Should when he pleases, and on whom he will, Wage war, with any or with no pretence Of provocation given, or wrong sustained, And force the beggarly last doit, by means That his own humour dictates, from the clutch Of poverty, that thus he may procure His thousands, weary of penurious life, A splendid opportunity to die?
Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees In politic convention) put your trust I' th' shadow of a bramble, and recline In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch, Rejoice in him and celebrate his sway, Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs Your self-denying zeal that holds it good To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang His thorns with streamers of continual praise?
We too are friends to loyalty; we love The king who loves the law, respects his bounds.
And reigns content within them; him we serve Freely and with delight, who leaves us free;But recollecting still that he is man, We trust him not too far. King though he be, And king in England, too, he may be weak And vain enough to be ambitious still, May exercise amiss his proper powers, Or covet more than freemen choose to grant:
Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, To administer, to guard, to adorn the state, But not to warp or change it. We are his, To serve him nobly in the common cause True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Of kings, between your loyalty and ours.
We love the man; the paltry pageant you:
We the chief patron of the commonwealth;You the regardless author of its woes:
We, for the sake of liberty, a king;You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake.
Our love is principle, and has its root In reason, is judicious, manly, free;Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, And licks the foot that treads it in the dust.
Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, I would not be a king to be beloved Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise, Where love is more attachment to the throne, Not to the man who fills it as he ought.
Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
The state that strives for liberty, though foiled And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, Deserves at least applause for her attempt, And pity for her loss. But that's a cause Not often unsuccessful; power usurped Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong, 'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek. *
* The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unnecessary warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware that it is become almost fashionable to stigmatise such sentiments as no better than empty declamation. But it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern times.-C.
Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more To France than all her losses and defeats, Old or of later date, by sea or land, Her house of bondage worse than that of old Which God avenged on Pharaoh--the Bastille!
Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts, Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair, That monarchs have supplied from age to age With music such as suits their sovereign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men!
There's not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye were fallen at last, to know That even our enemies, so oft employed In forging chains for us, themselves were free.
For he that values liberty, confines His zeal for her predominance within No narrow bounds; her cause engages him Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man.
There dwell the most forlorn of humankind, Immured though unaccused, condemned untried, Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape.
There, like the visionary emblem seen By him of Babylon, life stands a stump, And filleted about with hoops of brass, Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone.
To count the hour bell and expect no change;And ever as the sullen sound is heard, Still to reflect that though a joyless note To him whose moments all have one dull pace, Ten thousand rovers in the world at large Account it music; that it summons some To theatre, or jocund feast, or ball;The wearied hireling finds it a release From labour, and the lover, that has chid Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke Upon his heart-strings trembling with delight;--To fly for refuge from distracting thought To such amusements as ingenious woe Contrives, hard-shifting and without her tools;--To read engraven on the mouldy walls, In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, A sad memorial, and subjoin his own;--To turn purveyor to an overgorged And bloated spider, till the pampered pest Is made familiar, watches his approach, Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend;--To wear out time in numbering to and fro The studs that thick emboss his iron door, Then downward and then upward, then aslant And then alternate, with a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish, till the sum, exactly found In all directions, he begins again:--Oh comfortless existence! hemmed around With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?
That man should thus encroach on fellow-man, Abridge him of his just and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps a heedless word To barrenness and solitude and tears, Moves indignation; makes the name of king (Of king whom such prerogative can please)
As dreadful as the Manichean god, Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
