ENGLAND. Climate of.
Lib'ral in all things else, yet Nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams:
The peasants urge the harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work:
Thus with a rigour for his good design'd,
She rears her fav'rite man of all mankind.
His form robust, and of elastic tone,
Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force
A mind well lodg'd, and masculine of course.
Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty inspires
And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires:
Patient of constitutional control,
He bears it with meek manliness of soul:
But, if Authority grow wanton, wo
To him that treads upon his freeborn toe.
ENGLAND. Freedom makes her happy.
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
Among the nations, seeing thou art free,
My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine:
Thine unadult'rate manners arc less soft
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art,
To give thee what politer France receives
From nature's bounty-that humane address
And sweetness without which no pleasure is
In converse, either starv'd by cold reserve,
Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl.
Yet being free I love thee.
England, with all thy faults, I love the stillMy country! and while yet a nook is left,
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd,
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France,
With all her vines: nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
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 thund'rer there. And I can feel
Thy follies too: and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the land I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight: when such as these
Presume to lay their hands upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill th' ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
ENGLISH. Character of.
Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state, With daring aims irregularly great:
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd fresh from nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above control:
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.
Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd here,
Thine are those charms, that dazzle and endear;
Too blest indeed were such without alloy,
But foster'd e'en by Freedom ills annoy.
That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone;
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of Nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd.
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Repress'd ambition struggles round her shore;
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or frenzy fires the wheels.
ENTRY. Public one described.
Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,—
With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,
While all tongues cried-God save thee Bolingbroke
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage: and that all the walls,
With painted imagery, had said at once,—
Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke
Whilst he from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus,-I thank you, countrymen.
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
And is it in the flight of threescore years,
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust!
A soul immortal spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
EVE. Form of, described.
The rib, he form'd and fashion'd with his hands; Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Manlike, but different sex, so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now
Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd,
And in her looks, which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before,
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight
Led by her heavenly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice, nor uninform'd
Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites
Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
EVE. Impression made by.
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discount'nanc'd, and like folly shows
Authority and reason on her wait,
As one intended first, not after made,
Occasionally; and, to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.
EVE. Speech of, to Adam
My Author and disposer, what thou bid'st
Unargued I obey; so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;
All seasons and their change, all please alike,
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
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