EXHORTATION TO MR. WILBERFORCE. (DON JUAN, Canto xiv. Stanzas 82-84.) O WILBERFORCE ! thou man of black renown, Which you should perpetrate some summer's day, And set the other half of earth to rights; You have freed the blacks-now pray shut up the whites. Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander ! Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal ; Teach them that "sauce for goose is sauce for gander," And ask them how they like to be in thrall? Shut up each high heroic salamander, Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small); Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out; As now with those of soi-disant sound mind. EXHORTATION TO MRS. FRY. (DON JUAN, Canto x. Stanzas 85-87.) OH Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why A jargon, a mere philanthropic din, Teach them the decencies of good threescore; Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses; Tell them that youth once gone returns no more, That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses; Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore, Too dull even for the dullest of excesses, The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal, A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all. Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late To set up vain pretences of being great, 'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state; And tell them- —But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but by and by I'll prattle Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle. SATAN CLAIMS, AT HEAVEN'S GATE, GEORGE THE THIRD. (VISION OF JUDGMENT, Stanzas 42-49.) "Look to the earth, I said, and say again : When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign, Of ocean call'd him king: through many a storm "He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old : Look to the state in which he found his realm, And left it; and his annals too behold, How to a minion first he gave the helm ; "'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last (I have the workmen safe); but as a tool So let him be consumed. From out the past Of ages, since mankind have known the rule Of monarchs-from the bloody rolls amass'd Of sin and slaughter-from the Cæsar's school, Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain. "He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose With national and individual woes? "I know he was a constant consort; own He was a decent sire, and middling lord. "The New World shook him off: the Old yet groans "Five millions of the primitive, who hold The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored A part of that vast all they held of old,— Freedom to worship-not alone your Lord, Michael! but you; and you, Saint Peter! Cold Must be your souls, if you have not abhorr'd The foe to Catholic participation In all the license of a Christian nation. "True! he allow'd them to pray God; but as A consequence of prayer, refused the law Which would have placed them upon the same base With those who did not hold the saints in awe. But here Saint Peter started from his place, And cried, "You may the prisoner withdraw : Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph, While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself!” THE SEX. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanza 34.) NOT much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, But not too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes : Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes. |