THE TASK.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

The history of the following production is briefly this: A lady (Lady Austen), fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him the Sofa for a subject. He obeyed; and having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing 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 thousand 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.

THE TASK.

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Book I.—The Sofa.

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THE ARGUMENT.

Historical deduction of seats, from the stool to the sofa—A schoolboy’s ramble—A walk in the country—The scene described—Rural sounds as well as sights delightful—Another walk—Mistake concerning the charms of solitude corrected—Colonnades commended—Alcove, and 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 described, and the character of Crazy Kate introduced—Gipsies—The blessings of civilised life—That state most favourable to virtue—The South Sea islanders compassionated, but chiefly Omai—His present state of mind supposed—Civilised life friendly to virtue, but not great cities—Great cities, and London in particular, allowed their due praise, but censured—Fête champêtre—The book concludes with a reflection on the effects of dissipation and effeminacy upon our public measures.

I sing the Sofa. I who lately sang

Truth, Hope, and Charity,[1] and touch’d with awe

The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,

Escaped with pain from that adventurous flight,

Now seek repose upon an humbler theme;

The theme though humble, yet 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 gravelly bank

Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud,

Fearless of wrong, reposed his weary strength.

Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next

The birthday 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 refined

Improved the simple plan; made three legs four,

Gave them a twisted form vermicular,

And o’er the seat, with plenteous wadding stuff’d,

Induced a splendid cover, green and blue,

Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought

And woven close, or needlework sublime.

There might ye see the peony 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 interlaced each other, these supplied

Of texture firm a lattice work, that braced

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 slippery seat betray’d the sliding part

That press’d it, and the feet hung dangling down,

Anxious in vain to find the distant floor.

These for the rich; the rest, whom Fate had placed

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

Ponderous and fix’d by its own massy weight.

But elbows still were wanting; these, some say,

An alderman of Cripplegate contrived;

And some inscribe the invention to a priest,

Burly and big, and studious of his ease.

But, rude at first, and not with easy slope,

Receding wide, they press’d against the ribs,

And bruised the side; and, elevated high,

Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears.

Long time elapsed 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 pleased

Than when employ’d to accommodate the fair,

Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devised

The soft settee; one elbow at each end,

And in the midst an elbow it received,

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,

By soft recumbency of outstretch’d limbs,

Was bliss reserved 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 the accomplish’d Sofa last.

The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick,

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 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,

Compared with the repose the Sofa yields.

Oh 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 loved the rural walk through lanes

Of grassy swarth, close cropp’d by nibbling sheep,

And skirted thick with intertexture firm

Of thorny boughs; have loved the rural walk

O’er hills, through valleys, and by rivers’ brink,

E’er since a truant boy I pass’d my bounds

To 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 consumed,

Still hungering, 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.

Hard fare! but such as boyish appetite

Disdains not; nor the palate, undepraved

By culinary arts, unsavoury 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

Their length and colour from the locks they spare;

The elastic spring of an unwearied foot,

That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence,

That play of lungs, inhaling and again

Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes

Swift pace or steep ascent no toil to me,

Mine have not pilfer’d yet; nor yet impair’d

My relish of fair prospect; scenes that soothed

Or charm’d me young, no longer young, I find

Still soothing, and of power 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 conjured up

To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine, and art partner of them all.

How oft upon yon eminence our pace

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 labouring team, that swerved 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 favourite 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 tower,

Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells

Just undulates upon the listening 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 wood

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 fluttering, all at once.

Nor less composure waits upon the roar

Of distant floods, or on the softer voice

Of neighbouring 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 sweeter still,

To soothe 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 e’en 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

Devised the weather-house, that useful toy!

Fearless of humid air and gathering rains,

Forth steps the man—an emblem of myself!

More delicate his timorous mate retires.

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 discoveries 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 clamorous whether pleased 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 beverage home,

Far fetch’d, and little worth; nor seldom waits,

Dependent on the baker’s punctual call,

To hear his creaking panniers at the door,

Angry and sad, and his last crust consumed.

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 bowers, enjoy’d at noon

The gloom and coolness of declining day.

We bear our shades about us; self-deprived

Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,

And range an Indian waste without a tree.

Thanks to Benevolus,[2] he spares me yet

These chestnuts ranged 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, ankle-deep in moss and flowery thyme,

We mount again, and feel at every step

Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft,

Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil.

He, not unlike the great ones of mankind,

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 panels, leaving an obscure, rude name,

In characters uncouth, and spelt amiss.

So strong the zeal to immortalise himself

Beats in the breast of man, that e’en a few,

Few transient years, won from the 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 fleecy 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 sun-burnt hay-field homeward creeps

The loaded wain; while, lighten’d of its charge,

The wain that meets it passes swiftly by;

The boorish driver leaning o’er his team

Vociferous and impatient of delay.

Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,

Diversified with trees of every growth,

Alike, yet various. Here the grey smooth trunks

Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,

Within the twilight of their distant shades;

There, lost behind a rising ground, the 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-leaved, 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 changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright.

O’er these, but far beyond (a spacious map

Of hill and valley interposed 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 re-ascent; between them weeps

A little naiad her impoverish’d urn

All summer long, which winter fills again.

The folded gates would bar my progress now,

But that the lord[3] of this enclosed demesne,

Communicative of the good he owns,

Admits me to a share: the guiltless eye

Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys.

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 chequer’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 darkening and enlightening, as the leaves

Play wanton, every moment, every spot.

And now, with nerves new braced, 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 destined ear. Wide flies the chaff;

The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist

Of atoms, sparking 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,

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 the 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 freshening impulse, and are cleansed

By restless undulation: e’en the oak

Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm:

He seems indeed indignant, and to feel

The 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 what 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

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 powers of fancy and strong thought are theirs;

E’en age itself seems privileged in them,

With clear exemption from its own defects.

A sparking eye beneath a wrinkled front

The veteran 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,

Farthest retires—an idol, at whose shrine

Who oftenest 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 pencill’d scenes,

Prefer to the performance of a God

The 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,

And throws Italian light on English walls.

But imitative strokes can do no more

Than please the eye—sweet Nature every 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 power

Peculiar, and exclusively her own.

Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;

‘Tis free to all—’tis every 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 every breeze.

He does not scorn it, who has long endured

A fever’s agonies, and fed on drugs.

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed

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—

He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;

The lowering 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.

Health 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, sits,

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.

They love it, and yet loathe 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 inveterate 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 headaches nail them to a noon-day bed;

And save me too from theirs whose haggard eyes

Flash 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 pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

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,

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 sea-mew 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-wither’d shrubs he shows,

And at his feet the baffled billows die.

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough

With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform’d,

And dangerous 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 odoriferous herbs

And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense

With luxury of unexpected sweets.

There often wanders 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 where warmest wishes are,

Would oft anticipate his glad return,

And dream of transports she was not to know.

She heard the doleful tidings of his death—

And never smiled 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 gown

More tatter’d still; and both but ill conceal

A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs.

She begs an idle pin of all 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 crazed!

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 every hedge,

Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquench’d

The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide

Their fluttering 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 only when they steal.

Strange! that a creature rational, and cast

In human mould, should brutalise 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 wandering much,

Need other physic none to heal the 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, placed within the easy reach

Of temperate 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 barbarous climes, where violence prevails,

And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind,

By culture tamed, by liberty refresh’d,

And all her fruits by radiant truth matured.

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 shivering natives of the north,

And thus the rangers of the western world,

Where it advances far into the deep,

Towards the antarctic. E’en 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, placed remote

From all that science traces, art invents,

Or inspiration teaches; and enclosed

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,

Thee, gentle savage![4] whom no love of thee

Or thine, but curiosity, perhaps,

Or else vain-glory, prompted us to draw

Forth from thy native bowers, 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,

And homestall thatch’d with leaves. But hast thou found

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 power 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 every morn

Thou climb’st the mountain-top, with eager eye

Exploring far and wide the watery waste

For sight of ship from England. Every 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 prepared

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.

We travel far, ‘tis true, but not for nought;

And must be bribed 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 every 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 the achievement of successful flight.

I do confess them nurseries of the arts,

In which they flourish most; where, in the beams

Of 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 worst.

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 powers 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 sterile with what charms soe’er she will,

The richest scenery 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,

With 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, enlarged, and still

Increasing London? Babylon of old

Not more the glory of the earth than she,

A more accomplish’d world’s chief glory now.

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

To 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 over-gorged 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 presumed to annul

And abrogate, as roundly as she may,

The total ordinance and will of God;

Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth,

And centring all authority in modes

And customs of her own, till Sabbath rites

Have dwindled into unrespected forms,

And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorced.

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

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 wanderer in their shades. At eve

The moonbeam, 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

Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.

There is a public mischief in your mirth;

It plagues your country. Folly such as yours,

Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan,

Has made, what enemies could ne’er have done,

Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you,

A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

BOOK II.—THE TIME-PIECE.

_____________

THE ARGUMENT.

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 reproved—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-maître parson—The good preacher—Picture 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 extravagance—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.

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some boundless contiguity of shade,

Where rumour of oppression and deceit,

Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain’d,

My soul is sick, with every 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 natural 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 power

To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause

Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

Lands intersected by a narrow frith

Abhor each other. Mountains interposed

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 deplored,

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 prized above all price,

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 loosed.

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 every vein

Of all your empire; that where Britain’s power

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 general doom.[5] 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[6] from above,

Portentous, unexampled, unexplain’d,

Have kindled beacons in the skies; and the 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

And pillars of our planet seem to fail,

And Nature[7] with a dim and sickly eye

To wait the close of all? But grant her end

More distant, and that prophecy demands

A long 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 exposed 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 the 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 flowers, 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.

The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke,

For he has touch’d them. From the 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 offensive pools,

And, charged 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 a 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 every 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,

Upridged 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—

A prince with half his people! Ancient towers,

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 rigour