The Task and Other Poems [27]
Sordid and sickening at his own success.
Ambition, avarice, penury incurred By endless riot, vanity, the lust Of pleasure and variety, despatch, As duly as the swallows disappear, The world of wandering knights and squires to town; London engulfs them all. The shark is there, And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the leech That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he That with bare-headed and obsequious bows Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail And groat per diem if his patron frown. The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp Were charactered on every statesman's door, 'BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.' These are the charms that sully and eclipse The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, The hope of better things, the chance to win, The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused, That, at the sound of Winter's hoary wing, Unpeople all our counties of such herds Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.
Oh thou resort and mart of all the earth, Chequered with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have saved a city once, And thou hast many righteous.--Well for thee-- That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour Than Sodom in her day had power to be, For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain.
BOOK IV.
THE WINTER EVENING.
Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;-- He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge the close-packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag--pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks, Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But oh, the important budget! ushered in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings? have our troops awaked? Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave? Is India free? and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic and the wisdom and the wit And the loud laugh--I long to know them all; I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Not such his evening, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed And bored with elbow-points through both his sides, Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage; Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not even critics criticise, that holds Inquisitive attention while I read Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break, What is
Ambition, avarice, penury incurred By endless riot, vanity, the lust Of pleasure and variety, despatch, As duly as the swallows disappear, The world of wandering knights and squires to town; London engulfs them all. The shark is there, And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the leech That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he That with bare-headed and obsequious bows Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail And groat per diem if his patron frown. The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp Were charactered on every statesman's door, 'BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.' These are the charms that sully and eclipse The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, The hope of better things, the chance to win, The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused, That, at the sound of Winter's hoary wing, Unpeople all our counties of such herds Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.
Oh thou resort and mart of all the earth, Chequered with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have saved a city once, And thou hast many righteous.--Well for thee-- That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour Than Sodom in her day had power to be, For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain.
BOOK IV.
THE WINTER EVENING.
Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;-- He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge the close-packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag--pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks, Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But oh, the important budget! ushered in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings? have our troops awaked? Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave? Is India free? and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic and the wisdom and the wit And the loud laugh--I long to know them all; I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Not such his evening, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed And bored with elbow-points through both his sides, Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage; Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not even critics criticise, that holds Inquisitive attention while I read Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break, What is