 From which at least a grateful few derive 
 Some taste of comfort in a w orld of woe ; 
 
 Then let the supercilious great confess 
 He serves his country, recompenses well 
 The state, beneath the shadow of whose vine 
 He sits secure, and in the scale of life 
 Holds no ignoble, though a slighted, place. 
 
 The man, whose virtues are more felt than seen, 
 Must drop indeed the hope of public praise ; 
 
 But he may boast, what few that win it can, 
 That, if his country stand not by his skill, 
 
 At least his follies have not wrought her fall. 
 Polite Refinement offers him in vain 
 Her golden tube, through which a sensual World 
 Draws gross impurity, and likes it well, 
 
 The neat conveyance hiding all the offence. 
 
 Not that he peevishly rejects a mode, 
 
 Because that World adopts it. If it bear 
 The stamp and clear impression of good sense. 
 And be not costly more than of true worth. 
 
 He puts it on, and for decorum sake 
 Can wear it e’en as gracefully as she. 
 
 She judges of refinement by the eye, 
 
 He by the test of conscience, and a heart 
 Not soon deceiv’d ; aware, that what is base 
 No polish can make sterling ; and that vice, 
 Though well perfum’d and elegantly dress’d. 
 
WINTER WALK AT NOON. 
 
 185 
 
 Like an unburied carcass trick’d with flow’rs, 
 
 Is but a garnish’d nuisance, fitter far 
 For cleanly riddance, than for fair attire. 
 
 So life glides smoothly and by stealth away. 
 
 More golden than that age of fabled gold 
 Renow n’d in ancient song; not vex’d with care 
 Or stain’d with guilt, beneficent, approv’d 
 Of God and man, and peaceful in its end. 
 
 So glide my life away ! and so at last, 
 
 My share of duties decently fulfill’d, 
 
 May some disease, not tardy to perform 
 Its destin’d office, yet with gentle stroke, 
 
 Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat, 
 
 Beneath the turf, that I have often trod. 
 
 It shall not grieve me then, that once, when call’d 
 To dress a Sofa with the flow’rs of verse, 
 
 I play’d awhile, obedient to the fair, 
 
 \Vith that light task ; but soon, to please her more. 
 Whom flow’rs alone I knew would little please, 
 
 Let fall th’ unfinish’d wreath, and rov’d for fruit; 
 Rov’d far, and gather’d much: some harsh, ’tis true, 
 Pick’d from the thorns and briars of reproof, 
 
 But wholesome, well-digested ; grateful some 
 To palates, that can taste immortal truth ; 
 
 Insipid else, and sure to be despis’d. 
 
 But all is in his hand, whose praise I seek. 
 
 In vain the poet sings, and the World hears, 
 
 If he regard not, though divine the theme. 
 
 ’Tis not in artful measures, in the chime 
 
186 
 
 THE TASK. 
 
 ROOK VI. 
 
 And idle tinkling of a minstrel’s lyre, 
 
 To charm his ear, whose eye is on the heart ; 
 Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain. 
 Whose approbation — prosper even mine. 
 
TIROCINIUM : 
 
 OR, 
 
 A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 KspaXaiov Sn srooSsia; 0f9ri rpo$r). 
 
 Plato. 
 
 Apw tao^imas atvaons, vttov r pof/ct. 
 
 Diog. Laert. 
 
TO THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM CAWTHORNE UNWIN, 
 
 RECTOR OF STOCK IN ESSEX, 
 
 THE TUTOR OF HIS TWO SONS, 
 
 TI|E FOLLOWING 
 
 Poem, 
 
 RECOMMENDING PRIVATE TUITION 
 
 IN PREFERENCE TO 
 
 AN EDUCATION AT SCHOOL, 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, 
 
 WILLIAM CO W PER. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 6, 1784. 
 
TIROCINIUM, 
 
 It is not from his form, in which we trace 
 Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace. 
 That man, the master of this globe, derives 
 His right of empire over all that lives. 
 
 That form indeed, tli’ associate of a mind 
 Vast in its pow’rs, ethereal in its kind, 
 
 That form, the labour of almighty skill, 
 
 Fram’d for the service of a freeborn will, 
 Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, 
 
 But borrows all its grandeur from the soul. 
 
 Here is the state, the splendour, and the throne, 
 An intellectual kingdom, all her own. 
 
 For her the Mem’ry fdls her ample page 
 With truths pour’d down from ev’ry distant age 
 For her amasses an unbounded store, 
 
 The wisdom of great nations, now no more; 
 Though laden, not encumber’d with her spoil; 
 Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil ; 
 
 When copiously supplied, then most enlarg’d ; 
 Still to be fed, and not to be surcharg’d. 
 
 For her the Fancy, roving unconfin’d, 
 
 The present muse of ev’ry pensive mind, 
 
190 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue 
 To Nature’s scenes than Nature ever knew. 
 
 At her command winds rise, and waters roar, 
 
 Again she lays them slumb’riiig on the shore ; 
 
 With flow’r and fruit the wilderness supplies, 
 
 Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise. 
 
 For her the Judgment, umpire in the strife, 
 
 That Grace and Nature have to wage through life, 
 Quick-sighted arbiter of good and ill, 
 
 Appointed sage preceptor to the Will, 
 
 Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice 
 Guides the decision of a doubtful choice. 
 
 Why did the fiat of a God give birth 
 To yon fair Sun, and his attendant Earth ? 
 
 And, wtien descending he resigns the skies, 
 
 Why takes the gentler Moon her turn to rise, 
 
 Whom Ocean feels through all his countless waves, 
 And owns her pow’r on ev’ry shore he laves? 
 
 Why do the seasons still enrich the year. 
 
 Fruitful and young, as in their first career? 
 
 Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, 
 Rock’d in the cradle of the western breeze ; 
 
 Summer in haste the thriving charge receives 
 Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves, 
 
 Till autumn’s fiercer heats and plenteous dews 
 Dye them at last in all their glowing hues. — 
 
 Twere wild profusion all, and bootless waste, 
 
 Pow’r misemploy’d, munificence misplac’d, 
 
 Had not its author dignified the plan, 
 
 And crown’d it with the majesty of man. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 iyi 
 
 Thus form’d, thus plac’d, intelligent, and taught, 
 Look where he will, the wonders God has wrought, 
 The wildest scorner of his Maker’s laws 
 Finds in a sober moment time to pause, 
 
 To press th’ important question on his heart, 
 
 “ Why form’d at all, and wherefore as thou art?” 
 
 If man be what he seems, this hour a slave, 
 
 The next mere dust and ashes in the grave ; 
 
 Endu’d with reason only to descry 
 His crimes and follies with an aching eye ; 
 
 With passions, just that he may prove, with pain, 
 The force he spends against their fury vain ; 
 
 And if, soon after having burnt, by turns. 
 
 With ev’ry lust, with which frail Nature burns, 
 
 His being end, where death dissolves the bond, 
 
 The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond ; 
 
 Then he, of all that Nature has brought forth, 
 Stands self-impeach’d the creature of least worth, 
 And useless while he lives, and when he dies, 
 Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies. 
 
 Truths that the learn’d pursue with eager thought, 
 Are not important always as dear bought. 
 
 Proving at last, though told in pompous strains, 
 
 A childish waste of philosophic pains; 
 
 But truths on which depends our main concern 
 That ’tis our shame and mis’ry not to learn, 
 
 Shine by the side of ev’ry path we tread 
 With such a lustre, he that runs may read. 
 
 ’Tis true that, if to trifle life away 
 Down to the sunset of their latest day. 
 
192 
 
 TIROCINIUM : OR, 
 
 Then perish on futurity's wide shore 
 Like fleeting exhalations, found no more, 
 
 Were all that Heav’n requir’d of humankind, 
 
 And all the plan their destiny design’d, 
 
 What none could rev’rence all might justly blame, 
 And man would breathe but for his Maker’s shame 
 But reason heard, and nature well perus'd, 
 
 At once the dreaming mind is disabus’d. 
 
 If all we find possessing earth, sea, air, 
 
 Reflect his attributes, who plac'd them there, 
 
 Fulfil the purpose, and appear design’d 
 Proofs of the wisdom of th’ all-seeing mind, 
 
 ’Tis plain the creature, whom he chose t’ invest 
 With kingship and dominion o’er the rest. 
 
 Receiv’d his nobler nature, and was made 
 Fit for the pow’r, in which he stands array’d, 
 
 That first, or last, hereafter, if not here, 
 
 He too might make his author’s wisdom clear, 
 Praise him on Earth, or, obstinately dumb, 
 
 Suffer his justice in a world to come. 
 
 This once believ’d, ’twere logic misapplied, 
 
 To prove a consequence by none denied, 
 
 That we are bound to cast the minds of youth 
 Betimes into the mould of heav’nly truth, 
 
 That taught of God they may indeed be wise, 
 
 Nor ignorantly wand’ring miss the skies. 
 
 In early days the conscience has in most 
 A quickness, which in later life is lost: 
 
 Preserv’d from guilt by salutary fears, 
 
 Or guilty soon relenting into tears. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 193 
 
 Too careless often, as our years proceed, 
 
 What friends we sort with, or what books we read, 
 Our parents yet exert a prudent care, 
 
 To feed our infant minds with proper fare ; 
 
 And wisely store the nurs’ry by degrees 
 With wholesome learning, yet acquir’d with ease, 
 Neatly secur’d from being soil’d or torn 
 Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn, 
 
 A book (to please us at a tender age 
 ’Tis call’d a book, though but a single page) 
 Presents the pray’r the Saviour deign’d to teach, 
 Which children use, and parsons — when they preach. 
 Lisping our syllables, we scramble next 
 Through moral narrative, or sacred text ; 
 
 And learn with wonder how this world began, 
 
 Who made, who marr’d, and who has ransom’d man. 
 Points, which, unless the Scripture made them plain, 
 The wisest heads might agitate in vain. 
 
 0 thou, whom, borne on fancy’s eager wing 
 Back to the season of life’s happy spring, 
 
 1 pleas’d remember, and, while mem’ry yet 
 Holds fast her office here, can ne’er forget; 
 Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
 Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ; 
 
 Whose hum’rous vein, strong sense, and simple style, 
 May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile; 
 Witty, and well employ’d, and, like thy Lord, 
 Speaking in parables his slighted word ; 
 
 I name thee not, lest so despis’d a name 
 Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame; 
 
 K 
 
11)4 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 Yet ev’n in transitory life’s late day, 
 
 That mingles all my brown with sober grey, 
 
 Revere the man, whose pilgrim marks the road, 
 And guides the progress of the soul to God. 
 Twere well with most, if books, that could engage 
 Their childhood, pleas’d them at a riper age ; 
 
 The man, approving what had charm’d the boy, 
 Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy ; 
 
 And not w ith curses on his heart, who stole 
 The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. 
 
 The stamp of artless piety impress’d 
 By kind tuition on his yielding breast, 
 
 The youth now bearded, and yet pert and raw. 
 Regards with scorn, though once receiv’d with awe 
 And, warp’d into the labyrinth of lies, 
 
 That babblers, call’d philosophers, devise, 
 Blasphemes his creed, as founded on a plan 
 Replete with dreams, unworthy of a man. 
 
 Touch but his nature in its ailing part, 
 
 Assert the native evil of his heart, 
 
 His pride resents the charge, although the proof 
 Rise in his forehead *, and seem rank enough : 
 Point to the cure, describe a Saviour’s cross 
 As God’s expedient to retrieve his loss, 
 
 The young apostate sickens at the view, 
 
 And hates it with the malice of a Jew. 
 
 How weak the barrier of mere Nature proves, 
 Oppos’d against the pleasures Nature loves! 
 
 While self-betray’d, and wilfully undone, 
 
 She longs to yield, no sooner woo’d than won. 
 
 * See 2 Chron. xxvi. ver. 19. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 195 
 
 Try now the merits of this blest exchange 
 Of modest truth for wit's eccentric range. 
 
 Time was, he clos’d as lie began the day 
 With decent duty, not asham’d to pray: 
 
 The practice was a bond upon his heart, 
 
 A pledge he gave for a consistent part ; 
 
 Nor could he dare presumptuously displease 
 A pow’r, confess’d so lately on his knees. 
 
 But now farewell all legendary tales, 
 
 The shadows fly, philosophy prevails; 
 
 Pray’r to the winds, and caution to the waves ; 
 Religion makes the free by nature slaves. 
 
 Priests have invented, and the World admir’d 
 What knavish priests promulgate as inspir’d; 
 
 Till Reason, now no longer overaw’d, 
 
 Resumes her pow’rs, and spurns the clumsy fraud ; 
 And common-sense diffusing real dajr, 
 
 The meteor of the Gospel dies away. 
 
 Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth 
 Learn from expert inquirers after truth ; 
 
 Whose only care, might truth presume to speak, 
 
 Is not to find what they profess to seek. 
 
 And thus, well-tutor’d only while we share 
 A mother’s lectures and a nurse’s care ; 
 
 And taught at schools much mythologic stuff*, 
 
 But sound religion sparingly enough ; 
 
 * The author begs leave to explain. — Sensible that, without such 
 knowledge, neither the ancient poets nor historians can be tasted, or in- 
 deed understood, he does not mean to censure the pains that are taken 
 to instruct a schoolboy in the religion of the Heathen, but merely that 
 K 2 
 
11)6 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 Our early notices of truth, disgrac’d, 
 
 Soon lose their credit, and are all effac’d. 
 
 Would you your son should be a sot or dunce, 
 Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once ; 
 
 That in good time the stripling’s finish’d taste 1 
 For loose expense, and fashionable waste, > 
 
 Should prove your ruin, and his own at last; J 
 Train him in public with a mob of boys, 
 
 Childish in mischief only and in noise, 
 
 Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten 
 In infidelity and lewdness men. 
 
 There shall he learn, ere sixteen winters old, 
 
 That authors are most useful pawn’d or sold ; 
 
 That pedantry is all that schools impart, 
 
 But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart; 
 There waiter Dick, with Bacchanalian lays, 
 
 Shall win his heart, and have his drunken praise, 
 
 His counsellor and bosom-friend shall prove, 
 
 And some street-pacing harlot, his first love. 
 
 Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, 
 Detain their adolescent charge too long ; 
 
 The management of tiroes of eighteen 
 Is difficult, their punishment obscene. 
 
 The stout tall captain, whose superior size 
 The minor heroes view with envious eyes, 
 
 Beeomes their pattern, upon whom they fix 
 Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks. 
 
 neglect of Christian culture, which leaves him shamefully ignorant of 
 his own. 
 
 / 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 197 
 
 His pride, that scorns t’ obey or to submit, 
 
 With them is courage ; his effrontery wit. 
 
 His wild excursions, window-breaking feats, 
 
 Robb’ry of gardens, quarrels in the streets, 
 
 His hair-breadth ’scapes, and all his daring schemes, 
 Transport them, and are made their fav’rite themes. 
 In little bosoms such achievements strike 
 A kindred spark ; they burn to do the like. 
 
 Thus, half-accomplish’d ere he yet begin 
 To show the peeping down upon his chin ; 
 
 And, as maturity of years comes on, 
 
 Made just th’ adept that you design’d your son ; 
 
 T ? ensure the perseverance of his course, 
 
 And give your monstrous project all its force, 
 
 Send him to college. If he there be tam’d, 
 
 Or in one article of vice reclaim’d, 
 
 Where no regard of ord’nances is shown 
 Or look’d for now, the fault must be his own. 
 
 Some sneaking virtue lurks in him, no doubt, 7 
 Where neither strumpets’ charms, nor drinking- > 
 Nor gambling practices, can find it out. [bout, j 
 Such youths of spirit, and that spirit too, 
 
 Ye nurs’ries of our boys, we owe to you: 
 
 Though from ourselves the mischief more proceeds. 
 For public schools ’tis public folly feeds. 
 
 The slaves of custom and establish’d mode, 
 
 With packhorse constancy we keep the road, 
 Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, 
 True to the jingling of our leader’s bells. 
 
 To follow foolish precedents, and wink 
 With both our eyes, is easier than to think : 
 
tirocinium: or, 
 
 IP8 
 
 And such an age as ours baulks no expense, 
 Except of caution, and of common-sense; 
 
 Else sure notorious fact, and proof so plain, 
 Would turn our steps into a wiser train. 
 
 I blame not those, who with what care they can 
 O’erwatch the num’rous and unruly clan; 
 
 Or, if I blame, ’tis only that they dare 
 Promise a w ork, of which they must despair. 
 Have ye, ye sage intendants of the whole, 
 
 A ubiquarian presence and control, 
 
 Elisha’s eye, that, when Gehazi stray’d, 
 
 Went with him, and saw all the game he play’d? 
 A es — ye are conscious; and on all the shelves 
 Your pupils strike upon, have struck yourselves. 
 Or if, by nature sober, ye had then, 
 
 Boys as ye were, the gravity of men ; 
 
 Ye knew at least, by constant proofs address’d 
 To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest. 
 
 But ye connive at what ye cannot cure, 
 
 And evils, not to be endur’d, endure, 
 
 Lest pow’r exerted, but without success, 
 
 Should make the little ye retain still less. 
 
 Ye once were justly fam’d for bringing forth 
 Undoubted scholarship and genuine worth ; 
 
 And in the firmament of fame still shines 
 A glory, bright as that of all the signs, 
 
 Of poets rais’d by you, and statesmen, and divines. 
 Peace to them all ! those brilliant times are fled, 
 And no such lights are kindling in their stead. 
 Our striplings shine indeed, but with such rays, 
 As set the midnight riot in a blaze ; 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 190 
 
 And seem, if judg’d by their expressive looks, 
 Deeper in none than in their surgeons’ books. 
 
 Say muse (for, education made the song, 
 
 No muse can hesitate, or linger long), 
 
 What causes move us, knowing as we must, 
 
 That these menageries all fail their trust, 
 
 To send our sous to scout and scamper there, 
 "While colts and puppies cost us so much care ? 
 
 Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, 
 
 We love the play-place of our early days ; 
 
 The scene is touching, and the heart is stone. 
 
 That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. 
 
 The wall on which we tried our graving skill, 
 
 The very name we carv’d subsisting still; 
 
 The bench on which we sat while deep employ’d, 
 Though mangled, hack’d, and hew’d, not yet destroy’d 
 The little ones, unbutton’d, glowing hot, 
 
 Playing our games, and on the very spot; 
 
 As happy as we once, to kneel and draw 
 The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw; 
 
 To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, 
 
 Or drive it devious with a dext’rous pat; 
 
 The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
 Such recollection of our ovVn delights, 
 
 That, viewing it, w r e seem almost t’ obtain 
 Our innocent sweet simple years again. 
 
 This fond attachment to the well-known place, 
 Whence first we started into life’s long race, 
 -Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, 
 
 We feel it e’en in age, and at our latest day. 
 
•200 
 
 TIROCINIUM: OR, 
 
 Hark! how the sire of chits, whose future share 
 Of classic food begins to be his care, 
 
 With his own likeness plac’d on either knee, 
 Indulges all a father’s heart-felt glee ; 
 
 And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks. 
 That they must soon learn Latin, and to box : 
 Then turning lie regales his list’ning wife 
 With all th’ adventures of his early life ; 
 
 His skill in coachmanship, or driving chaise, 
 
 In bilking tavern bills, and spouting plays ; 
 
 What shifts he us’d, detected in a scrape, 
 
 How he was flogg’d, or had the luck t’ escape ; 
 What sums he lost at -play, and how he sold 
 Watch, seals, and all — till all his pranks are told. 
 Retracing thus his frolics (’tis a name 
 That palliates deeds of folly and of shame), 
 
 He gives the local bias all its sway ; 
 
 Resolves that where he play’d his sons shall play. 
 And destines their bright genius to be shown 
 Just in the scene where he display’d his own. 
 
 The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught. 
 To be as bold and forward as he ought ; 
 
 The rude will scuffle through with ease enough, 
 Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough. 
 Ah happy designation, prudent choice, 
 
 Th’ event is sure ; expect it; and rejoice! 
 
 Soon see your wish fulfill’d in either child, 
 
 The pert made perter, and the tame made wild. 
 
 The great indeed, by titles, riches, birth, 
 Excus’d th’ encumbrance of more solid worth. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 201 
 
 Are best dispos’d of where with most success 
 They may acquire that confident address, 
 
 Those habits of profuse and lewd expense, 
 
 That scorn of all delights but those of sense, 
 Which, though in plain plebeians we condemn, 
 With so much reason all expect from them. 
 
 But families of less illustrious fame, 
 
 Whose chief distinction is their spotless name, 
 Whose heirs, their honours none, their income small, 
 Must shine by true desert, or not at all, 
 
 What dream they of, that with so little care 
 They risk their hopes, their dearest treasure, there? 
 They dream of little Charles or William grac’d 
 With wig prolix, down flowing to his waist; 
 
 They see th’ attentive crowds his talents draw, 
 
 They hear him speak — the oracle of law. 
 
 The father, who designs his babe a priest, 
 
 Dreams him episcopally such at least ; 
 
 And, while the playful jockey scours the room 
 Briskly, astride upon the parlour broom, 
 
 In fancy sees him more superbly ride 
 In coach with purple lin’d, and mitres on its side. 
 Events improbable and strange as these, 1 
 
 Which only a parental eye foresees, > 
 
 A public school shall bring to pass with ease. ' 
 But how ? resides such virtue in that air, 
 
 As must create an appetite for pray’r ? 
 
 And will it breathe into him all the zeal, 
 
 That candidates for such a prize should feel, 
 k 3 
 
202 
 
 TIROCINIUM: OR, 
 
 To take the lead and be the foremost still 
 In all true worth and literary skill? 
 
 “ Ah blind to bright futurity, untaught 
 The knowledge of the World, and dull of thought ! 
 Church-ladders are not always mounted best 
 By learned clerks, and Latinists profess’d, 
 
 Th’ exalted prize demands an upward look, 
 
 Not to be found by poring on a book. 
 
 Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek, 
 
 Is more than adequate to all I seek. 
 
 Let erudition grace him, or not grace, 
 
 I give the bauble but the second place ; 
 
 His wealth, fame, honours, all that I intend, 
 
 Subsist and centre in one point— a friend. 
 
 A friend, whate’er he studies or neglects, 
 
 Shall give him consequence, heal all defects. 
 
 His intercourse with peers and sons of peers— 
 there dawns the splendour of his future years; 
 
 In that bright quarter his propitious skies 
 Shall blush betimes, and there his glor}' rise. 
 
 Your Lordship , and Your Grace! what school can 
 A rhet’ric equal to those parts of speech ? [teach 
 What need of Homer’s verse, or Tuliy’s prose, 
 Sweet interjections! if he learn but those? 
 
 Let rev’rcnd churls his ignorance rebuke, T 
 
 Who starve upon a dog’s-ear’d Pentateuch, V 
 The parson knows enough who knows a duke." j 
 Egregious purpose ! worthily begun 
 lu barb’rous prostitution of your son ; 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 203 
 
 Press'd on his part by means, that would disgrace 
 A scriv’ner’s clerk, or footman out of place, 
 
 And ending, if at last its end be gain’d, 
 
 In sacrilege, in God’s own house profan’d. 
 
 It may succeed; and, if his sins should call 
 For more than common punishment, it shall ; 
 
 The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on Earth 
 Least qualified in honour, learning, worth, 
 
 To occupy a sacred, awful post, 
 
 In which the best and worthiest tremble most. 
 
 The royal letters are a thing of course, 
 
 A king, that would, might recommend his horse ; 
 And deans, no doubt, and chapters, with one voice, 
 As bound in duty, would confirm the choice. 
 
 Behold your bishop ! w ell he plays his part, 
 Christian in name, and infidel in heart, 
 
 Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan, 
 
 A slave at court, elsewhere a lady’s man. 
 
 Dumb as a senator, and as a priest 
 A piece of mere church-furniture at best; 
 
 To live estrang’d from God his total scope, 
 
 And his end sure, without one glimpse of hope. 
 
 But fair although and feasible it seem, 
 
 Depend not much upon yoi^r golden dream ; 
 
 For Providence, that seems concern’d t’ exempt 
 The hallow’d bench from absolute contempt, 
 
 In spite of all the wrigglers into place, 
 
 Still keeps a seat or two for worth and grace ; 
 
 And therefore ’tis, that, though the sight be rare. 
 We sometimes see a Lowth or Bag'ot there. 
 
204 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 Besides, school-friendships arc not always found, 
 Though fair in promise, permanent and sound; 
 
 The most disint’rested and virtuous minds, 
 
 In early years connected, time unbinds; 
 
 New situations give a diff’rent cast 
 Of habit, inclination, temper, taste ; 
 
 And he, that seem’d our counterpart at first, 
 
 Soon shows the strong similitude revers’d. 
 
 Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm 
 And make mistakes for manhood to reform. 
 
 Boys are at best but pretty buds unblown. 
 
 Whose scent and hues are rather guess’d than known 
 Each dreams that each is just what he appears, 
 
 But learns his error in maturer years, 
 
 When disposition, like a sail unfurl’d 
 Shows all its rents and patches to the World. 
 
 If, therefore, ev’n when honest in design, 
 
 A boyish friendship may so soon decline, 
 
 Twere wiser sure t’ inspire a little heart 
 With just abhorrence of so mean a part, 
 
 Than set your son to work at a vile trade 
 For wages so unlikely to be paid. 
 
 Our public hives of puerile resort, 
 
 That are of chief and most approv’d report. 
 
 To such base hopes, in many a sordid soul, 
 
 Owe their repute in part, but not the whole. 
 
 A principle, whose proud pretensions pass 
 Unquestion’d, though the jewel be but glass— 
 
 That with a world, not often over-nice, 
 
 Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a vice; 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 205 
 
 Or rather a gross compound, justly tried, 
 
 Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride— 
 Contributes most perhaps t’ enhance their fame ; 
 And emulation is its specious name. 
 
 Boys, once on fire with that contentious zeal, 
 Feel all the rage that female rivals feel ; 
 
 The prize of beauty in a woman’s eyes 
 Not brighter than in theirs the scholar’s prize. 
 The spirit of that competition burns 
 With all varieties of ill by turns ; 
 
 Each vainly magnifies his own success. 
 
 Resents his fellow’s, wishes it were less, 
 
 Exults in his miscarriage, if he fail, 
 
 Deems his reward too great, if he prevail, 
 
 And labours to surpass him day and night, 
 
 Less for improvement than to tickle spite. 
 
 The spur is pow’rful, and I grant its force ; 
 
 It pricks the genius forward in its course, 
 
 Allows short time for play and none for sloth ; 
 And, felt alike by each, advances both : 
 
 But judge, where so much evil intervenes, 
 
 The end, though plausible, not worth the means. 
 Weigh, for a moment, classical desert 
 Against a heart deprav’d and temper hurt ; 
 
 Hurt too perhaps for life ; for early wrong 
 Done to the nobler part, affects it long ; 
 
 And you are staunch indeed in learning’s cause, 
 If yon can crown a discipline, that draws 
 Such mischiefs after it, with much applause. 
 
206 
 
 tirocinium: or 
 
 Connexion form’d for int’rest, and endear’d 
 By selfish views, thus censur’d and cashier’d ; 
 And emulation, as engend’ring hate, 
 
 Doom’d to a no less ignominious fate; 
 
 The props of such proud seminaries fall. 
 
 The Jachin and the Boaz of them all. 
 
 Great schools rejected then, as those that swell 
 Beyond a size that can be manag’d well, 
 
 Shall royal institutions miss the bays, 
 
 And small academies win all the praise? 
 
 Force not my drift beyond its just intent, 
 
 I praise a school as Pope a government; 
 
 So take my judgment in his language dress’d, 
 
 “ Whate’er is best administer’d is best.” 
 
 Few boys are born with talents that excel, 
 
 But all are capable of living well; 
 
 Then ask not, Whether limited or large? 
 
 But, Watch they strictly, or neglect their charge? 
 If anxious only that their boys may learn, 
 
 While morals languish, a despis’d concern, 
 
 The great and small deserve one common blame, 
 Diff’rent in size, but in effect the same. 
 
 Much zeal in virtue’s cause all teachers boast, 
 Though motives of mere lucre sway the most; 
 Therefore in towns and cities they abound, 
 
 For there the game they seek is easiest found ; 
 Though there, in spite of all that care can do, 
 Traps to catch youth are most abundant too. 
 
 If shrewd, and of a well constructed brain, 
 
 Keen in pursuit, and vig’rous to retain, 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 •207 
 
 Your sou come forth a prodigy of skill ; 
 
 As, wheresoever taught, so form’d, he will; 
 
 The pedagogue, with self-complacent air, 
 
 Claims more than half the praise as his due share. 
 But if, with all his genius, he betray, 
 
 Not more intelligent than loose and gay, 
 
 Such vicious habits, as disgrace his name, 
 Threaten his health, his fortune, and his fame ; 
 Though want of due restraint alone have bred 
 The symptoms, that you see with so much dread ; 
 Unenvied there, he may sustain alone 
 The whole reproach, the fault was all his own. 
 
 O ’tis a sight to be with joy perus’d, 
 
 By all whom sentiment has not abus’d; 
 New-fangled sentiment, the boasted grace 
 Of those who never feel in the right place ; 
 
 A sight surpass’d by none that we can show, 
 Though Vestris on one leg still shine below; 
 
 A father blest with an ingenuous son, 
 
 Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one. 
 
 How ! — turn again to tales long since forgot, 
 2Esop, and Phaedrus, and the rest? Why not? 
 
 He will not blush that has a father’s heart, 
 
 To take in childish plays a childish part; 
 
 But bends his sturdy back to any toy, 
 
 That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy: 
 Then why resign into a stranger’s hand 
 A task as much within your own command, 
 
 That Cod, and nature, and your int’rest too, 
 
 Seem with one voice to delegate to you? 
 
208 
 
 tirocinium: or. 
 
 Why hire a lodging in a house unknown 
 1' or one, whose tend’rest thoughts all hover round your 
 This second weaning, needless as it is, [own ? 
 
 How does it lac’rate both your heart and his ! 
 
 Th’ indented stick, that loses day by day 
 Notch after notch, till all are smooth’d away, 
 
 Bears witness, long ere his dismission come. 
 
 With what intense desire he wants his home. 
 
 But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof 
 Bid fair enough to answer in the proof. 
 
 Harmless, and safe, and nat’ral, as they are, 
 
 A disappointment waits him even there : 
 
 Arriv’d, he feels an unexpected change, 
 
 He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange, 
 
 No longer takes, as once, his fearless ease, 
 
 His fav’rite stand between his father’s knees, 
 
 But seeks the corner of some distant seat. 
 
 And eyes the door, and w atches a retreat ; 
 
 And, least familiar where he should be most, 
 
 Feels all his happiest privileges lost. 
 
 Alas, poor boy!— the natural effect 
 Of love by absence chill’d into respect, 
 
 Say, what accomplishments, at school acquir’d, 
 Brings he, to sweeten fruits so undesir’d ? 
 
 Thou well deserv’st an alienated son, 
 
 Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge — none; 
 None that, in thy domestic snug recess, 
 
 He had not made his own with more address, 
 
 Though some perhaps that shock thy feeling mind, 
 And better never learn’d, or left behind. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 200 
 
 Add too, that, thus estrang’d, thou canst obtain 
 By no kind arts his confidence again ; 
 
 That here begins with most that long complaint 
 Of filial frankness lost, and love grown faint, 
 
 Which, oft neglected, in life’s waning years 
 A parent pours into regardless ears. 
 
 Tike caterpillars, dangling under trees 
 By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, 
 Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace 
 The boughs in which are bred th’ unseemly race ; 
 While ev’ry worm industriously weaves 
 And winds his web about the rivell’d leaves ; 
 
 So num’rous are the follies, that annoy 
 The mind and heart of ev’ry sprightly boy; 
 Imaginations noxious and perverse, 
 
 Which admonition can alone disperse. 
 
 Th’ encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand. 
 Patient, affectionate, of high command, 
 
 To check the procreation of a breed 
 
 Sure to exhaust the plant on which they feed. 
 
 ’Tis not enough, that Greek or Roman page, 
 
 At stated hours, his freakish thoughts engage ; 
 
 Ev’n in his pastimes he requires a friend, 
 
 To warn, and teach him safely to unbend; 
 
 O’er all his pleasures gently to preside, 
 
 Watch his emotions, and control their tide; 
 
 And levying thus, and with an easy sway, 
 
 A tax of profit from his very play, 
 
 T’ impress a value, not to be eras’d, 
 
 On moments squander’d else, and running all to waste. 
 
210 
 
 TIROCINIUM : OR, 
 
 And seems it nothing in a father’s eye, 
 
 That unimprov’d those many moments fly? 
 
 And is lie well content his son should find 
 No nourishment to feed his growing mind, 
 
 But conjugated verbs, and nouns declin’d? 
 
 For such is all the mental food purvey’d 
 By public hacknies in the schooling trade ; 
 
 Who feed a pupil’s intellect with store 
 Of syntax, truly, but with little more; 
 
 Dismiss their cares, when they dismiss their flock, 
 Machines themselves, and govern’d by a clock. 
 Perhaps a father, blest with any brains. 
 
 Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains, 
 
 T’ improve this diet, at no great expense, 
 
 With sav’ry truth and wholesome common sense; 
 To lead his son, for prospects of delight, 
 
 To some not steep, though philosophic, height, 
 Thence to exhibit to his wond’ring eyes 
 Yon circling worlds, their distance, and their size ; 
 The moons of Jove, and Saturn’s belted ball, 
 
 And the harmonious order of them all ; 
 
 To show' him in an insect or a flow’r 
 Such microscopic proof of skill and pow’r, 
 
 As, hid from ages past, God now displays 
 To combat atheists with in modern days; 
 
 To spread the Earth before him, and commend. 
 With designation of the finger’s end, 
 
 Its various parts to his attentive note, ^ 
 
 Thus bringing home to him the most remote ; 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 211 
 
 To teach his heart to glow with gen’rous flame 
 Caught from the deeds of men of ancient fame: 
 And, more than all, with commendation due, 
 
 To set some living worthy in his view, 
 
 Whose fair example may at once inspire 
 A wish to copy what he must admire. 
 
 Such knowledge gain’d betimes, and which appears, 
 Though solid, not too weighty for his years, 
 
 Sweet in itself, and not forbidding sport, 
 
 When health demands it, of athletic sort, 
 
 Would make him — w hat some lovely boys have been, 
 And more than one perhaps that I have seen - 
 An evidence and reprehension both 
 Of the mere schoolboy’s lean and tardy growth. 
 
 Art thou a man professedly tied, 
 
 With all thy faculties elsewhere applied, 
 
 Too busy to intend a meaner care, 
 
 Than how t’ enrich thyself, and next thine heir : 
 
 Or art thou (as, though rich, perhaps thou art) 
 
 But poor in knowledge, having none t’ impart: — 
 Behold that figure, neat, though plainly clad ; 
 
 His sprightly mingled with a shade of sad; 
 
 Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then 
 Heard to articulate like other men ; 
 
 No jester, and yet lively in discourse, 
 
 His phrase well chosen, clear, and full of force; 
 And his address, if not quite French in ease, 
 
 Not English stiff, but frank, and form’d to please; 
 Low in the W'orld, because he scorns its arts; 
 
 A man of letters, manners, morals, parts ; 
 
212 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 Unpatroniz’d, and therefore little known ; 
 
 Wise for himself and his few friends alone— 
 
 In him thy well-appointed proxy see. 
 
 Arm’d for a work too difficult for thee ; 
 
 Prepard by taste, by learning, and true worth, 
 To form thy son, to strike his genius forth ; 
 Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye, to prove 
 The force of discipline, when back’d by love ; 
 
 To double all thy pleasure in thy child, 
 
 His mind inform’d, his morals undefil’d. 
 
 Safe under such a wing, the boy shall show 
 No spots contracted among grooms below, 
 
 Nor taint his speech with meannesses design’d 
 By footman Tom for witty and refin’d. 
 
 There, in his commerce with the liv’ried herd, 
 Lurks the contagion chiefly to be fear’d ; 
 
 For since (so fashion dictates) all, who claim 
 A higher than a mere plebeian fame, 
 
 Find it expedient, come what mischief may, 
 
 To entertain a thief or two in pay 
 
 (And they that can afford th’ expense of more, 
 
 Some half a dozen, and some half a score), 
 
 Great cause occurs to save him from a band 
 So sure to spoil him, and so near at hand ; 
 
 A point secur’d, if once he be supplied 
 With some such Mentor always at his side. 
 
 Are such men rare? perhaps they would abound, 
 Were occupation easier to be found, 
 
 Were education, else so sure to fail, 
 
 Conducted on a manageable scale, 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 *213 
 
 j And schools, that have outliv’d all just esteem, 
 Exchang’d for the secure domestic scheme. — 
 f But, having found him, be thou duke or earl. 
 
 Show thou hast sense enough to prize the pearl, 
 
 ( And, as thou wouldst th’ advancement of thine heir 
 In all good faculties beneath his care, 
 
 Respect, as is but rational and just, 
 
 A man deem’d worthy of so dear a trust. 
 
 Despis’d by thee, what more can he expect 
 From youthful folly than the same neglect? 
 
 A flat and fatal negative obtains 
 That instant upon all his future pains ; 
 
 His lessons tire, his mild rebukes offend, 1 
 
 And all th’ instructions of thy son’s best friend 
 Are a stream chok’d, or trickling to no end. J 
 
 Doom him not then to solitary meals ; 
 
 But recollect, that he has sense, and feels ; 
 
 And that, possessor of a soul refin’d, 
 
 An upright heart, and cultivated mind, 
 
 His post not mean, his talents not unknown, 
 
 He deems it hard to vegetate alone. 
 
 And, if admitted at thy board he sit, 
 
 Account him no just mark for idle wit; 
 
 Offend not him, whom modesty restrains 
 From repartee, with jokes that he disdains ; 
 
 Much less transfix his feelings with an oath ; 
 
 Nor frown, unless he vanish with the cloth.— 
 
 And, trust me, his utility may reach 
 To more than he is hir’d or bound to teach ; 
 
 Much trash unutter’d, and some ills undone, 
 Through rev’rence of the censor of thy son. 
 
214 
 
 tirocinium: or, 
 
 But, if thy table be indeed unclean. 
 
 Foul with excess, aud with discourse obscent, 
 
 And thou a wretch, whom, foll’wing her old plan, 
 The World accounts an honourable man, 
 
 Because forsooth thy courage has been tried 
 And stood the test, perhaps on the wrong side; 
 Though thou hadst never grace enough to prove. 
 That any thing bul vice could win thy love;— 
 
 Or hast thou a polite card-playing wife, 
 
 Chain’d to the routs that she frequents for life; 
 
 Who, just when industry begins to snore, 
 
 Flies, wing’d with joy, to some coach-crow ded door; 
 And thrice in ev’ry winter throngs thine ow r n 
 With half the chariots and sedans in town, 
 
 Thyself meanwhile e’en shifting as thou may’st; 
 
 Not very sober though, nor very chaste; — 
 
 Or is thine house, though less superb thy rank, 
 
 If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank, 
 
 And thou at best, and in thy sob’rest mood, 
 
 A trifler vain, and empty of all good ; 
 
 Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none, 
 Hear Nature plead, show mercy to thy son. 
 
 Sav’d from his home, where ev’ry day brings forth 
 Some mischief fatal to his future worth, 
 
 Find him a better in a distant spot, 
 
 Within some pious pastor’s humble cot, 
 
 Where vile example (jours I chiefly mean, 
 
 The most seducing, and the oft’nest seen) 
 
 May never more be stamp’d upon his breast. 
 
 Not yet perhaps incurably impress’d. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 *215 
 
 Where early rest makes early rising sure, 
 
 Disease or comes not, or finds easy cure, 
 Prevented much by diet neat and plain ; 
 
 Or, if it enter, soon starv’d out again : 
 
 Where all th’ attention of his faithful host, 
 Discreetly limited to two at most, 
 
 May raise such fruits as shall reward his care, 
 And not at last evaporate in air : 
 
 Where, stillness aiding study, and his mind 
 Serene, and to his duties much inclin’d, 
 
 Not occupied in day-dreams, as at home, 
 
 Of pleasures past, or follies yet to come, 
 
 His virtuous toil may terminate at last 
 In settled habit and decided taste. — 
 
 But whom do I advise ? the fashion-led, 
 
 Th’ incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead, 
 
 Whom care and cool deliberation suit 
 Not better much than spectacles a brute ; 
 
 Who, if their sons some slight tuition share, 
 Deem it of no great moment whose, or where ; 
 Too proud t’ adopt the thoughts of one unknown, 
 And much too gay t’ have any of their own. 
 
 But courage, man ! methought the muse replied. 
 Mankind are various, and the World is wide : 
 
 The ostrich, silliest of the feather’d kind, 
 
 And form’d of God without a parent’s mind, 
 Commits her eggs, incautious, to the dust, 
 Forgetful that the loot may crush the trust; 
 
 And, while on public nurs’ries they rely, 
 
 Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why. 
 
*216 
 
 TIROCINIUM : OR, 
 
 Irrational in what they thus prefer, 
 
 No few, that would seem wise, resemble her. 
 
 But all are not alike. Thy warning voice 
 May here and there prevent erroneous choice ; 
 
 And some perhaps, who, busy as they are, 
 
 Yet make their progeny their dearest care 
 (Whose hearts will ache, once told wjiat ills may reach 
 Their offspring, left upon so w ild a beach), 
 
 Will need no stress of argument t’ enforce 
 Th’ expedience of a less advent’rous course: 
 
 The rest will slight thy counsel, or condemn; 
 
 But they have human feelings — turn to them. 
 
 To you then, tenants of life’s middle state, 
 Securely plac’d between the small and great, 
 
 Whose character, yet undebauch’d, retains 
 Two-thirds of all the virtue that remains, 
 
 Who, wise yourselves, desire your son should learn 
 Your wisdom and your ways— to you I turn. 
 
 Look round you on a World perversely blind; 
 
 See what contempt is fall’n on humankind ; 
 
 See wealth abus’d, and dignities misplac’d, 
 
 Great titles, offices, and trusts disgrac’d, 
 
 Long lines of ancestry, renown’d of old, 
 
 Their noble qualities all quench’d and cold ; 
 
 See Bedlam’s closetted and hand-cuff’d charge 
 Surpass’d in frenzy by the mad at large; 
 
 See great commanders making war a trade, 
 
 Great lawyers, lawyers without study made ; 
 Churchmen, in whose esteem their best employ 
 Is odious, and their wages all their joy, 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 217 
 
 Who, far enough from furnishing their shelves 
 With Gospel lore, turn infidels themselves; 
 
 See womanhood despis’d, and manhood sham’d 
 With infamy too nauseous to be nam’d, 
 
 Fops at all corners, ladylike in mien, 
 
 Civetted fellows, smelt ere they are seen, 
 
 Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue 
 On fire with curses, and with nonsense hung, 
 
 Now flush’d with .drunkenness, now with whoredom 
 Their breath a sample of last night’s regale ; [pale, 
 See volunteers in all the vilest arts, 
 
 Men well endow’d, of honourable parts, 
 
 Design’d by Nature wise, but self-made fools ; 
 
 All these, and more like these, were bred at schools. 
 And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will, 
 
 That though school-bred the boy be virtuous still ; 
 Such rare exceptions, shining in the dark, 
 
 Prove, rather than impeach, the just remark : 
 
 As here and there a twinkling star descried 
 Serves but to show how black is all beside. 
 
 Now look on him, whose very voice in tone 
 Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own, 
 And stroke his polish’d cheek of purest red, 
 
 And lay thine hand upon his flaxen head, 
 
 And say, My boy, th’ unwelcome hour is come, 
 When thou, transplanted from thy genial home, 
 Must find a colder soil and bleaker air, 
 
 And trust for safety to a stranger’s care ; 
 
 What character, what turn thou wilt assume 
 From constant converse with I know not whom ; 
 
 L 
 
218 
 
 TIROCINIUM : OR, 
 
 Who there will court thy friendship, with what views, 
 And, artless as thou art, whom thou wilt choose ; 
 Though much depends on what thy choice shall be, 
 Is all chance-medley, and unknown to me. 
 
 Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids, 
 
 And while the dreadful risk foreseen forbids; 
 
 Free too, and under no constraining force, 
 
 Unless the sway of custom warp thy course ; 
 
 Lay such a stake upon the losing side, 
 
 Merely to gratify so blind a guide ? 
 
 Thou canst not! Nature, pulling at thine heart, 
 Condemns th’ unfatlierly, th’ imprudent part. 
 
 Thou wouldst not, deaf to Nature’s tend’rest plea, 
 Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea, 
 
 Nor say, Go thither, conscious that there lay 
 A brood of asps, or quicksands in his way ; 
 
 Then, only govern’d by the selfsame rule 
 Of nat’ral pity, send him not to school. 
 
 No — guard him better. Is he not thine own, 
 
 Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone ? 
 
 And hop’st thou not (’tis ev’ry father’s hope) 
 
 That, since thy strength must with thy years elope, 
 And thou wilt need some comfort, to assuage 
 Health’s last farewell, a staff in thine old age, 
 
 That then, in recompense of all thy cares, 
 
 Thy child shall show respect to thy grey hairs, 
 Befriend thee, of all other friends bereft, 
 
 And give thy life its only cordial left ? 
 
 Aware then how much danger intervenes, 
 
 To compass that good end, forecast the means. 
 
A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 219 
 
 His heart, now passive, yields to thy command ; 
 Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand. 
 
 If thou desert thy charge, and throw it wide, 
 
 No heed what guests there enter and abide, 
 Complain not if attachments lewd and base 
 Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place. 
 
 But, if thou guard its sacred chambers sure 
 From vicious inmates and delights impure, 
 
 Either his gratitude shall hold him fast, 
 
 And keep him warm and filial to the last ; 
 
 Or, if he prove unkind (as who can say 
 But being man, and therefore frail, he may ?) 
 
 One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart, 
 Howe’er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part. 
 
 Oh barb’rous ! wouldst thou with a gothic hand 
 Pull down the schools — what! — all the schools i’th’ 
 Or throw them up to liv’ry-nags and grooms, [land; 
 Or turn them into shops and auction rooms ? 
 
 A captious question, sir (and yours is one), 
 
 Deserves an answer similar, or none. 
 
 Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ 
 (Appris’d that he is such) a careless boy, 
 
 And feed him well, and give him handsome pay, 
 Merely to sleep, and let them run astray? 
 
 Survey our schools and colleges, and see 
 A sight not much unlike my simile. 
 
 From education, as the leading cause, 
 
 The public character its colour draws; 
 
 Thence the prevailing manners take their cast, 
 Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste. 
 
220 
 
 TIROCINIUM, ETC. 
 
 And, though I would not advertise them yet, 
 Nor write on eacli — This building to be let, 
 Unless the World were all prepar’d t’ embrace 
 A plan well worthy to supply their place ; 
 
 Yet, backward as they are, and long have been, 
 To cultivate and keep the morals clean 
 (Forgive the crime), I wish them, I confess, 
 
 Or better manag’d, or encourag’d less. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 C. Whittingham, Printer, Chiswick.