The chariots bounding in her wheel-worn streets,
Her vaults below, where every vintage meets;
Her theatres, her revels, and her sports;
The scenes to which not youth alone resorts,
But age, in spite of weakness and of pain,
Still haunts, in hope to dream of youth again;
All speak her happy; let the muse look round
From East to West, no sorrow can be found;
Or only what, in cottages confined,
Sighs unregarded to the passing wind.
Then wherefore weep for England? What ap-
pears

In England's case to move the muse to tears?
The prophet wept for Israel; wish'd his eyes
Were fountains fed with infinite supplies;
For Israel dealt in robbery and wrong;
There were the scorner's and the slanderer's
tongue;

Oaths, used as playthings or convenient tools,
As interest biass'd knaves, or fashion fools;
Adultery, neighing at his neighbor's door;
Oppression laboring hard to grind the poor;
The partial balance and deceitful weight;
The treacherous smile, a mask for secret hate;
Hypocrisy formality in prayer,

And the dull service of the lip were there.
Her women, insolent and self-caress'd,
By Vanity's unwearied finger dress'd,
Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart
To modest cheeks, and borrow'd one from art;
Were just such trifles, without worth or use,
As silly pride and idleness produce;
Curl'd, scented, furbelow'd, and flounced around,
With feet too delicate to touch the ground, [eye,
They stretch'd the neck, and roll'd the wanton
And sigh'd for every fool that flutter'd by.

He saw his people slaves to every lust,
Lewd, avaricious, arrogant, unjust;
He heard the wheels of an avenging God
Groan heavily along the distant road;
Saw Babylon set wide her two-leaved brass
To let the military deluge pass;
Jerusalem a prey, her glory soil'd,

Her princes captive, and her treasures spoil'd;
Wept till all Israel heard his bitter cry,
Stamp'd with his foot, and smote upon his thigh;
But wept, and stamp'd, and smote his thigh in
vain,

Pleasure is deaf when told of future pain,
And sounds prophetic are too rough to suit
Ears long accustom'd to the pleasing lute:
They scorn'd his inspiration and his theme,
Pronounc'd him frantic, and his fears a dream;
With self-indulgence wing'd the fleeting hours,
Till the foe found them, and down fell the

towers.

Long time Assyria bound them in her chain, Till penitence had purged the public stain, And Cyrus with relenting pity moved, Return'd them happy to the land they loved; There, proof against prosperity, awhile They stood the test of her ensnaring smile, And had the grace in scenes of peace to show The virtue they had learn'd in scenes of woe. But man is frail, and can but ill sustain A long immunity from grief and pain; And, after all the joys that Plenty leads, With tiptoe step Vice silently succeeds. When he that ruled them with a shepherd's In form a man, in dignity a God, Came, not expected in that humble guise, To sift and search them with unerring eyes,

[rod,

He found, conceal'd beneath a fair outside,
The filth of rottenness and worm of pride;
Their piety a system of deceit,
Scripture employ'd to sanctify the cheat;
The Pharisee the dupe of his own art,
Self-idolized, and yet a knave at heart.

When nations are to perish in their sins, 'Tis in the church the leprosy begins; The priest, whose office is, with zeal sincere, To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear, Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, While others poison what the flock must drink; Or. waking at the call of lust alone, Infuses lies and errors of his own: His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure; And, tainted by the very means of cure, Catch from each other a contagious spot, The foul forerunner of a general rot. Then truth is hush'd, that Heresy may preach; And all is trash that reason cannot reach; Then God's own image on the soul impress'd Becomes a mockery, and a standing jest; And faith, the root whence only can arise The graces of a life that wins the skies, Loses at once all value and esteem, Pronounced by graybeards a pernicious dream: Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth, Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth; While truths, on which eternal things depend, Find not, or hardly find, a single friend: As soldiers watch the signal of command, They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand; Happy to fill religion's vacant place; With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace. Such, when the Teacher of his church was

there,

People and priest, the sons of Israel were;
Stiff in the letter, lax in the design
And import of their oracles divine;
Their learning legendary, false, absurd,
And yet exalted above God's own word;
They drew a curse from an intended good,
Puff d up,
with gifts they never understood.
He judg'd them with as terrible a frown,
As if not love, but wrath, had brought him down
Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs,
Had grace for others' sins, but none for theirs ;
Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran-
Rhetoric is artifice, the work of man;
And tricks and turns that fancy may devise,
Are far too mean for Him that rules the skies.
The astonish'd vulgar trembled while he tore
The mask from faces never seen before;
He stripp'd the impostors in the noonday sun,
Show'd that they follow'd all they seem'd to
shun;

Their prayers made public, their excesses kept
As private as the chambers where they slept;
The temple and its holy rites profaned
By mummeries He that dwelt in it disdain'd;
Uplifted hands, that at convenient times
Could act extortion and the worst of crimes,
Wash'd with a neatness scrupulously nice,
And free from every taint but that of vice.
Judgment. however tardy, mends her pace
When obstinacy once has conquered grace.
They saw distemper heal'd, and life restor'd,
In answer to the fiat of his word;
Confessed the wonder, and with daring tongue
Blasphemed the authority from which it sprung.
They knew, by sure prognostics seen on high,
The future tone and temper of the sky;

Where obstinacy takes his sturdy stand,
To disconcert what policy has plann'd;
Where policy is busied all night long
In setting right what faction has set wrong;
Where flails of oratory thresh the floor, [more.
That yields them chaff and dust, and nothing
Thy rack'd inhabitants repine, complain,
Tax'd till the brow of labor sweats in vain;
War lays a burden on the reeling state,
And peace does nothing to relieve the weight;
Successive loads succeeding broils impose,
And sighing millions prophesy the close.

Is adverse Providence, when ponder'd well,
So dimly writ, or difficult to spell,

Thou canst not read with readiness and ease
Providence adverse in events like these?
Know then that heavenly wisdom on this ball
Creates, gives birth to, guides, consummates all;
That, while laborious and quick-thoughted man
Snuffs up the praise of what he seems to plan,
He first conceives, then perfects his design,
As a mere instrument in hands divine:
Blind to the working of that secret power,
That balances the wings of every hour,
The busy trifler dreams himself alone,
Frames many a purpose, and God works his own.
States thrive or wither. as moons wax and wane,
Een as his will and his decrees ordain;
While honor, virtue, piety bear sway,
They flourish; and, as these decline, decay:
In just resentment of his injured laws,

He pours contempt on them and on their cause;
Strikes the rough thread of error right athwart
The web of every scheme they have at heart;
Bids rottenness invade and bring to dust
The pillars of support in which they trust,
And do his errand of disgrace and shame
On the chief strength and glory of the frame.
None ever yet impeded what he wrought,
None bars him out from his most secret thought;
Darkness itself before his eye is light,
And hell's close mischief naked in his sight.
Stand now and judge thyself-Hast thou in-
curr'd

His anger who can waste thee with a word,
Who poises and proportions sea and land,
Weighing them in the hollow of his hand,
And in whose awful sight all nations seem
As grasshoppers, as dust. a drop a dream?
Hast thou (a sacrilege his soul abhors)
Claim'd all the glory of thy prosperous wars?
Proud of thy fleets and armies, stolen the gem
Of his just praise to lavish it on them?

Hast thou not learn'd what thou art often told,
A truth still sacred, and believed of old,
That no success attends on spears and swords
Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?
That courage is his creature; and dismay
The post, that at his bidding speeds away,
Ghastly in feature, and his stammering tongue
With doleful rumor and sad presage hung,
To quell the valor of the stoutest heart,
And teach the combatant a woman's part?
That he bids thousands fly when none pursue,
Savez as he will by many or by few,
And claims forever, as his royal right,
The event and sure decision of the fight?

Hast thou, though suckled at fair freedom's
breast,

Exported slavery to the conquer'd East?
Pull'd down the tyrants India served with dread,
And raised thyself, a greater, in their stead?

Gone thither, arm'd and hungry, return'd full,
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,

A despot big with power, obtain'd by wealth,
And that obtain'd by rapine and by stealth?
With Asiatic vices stored thy mind,

But left their virtues and thine own behind? [fee,
And, having truck'd thy soul, brought home the
To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee?

Hast thou by statute shoved from its design,
The Saviour's feast, his own blest bread and wine,
And made the symbols of atoning grace
An office-key, a picklock to a place,
That infidels may prove their title good
By an oath dipp'd in sacramental blood?
A blot that will be still a blot, in spite
Of all that grave apologists may write ;
And though a bishop toil to cleanse the stain,
He wipes and scours the silver cup in vain.
And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look within?
Hast thou, when Heaven has clothed thee with
disgrace,

And, long-provoked, repaid thee to thy face,
(For thou hast known eclipses, and endured
Dimness and anguish, all thy beams obscured,
When sin has shed dishonor on thy brow;
And never of a sabler hue than now,) [sear'd,
Hast thou, with heart perverse and conscience
Despising all rebuke, still persevered,

And having chosen evil, scorn'd the voice
That cried, Repent!-and gloried in thy choice?
Thy fastings, when calamity at last

Suggests the expedient of a yearly fast, [power
What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a
In lighter diet at a later hour,

To charm to sleep the threatening of the skies,
And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes?
The fast that wins deliverance, and suspends
The stroke that a vindictive God intends,
Is to renounce hypocrisy; to draw
Thy lite upon the pattern of the law;
To war with pleasure, idolized before;
To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more.
All fasting else, whate'er be the pretence,
Is wooing mercy by renew'd offence.

Hast thou within thee sin, that in old time
Brought fire from heaven, the sex-abusing crime,
Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace,
Baboons are free from, upon human race?
Think on the fruitful and well-water'd spot
That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot,
Where Paradise seem'd still vouchsafed on earth,
Burning and scorch'd into perpetual dearth,
Or, in his words who damn'd the base desire,
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire:
Then nature, injured, scandalized, defiled,
Unveil'd her blushing cheek, looked on, and
smiled;

Beheld with joy the lovely scene defac'd, [waste.
And praised the wrath that laid her beauties

Far be the thought from any verse of mine,
And farther still the form'd and fix'd design,
To thrust the charge of deeds that I detest
Against an innocent, unconscious breast;
The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man:
An individual is a sacred mark,
Not to be pierced in play, or in the dark;
But public censure speaks a public foe,
Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow.

The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere, From mean self-interest, and ambition clear, Their hope in heaven, servility their scorn, Prompt to persuade, expostulate, and warn, Their wisdom pure, and given them from above, Their usefulness ensured by zeal and love. As meek as the man Moses, and withal As bold as in Agrippa's presence Paul, Should fly the world's contaminating touch, Holy and unpolluted :-are thine such? Except a few with Eli's spirit blest, Hophni and Phineas may describe the rest. Where shall a teacher look, in days like these, For ears and hearts that he can hope to please? Look to the poor, the simple and the plain Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain: Humility is gentle, apt to learn, Speak but the word, will listen and return. Alas, not so! the poorest of the flock Are proud, and set their faces as a rock; Denied that earthly opulence they choose, God's better gift they scoff at and refuse. The rich, the produce of a nobler stem, Are more intelligent, at least-try them. Oh vain inquiry! they without remorse Are altogether gone a devious course; [stray; Where beckoning pleasure leads them, wildly Have burst the bands, and cast the yoke away.

Now borne upon the wings of truth sublime,
Review thy dim original and prime.
This island, spot of unreclaim'd rude earth,
The cradle that received thee at thy birth,
Was rock'd by many a rough Norwegian blast,
And Danish howlings scared thee as they pass'd;
For thou wast born amid the din of arms,
And suck'd a breast that panted with alarms.
While yet thou wast a grovelling, puling chit,
Thy bones not fashion'd, and thy joints not knit,
The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow,
Though twice a Cæsar could not bend thee now.
His victory was that of orient light,
When the sun's shafts disperse the gloom of night.
Thy language at this distant moment shows
How much the country to the conqueror owes;
Expressive, energetic, and refined,'

It sparkles with the gems he left behind;
He brought thy land a blessing when he came,
He found thee savage, and he left thee tame;
Taught thee to clothe thy pink'd and painted hide,
And grac'd thy figure with a soldier's pride;
He sow'd the seeds of order where he went,
Improv'd thee far beyond his own intent.
And, while he ruled thee by his sword alone,
Made thee at last a warrior like his own.
Region, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired;
But thine, as dark as witcheries of the night,
Was form'd to harden hearts and shock the sight;
Thy druids struck the well-hung harps they bore
With fingers deeply dyed in human gore;
And while the victim slowly bled to death,
Upon the rolling chords rung out his dying breath.
Who brought the lamp that with awaking
beams

Dispell'd thy gloom and broke away thy dreams,
Tradition, now decrepit and worn out,
Babbler of ancient fables, leaves a doubt:
But still light reach'd thee; and those gods of
thine,

Woden and Thor, each tottering in his shrine,
Fell broken and defaced at their own door,
As Dagon in Philistia long before.

But Rome with sorceries and magic wand
Soon raised a cloud that darken'd every land;
And thine was smother'd in the stench and fog
Of Tiber's marshes and the papal bog. [crowns
Then priests with bulls and briefs, and shaven
And griping fists, and unrelenting frowns,
Legates and delegates with powers from hell
Though heavenly in pretension fleeced thee well;
And to this hour to keep it fresh in mind.
Some twigs of that old scourge are left behind.
Thy soldiery, the pope's well managed pack
Were train'd beneath his lash, and knew the
smack,

And, when he laid them on the scent of blood,
Would hunt a Saracen through fire and flood.
Lavish of life, to win an empty tomb.

That proved a mint of wealth, a mine to Rome,
They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies,
His worthless absolution all the prize.
Thou wast the veriest slave in days of yore
That ever dragg'd a chain or tugg'd an oar;
Thy monarchs arbitrary. fierce, unjust.
Themselves the slaves of bigotry or lust.
Disdain'd thy counsels, only in distress
Found thee a goodly spunge for power to preSS,
Thy chiefs, the lords of many a petty fee,
Provoked and harass'd, in return plagued thee;
Call'd thee away from peaceable employ,
Domestic happiness and rural joy,

To waste thy life in arms or lay it down
In causeless feuds and bickerings of their own.
Thy parliaments adored, on bended knees.
The sovereignty they were convened to please;
Whate'er was ask'd, too timid to resist.
Complied with, and were graciously dismiss'd;
And if some Spartan soul a doubt express'd,
And, blushing at the tameness of the rest,
Dared to suppose the subject had a choice,
He was a traitor by the general voice.
Oh slave! with powers thou didst not dare exert,
Verse cannot stoop so low as thy desert;
It shakes the sides of splenetic disdain,
Thou self-entitled ruler of the main,

To trace thee to the date, when yon fair sea, That clips thy shores, had no such charms for thee;

[art;

When other nations flew from coast to coast,
And thou hadst neither fleet nor flag to boast.
Kneel now, and lay thy forehead in the dust;
Blush if thou canst; not petrified thou must;
Act but an honest and a faithful part;
Compare what then thou wast with what thou
And God's disposing providence confess'd,
Obduracy itself must yield the rest.—
Then thou art bound to serve him, and to prove,
Hour after hour, thy gratitude and love.

Has he not hid thee and thy favor'd land,
For ages, safe beneath his sheltering hand,
Given thee his blessing on the clearest proof
Bid nations leagued against thee stand aloof.
And charged hostility and hate to roar
Where else they would, but not upon thy shore!
His power secured thee, when presumptuous
Spain

Baptized her fleet invincible in vain;

Her gloomy monarch, doubtful and resign'd
To every pang that racks an anxious mind,
Ask'd of the waves that broke upon his coast.
What tidings? and the surge replied-All lost!
And when the Stuart, leaning on the Scot
Then too much fear'd, and now too much forgot
* Which may be found at Doctors' Commons.