That hour elaps'd, th' incurable revolt

Is punish'd, and down comes the thunder-bolt.
If mercy then put by the threat'ning blow,
Must she perform the same kind office now?
May she! and, if offended heav'n be still
Accessible, and pray'r prevail, she will.
'Tis not, however, insolence and noise,
The tempest of tumultuary joys,
Nor is it, yet, despondence and dismay,
Will win her visits or engage her stay;
Pray'r only, and the penitential tear,
Can call her smiling down, and fix her here.

But, when a country (one that I could name)
In prostitution sinks the sense of shame;
When infamous venality, grown bold,
Writes on his bosom, to be let or sold;
When perjury, that heav'n defying vice,
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price,
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the of trade;
way

When av'rice starves (and never hides his face)
Two or three millions of the human race,

And not a tongue inquires, how, where, or when,
Though conscience will have twinges now and then;
When profanation of the sacred cause

In all its parts, times, ministry, and laws,
Bespeaks a land, once christian, fall'n, and lost
In all that wars against that title most;
What follows next let cities of great name,

And regions long since desolate, proclaim.

Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome,
Speak to the present times, and times to come;
They cry aloud in ev'ry careless ear,

Stop, while ye may; suspend your mad career;
O learn, from our example and our fate,
Learn wisdom and repentance ere too late.
Not only vice disposes and prepares
The mind, that slumbers sweetly in her snares,
To stoop to tyranny's usurp'd command,
And bend her polish'd neck beneath his hand
(A dire effect, by one of nature's laws
Unchangeably connected with its cause);
But Providence himself will intervene
To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene.
All are his instruments; each form of war,
What burns at home, or threatens from afar,
Nature in arms, her elements at strife,
The storms that overset the joys of life,
Are but his rods to scourge a guilty land,
And waste it at the bidding of his hand.
He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars,
In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores;
The standards of all nations are unfurl'd;
She has one foe, and that one foe the world.
And, if he doom that people with a frown,
And mark them with a seal of wrath press'd down,
Obduracy takes place; callous and tough,

The reprobated race grows judgment proof:

Earth shakes beneath them and heav'n roars above;

But nothing scares them from the course they love;

TABLE TALK.

To the lascivious pipe and wanton song,
That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,

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Down to the gulf from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail.....
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail!
They trust in armies, and their courage dies;
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies;
But all they trust in withers, as it must,
When He commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast
A long despis'd, but now victorious, host;
Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege;
Gives liberty the last, the mortal shock;
Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.

A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach, Mean you to prophecy, or but to preach?

B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire
The muse imparts, and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame,
She pours a sensibility divine

Along the nerve of ev'ry feeling line.
But, if a deed not tamely to be born
Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,

The strings are swept with such a pow'r so loud,
The storm of music shakes th' astonish'd crowd.

So, when remote futurity is brought

Before the keen inquiry of her thought,
A terrible sagacity informs

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms;
He hears the thunder ere the tempest low'rs;
And, arm'd with strength surpassing human pow'rs,
Seizes events as yet unknown to man,

And darts his soul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the same;
Hence British poets, too, the priesthood shar'd,
And ev'ry hallow'd druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong;
I play with syllables, and sport in song.

4. At Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and five,

Where discipline helps op'ning buds of sense,
And makes his pupils proud with silver-pence,
I was a poet too; but modern taste

Is so refin❜d, and delicate, and chaste,
That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
Thus, all success depending on an ear,
And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,

And truth cut short to make a period round,
I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit,

And some wits flag through fear of losing it.

TABLE TALK.

Give me the line that ploughs its stately course
Like a proud swan, conq'ring the stream by force;
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.

When labour and when dullness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's, stand,
Beating alternately, in measur'd time,
The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be;
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,

All birks and braes, though he was never there;
Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains,
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;
A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke....
An art contriv'd to advertise a joke,
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words....but in the gap between:
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

To dally much with subjects mean and low
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so.
Neglected talents rust into decay,

And ev'ry effort ends in push-pin play.

The man that means success should soar above
A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove;

Else, summoning the muse to such a theme,
The fruit of all her labour is whipt-cream.

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