The Task and Other Poems [16]
the friend Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge. Our habits costlier than Lucullus wore, And, by caprice as multiplied as his, Just please us while the fashion is at full, But change with every moon. The sycophant, That waits to dress us, arbitrates their date, Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye; Finds one ill made, another obsolete, This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived; And, making prize of all that he condemns, With our expenditure defrays his own. Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour. We have run Through every change that fancy, at the loom Exhausted, has had genius to supply, And, studious of mutation still, discard A real elegance, a little used, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise. We sacrifice to dress, till household joys And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires, And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, Where peace and hospitality might reign. What man that lives, and that knows how to live, Would fail to exhibit at the public shows A form as splendid as the proudest there, Though appetite raise outcries at the cost? A man o' the town dines late, but soon enough, With reasonable forecast and despatch, To ensure a side-box station at half-price. You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, His daily fare as delicate. Alas! He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. The rout is folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise; There form connections, and acquire no friend; Solicit pleasure hopeless of success; Waste youth in occupations only fit For second childhood, and devote old age To sports which only childhood could excuse. There they are happiest who dissemble best Their weariness; and they the most polite, Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming. They (what can they less?) Make just reprisals, and, with cringe and shrug And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, To her who, frugal only that her thrift May feed excesses she can ill afford, Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; who, in haste Alighting, turns the key in her own door, And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, On Fortune's velvet altar offering up Their last poor pittance--Fortune, most severe Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far Than all that held their routs in Juno's heaven.-- So fare we in this prison-house the world. And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see So many maniacs dancing in their chains. They gaze upon the links that hold them fast With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, Then shake them in despair, and dance again.
Now basket up the family of plagues That waste our vitals. Peculation, sale Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds By forgery, by subterfuge of law, By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keen As the necessities their authors feel; Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat At the right door. Profusion is its sire. Profusion unrestrained, with all that's base In character, has littered all the land, And bred within the memory of no few A priesthood such as Baal's was of old, A people such as never was till now. It is a hungry vice:--it eats up all That gives society its beauty, strength, Convenience, and security, and use; Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapped And gibbeted, as fast as catchpole claws Can seize the slippery prey; unties the knot Of union, and converts the sacred band That holds mankind together to a scourge. Profusion, deluging a state with lusts Of grossest nature and of worst effects, Prepares it for its ruin; hardens, blinds, And warps the consciences
Now basket up the family of plagues That waste our vitals. Peculation, sale Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds By forgery, by subterfuge of law, By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keen As the necessities their authors feel; Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat At the right door. Profusion is its sire. Profusion unrestrained, with all that's base In character, has littered all the land, And bred within the memory of no few A priesthood such as Baal's was of old, A people such as never was till now. It is a hungry vice:--it eats up all That gives society its beauty, strength, Convenience, and security, and use; Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapped And gibbeted, as fast as catchpole claws Can seize the slippery prey; unties the knot Of union, and converts the sacred band That holds mankind together to a scourge. Profusion, deluging a state with lusts Of grossest nature and of worst effects, Prepares it for its ruin; hardens, blinds, And warps the consciences