"New times demand new measures and new men; The world advances, and in time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers' day were best.
Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds:
Reason and government, like two broad seas,
Yearn for each other with outstretched arms,
Across this narrow isthmus of the throne,
And roll their white surf higher every day.
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.
Then let it come: I have no dread of what
Is call'd for by the instinct of mankind;
Nor think I that God's world will fall apart,
Because we tear a parchment more or less.
He who would win the name of truly great
Must understand his own age and the next,
And make the present ready to fulfil
Its prophecy, and with the future merge
Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave.
I do not fear to follow out the truth,
Albeit along the precipice's edge.
Let us speak plain : there is more force in names
Than most men dream of; and a lie may keep
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk
Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name.
Let us call tyrants tyrants, and maintain
That only freedom comes by grace of God,
And all that comes not by His grace must fall;
For men in earnest have no time to waste,
In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth."
So they two turn'd together: one to die
Fighting for freedom on the battle-field;
The other, far more happy, to become
A name earth wears for ever next her heart;
One of the few that have a right to rank
With the true Makers: for his spirit wrought
Order from Chaos; proved that right divine
Dwelt only in the excellence of truth;
And far within old Darkness' hostile lines
Advanced and pitch'd the shining tents of Light.
TO SIR HENRY VANE, THE YOUNGER.
VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held
The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repell'd The fierce Epirot and the African bold;
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold
The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd;
Then to advise how War may, best upheld,
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold
In all her equipage: besides to know
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,
What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe :
Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.
TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX.
FAIRFAX, whose name in arms thro' Europe rings,
Filling each mouth with envy or with praise,
And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,
And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings:
Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings
Victory home, tho' new rebellions raise
Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays
Her broken league to imp their serpent-wings.
O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,
(For what can war but endless war still breed?)
Till Truth and Right from violence be freed,
And Public Faith clear'd from the shameful brand
Of public fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed,
While Avarice and Rapine share the land.
CHATHAM AND WOLFE.
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.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task;
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart
As any thunderer there. And I can feel
Thy follies too, and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the name I love.
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children; praise enough
To fill the 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 fallen
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!
They made us many soldiers. Chatham still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secured 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 loved.
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.
ENGLISH FREEDOM AND ENGLISH
CHARACTER: A FALLING AWAY.
THEE I account still happy, and the chief
Among the nations, seeing thou art free,
My native nook of earth! . . . [and] for the sake
Of that one feature can be well content,
Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside.
But once enslaved, farewell! I could endure
Chains nowhere patiently, and chains at home,
Where I am free by birthright, not at all.
|