No more the altar views the Virgin's tear,
Youth's modeft blufh, and soft bewitching fear;
When the fweet girl, her mother's darling pride,
With anxious hope, becomes the blooming bride.
No parish politics are canvafs'd o'er
Ere the grey fexton opes the massy door;
No cheerful bell the hamlet calls to pray'r,
And gives to toil a fhort reprieve from care.
No anthem 's chanted through the rooflefs quire---
No facred precepts teach us to aspire;
Teach us the changes of this transient state,
Arm us to meet the awful blow of Fate.
No more yon pile views Friendship's soften'd eye,
Its mournful look, its agonizing figh;
No more it views Affection's bursting tear,
When youth and beauty fill the fable bier;
Or fome fond parent, filver'd o'er with age,
Quits for a better-life's eventful stage.
The neighb'ring peafant at the clofe of day
Feels Superftition's vile degrading fway;
In trembling hafte, pale with unmanly fright,
Avoids thy precincts at the dufk of night;
Ideal forms his falt'ring step affail;
The nurse's legend, and the goffip's tale.-
Emblem you stand; whatever mortal 's made,
Like you, alas! muft fink, decay, and fade;
Like all the empires fam'd in days of yore,
Though now forgot on cold Oblivion's fhore.-
Where's Thebes or Memphis with their lofty wall,
In ruin great, majestic in their fall;
Where firft 'midft rude and savage tribes we find
That ray of Heav'n-the cultivated mind;
Where laws, where fcience beam'd their cheering light?
Loft beyond hope, in ignorance and night.
Where's all that Athens, all that Greece beftow'd
The fage, the hero's once belov'd abode ?
Cradle of Genius, Liberty, and Art;
Whate'er can soften, or can fire the heart:
Where's all that Socrates, that Plato taught?
Where's all Praxiteles or Phidias wrought?
Her groves, her forums, and each learned hall,
(Which Mem'ry's fad, though soothing thoughts recall ;)
Her works of proud magnificence and grace,
Destroy'd by Othman's unrelenting race;
Her trophies gone-her glories all decay'd;
Artists and statesmen in one ruin laid.-
Where are the cities Persia's monarchs rul'd,
With all their wealth-" barbaric pearl and gold?"
Where's proud Perfepolis's ftately tower,
The scene of pomp, of pleasure, and of power?
Each gilded palace, and each glitt'ring fpire,
Sunk in the flames to please a Strumpet's ire;
Ages ago, a veftige scarce remain’d
Where Cyrus triumph'd, or Darius reign'd.
E'en haughty Rome, whom once the world obey'd,
Long fince the forfeit of ambition paid;
Her tow'ring eagles in their turn brought low,
Her temples plunder'd by a barb'rous foe;
Unnerv'd, unmann'd by Superftition's rod,
Though kings and princes trembled at her nod;
Sunk and debas'd to Gallia's servile tool,
Though once her Cæfars bore imperial rule;
No friend to pity, and no arm to save,
She with her vaffals fhares one common grave.
Perhaps, alas! fome ftranger here will fay,
When diftant ages fhall have roll'd away;
When Commerce, tranfient as the April gale,
For other regions hoists her fickle fail;
When the no more her golden treasure pours,
And Empire seeks Columbia's rifing shores;
When Albion's felf, unftain'd by guilt or crime,
Falls the fad victim of remorseless Time;
Albion distinguish'd from her earliest birth,
For mind, for talent, probity, and worth;
(Where no harsh lines life's varying ranks divide,
Nor dawning merit 's cramp'd by feudal pride;)
Who oft for Europe pour'd her gen'rous blood,
Brav'd ev'ry danger, ev'ry toil withstood;
Who nobly rofe above the meaner crowd,
And fpar'd the feeble, while fhe crufh'd the proud;
When all her laurels, all her triumphs fade;
When the whole fabric finks in endless shade;
When Locke, when Milton, and when Marlbro's fame,
When Shakspeare's self is but an empty name;
When weeping Freedom shall her Fox deplore,
His matchlefs thunders fhall be heard no more,
(Such as of old immortal Tully pour'd,
When Rome's great master first to empire foar'd;
Such as of old made haughty Philip fear,
And dread their magic more than Phocion's spear ;)
When he no longer pleads Misfortune's cause,
The guard, the bulwark of his country's laws;
And, like thofe rivals of his heav'nly art,
Lives but to warm the enbryo patriot's heart;
Some pentive moralift, perhaps, will say,
Pointing to turrets, theu with Time grown grey :
"Thofe diftant ruins on the defert plain
Shew where Augufta held her splendid reign;
Augufta once, of Trade the crowded mart;
The feat of Empire, Elegance, and Art;
Adorn'd with Beauty's fafcinating fiile,
The charm, the boast of Britain's favour'd ifle,
(Form'd for the friend, the mother, and the wife,
Or the gay walks of high and polish'd life ;)
Whofe free-born fons each manly virtue join'd
With Heav'n's beft gift, a gen'rous, feeling mind;
That ftay of Europe, and that fcourge of France,
Seems like a tale, a phantom of romance:
Her feats of Learning, and her claffic bowers,
Where Taste and Science cull'd the fairest flowers;
Her melting charities of ev'ry form,
Which ev'ry victim fhelter'd from the storm;
Her trophied halls that Gallia's fpoils difplay,
The well-earn'd fruits of many a hard-fought day;
Those matchlefs works, where Art with Nature vied,
The ftranger's wonder, and the Briton's pride;
Thofe fmiling hamlets Induftry bestow'd,
Where each mild virtue fix'd its bleft abode;
That fenfe of honour, and that dread of fhame,
Which fir'd the peafant and the peer the fame;
That energy throughout the globe display'd;
Thofe colonies which empires once obey'd;
That conqu'ring fleet which kept a world in awe;
That boafted prefs; that mild, impartial law,
Which guarded all with just and equal care;
The whole are vanish'd into empty air:
The whole are vanish'd-save th' immortal mind;
Gone like a dream-nor left a rack behind.
THE P-T LT'S MARRIAGE, AND
NATURAL CONSEQUENCES.
WHAT news, pray, in London ?—P's married his
And the lady, in gratitude, twins hath display'd!
The poetical Benedict wanted a fon,
And his rib hath oblig'd him with two boys for one!
ORIGINAL ODE:
[From the Oracle.]
What should hinder
A new PETER PINDAR
From lighting his candle at a cinder?
THANKS to the goodness of the times,
Pindar in fatire does no longer dabble,
Nor, to please the rabble,
Does he publish Hudibrastic rhimes.
Or he, perchance, fagaciously has found,
'Gainft kings 't is vain to fcribble,
Or to exprefs his hate
Of Minifters of State,
Thinking to hook them with a biting bait;
He finds, I fay, they will not nibble;
For poets, at St. James's, they don't care,
And hold cheap the fatirizing fry;
They'd rather read the red book-that I'll fwear:
poet is fo odd a fish,
They think him not a courtly dish,
And they can't relish him, unless in pye.
Because then Peter's Muse, an arrant jade,
Has left off trade,
Shall Satire drop,
Nor find a crop
Of modern follies, and of modern vices,
To offer at her fhrine for facrifices?
'Tis pity that it were not fo!
But, where'er you go,
You'll find the crop as plentiful as wheat;
'Tis fhrewdly faid, whate'er you have,
'Tis ten to one you purchas'd from a knave,
And that you feed a rogue whene'er you eat!
But this, I ween, is not the voice of candour,
'Tis mifanthropic flander,
Always in extremes,
Muttering malignant dreams,
And crude inventions of her own,
Damning alike the cottage and the throne!
No: I've not French philofophy enough
To liften to fuch stuff;
Nor can I think that every man''s a knave;
Indeed 't would puzzle any pate
To draw a proper estimate
Of all the wife, the honeft, and the brave; But this I know, Dean Swift has faid(The Dean had fomewhat of a head)
"There are more fools than knaves." How could he tell ♪ Why,
"elfe the knaves could never live fo well!"
The fhafts of Satire fhould not be confin'd,
Or to the knavish, or the foolish mind:
Follies and vices are her proper game,
And on their ruin fhe fhould build her fame.
'Tis indeed a pity,
That if a writer's e'er fo witty,
His verfe will feldom captivate the town,
Unless he picks his man and knocks him down.
In this, we know full well,
Facetious Peter did excel.
But then it must be candidly confeft,
Inftead of vicious men, he fometimes fix'd upon the best!
To make the worse appear the better reason,
And with a broad grin to evade high treason,
Was the peculiar forte of Peter,
In all his fkimble-fkamble metre.
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