The Task and Other Poems [54]
pure as the fountain is, Is sullied in the stream; taking a taint From touch of human lips, at best impure. Oh for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish! over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That govern all things here, shouldering aside The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men, Where violence shall never lift the sword, Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears; Where he that fills an office, shall esteem The occasion it presents of doing good More than the perquisite; where laws shall speak Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts, And equity, not jealous more to guard A worthless form, than to decide aright; Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse, Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) With lean performance ape the work of love.
Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! it was Thine By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth, And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with Thy blood. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen Dipt in the fountain of eternal love. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and Thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of Thy last advent, long-desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And flee for safety to the falling rocks. The very spirit of the world is tired Of its own taunting question, asked so long, "Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?" The infidel has shot his bolts away, Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, And aims them at the shield of truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes; And all the mysteries to faith proposed, Insulted and traduced, are cast aside, As useless, to the moles and to the bats. They now are deemed the faithful and are praised, Who, constant only in rejecting Thee, Deny Thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, And quit their office for their error's sake. Blind and in love with darkness! yet even these Worthy, compared with sycophants, who kneel, Thy Name adoring, and then preach Thee man! So fares Thy Church. But how Thy Church may fare, The world takes little thought; who will may preach, And what they will. All pastors are alike To wandering sheep resolved to follow none. Two gods divide them all, Pleasure and Gain; For these they live, they sacrifice to these, And in their service wage perpetual war With conscience and with Thee. Lust in their hearts, And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth To prey upon each other; stubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. Thy prophets speak of such; and noting down The features of the last degenerate times, Exhibit every lineament of these. Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one as radiant as the rest, Due to Thy last and most effectual work, Thy Word fulfilled, the conquest of a world.
He is the happy man, whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects more illustrious in her view; And occupied as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems Her honours, her emoluments, her joys; Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed.
Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! it was Thine By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth, And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with Thy blood. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen Dipt in the fountain of eternal love. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and Thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of Thy last advent, long-desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And flee for safety to the falling rocks. The very spirit of the world is tired Of its own taunting question, asked so long, "Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?" The infidel has shot his bolts away, Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, And aims them at the shield of truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes; And all the mysteries to faith proposed, Insulted and traduced, are cast aside, As useless, to the moles and to the bats. They now are deemed the faithful and are praised, Who, constant only in rejecting Thee, Deny Thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, And quit their office for their error's sake. Blind and in love with darkness! yet even these Worthy, compared with sycophants, who kneel, Thy Name adoring, and then preach Thee man! So fares Thy Church. But how Thy Church may fare, The world takes little thought; who will may preach, And what they will. All pastors are alike To wandering sheep resolved to follow none. Two gods divide them all, Pleasure and Gain; For these they live, they sacrifice to these, And in their service wage perpetual war With conscience and with Thee. Lust in their hearts, And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth To prey upon each other; stubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. Thy prophets speak of such; and noting down The features of the last degenerate times, Exhibit every lineament of these. Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one as radiant as the rest, Due to Thy last and most effectual work, Thy Word fulfilled, the conquest of a world.
He is the happy man, whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects more illustrious in her view; And occupied as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems Her honours, her emoluments, her joys; Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed.