The Works of the British Poets

Who moft fubdue all tenderness of heart;
Students in torture! where, in zeal to him,
Whofe darling title is The Prince of Peace,
The best turn ruthless butchers for our fakes;
To fave us in a world they recommend,
And yet forbear, themselves with earth content;
What modefty!--fuch virtues Rome adorn!
And chiefly those who Rome's first honours wear,
Whofe name from Jefus, and whofe hearts from
hell!

And shall a Pope-bred princeling crawl afhore,
Replete with venom, guiltless of a fting, [fcrap'd
And whistle cut-throats, with thofe fwords that
Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance,
To cut his paffage to the British throne?
One that has fuck'd in malice with his milk,
Malice to Britain, liberty, and truth?
Leís favage was his brother-robber's nurse,
The howling nurse of plundering Romulus,
Ere yet far worse than Pagan harbour'd there.
Hail to the brave! be Britain Britain still:
Britain! high favour'd of indulgent heaven!
Nature's anointed emprefs of the deep!
The nurfe of merchants, who can purchase crowns!
Supreme in commerce! that exuberant fource
Of wealth, the nerve of war; of wealth, the blood,
The circling current in a nation's veins,
To fet high bloom on the fair face of peace!
This once fo celebrated feat of power,

From which escap'd the mighty Cæfar triumph'd!
Of Gallic lilies this eternal blast!
This terror of armadas! this true bolt
Ethereal-temper'd, to reprefs the vain
Saimonean thunders from the papal chair! [awe!
This fmall ifle wide-realm'd monarchs eye with
Which fays to their ambition's foaming waves,
"Thus far, not farther!"---Let her hold, in life,
Nought dear disjoin'd from freedom and renown;
Renown, our ancestors' great legacy,
To be tranfmitted to their latest fons.
By thoughts inglorious, and un-British deeds,
Their cancell'd will is impiously profan'd,
Inhumanly diflurb'd their facred duft.

Their facred duft with recent laurels crown,
By your own valour won. This facred ifle,
Cat from the continent, that world of flaves;
This temple built by heaven's peculiar care,
In a recefs from the contagious world,
With ocean pour'd around it for its guard;
And dedicated, long, to liberty,
[life!
That health, that ftrength, that bloom, of civil
This temple of ftill more divine; of faith
Silted from errors, purify'd by flames,
Like gold, to take anew truth's heavenly stamp,
And (rifing both in luftre and in weight)
With her bless'd master's unmaim'd image fhine;
Why should the longer droop? why longer act
As an accomplice with the plots of Rome?
Why longer lend an edge to Bourbon's sword,
And give him leave, among his daftard troops,
To mufter that ftrong fuccour, Albion's crimes?
Send his felf-impotent ambition aid,

And crown the conqueft of her fierceft foes? Where are her foes moft fatal? Blushing truth, ♬ la her friends' vices."---with a figh replies.

Empire on virtue's rock unfhaken stands;
Flux as the billows, when in vice diffolv'd.
If heaven reclaims us by the fcourge of war,
What thanks are due to Paris and Madrid?
Would they a revolution ?---Aid their aim,
But be the revolution---in our hearts!

[bark,
Would't thou (whose hand is at the helm) the
The fhaken bark of Britain, should out-ride
The present blast, and every future ftorm?
Give it that balast which alone has weight
With him whom wind, and waves, and war, obey.
Perfift. Are others fubtle? thou be wife:
Above the Florentine's court-science raife;
Stand forth a patriot of the moral world;
The pattern, and the patron, of the just :
Thus ftrengthen Britain's military strength;
Give its own terror to the fword fhe draws.
Afk you, "What mean I ?"---The most obvious
truth;

Armies and fleets alone ne'er won the day.
When our proud arms are once difarm'd, difarm'a
Of aid from him by whom the mighty fall;
Of aid from him by whom the feeble stand;
Who takes away the keeneft edge of battle,
Or gives the fword commiffion to destroy;
Who blasts, or bids the martia! laurel bloom-.-
Emafculated, then, most manly might;

Or, though the might remains, it nought avails:
Then wither'd weaknefs foils the finewy arm
Of man's meridian and high-hearted power:
Our naval thunders, and our tented fields

With travell'd banners fanning fouthern climes,
What do they? This; and more what can they do?
When heap'd the measure of a kingdom's crimes, ›
The prince moft dauntless, the first plume of war, ›
By fuch bold inroads into foreign lands,
Such elongation of our armaments,
But ftretches out the guilty nation's neck,
While heaven commands her executioner,
Some lefs abandon'd nation, to discharge
Her full-ripe vengeance in a final blow,
And tell the world, "Not strong is human ftrength;
"And that the proudest empire holds of heaven."
O Britain! often refcued, often crown'd,
Beyond thy merit and most fanguine hopes,
With all that's great in war, or sweet in peace!
Know from what fource thy figual bleffings flow,
Though blefs'd with fpirits ardent in the field,
Though cover'd various oceans with thy fleets,
Though fenc'd with rocks, and moated by the
main,

Thy truft repofe in a far ftronger guard;
In him, who thee, though naked, could defend;
Though weak, could frengthen; ruin'd, could
restore.

How oft, to tell what arm defends thine ifle,
To guard her welfare, and yet check her pride,
Have the winds fnatch'd the victory from war?
Or, rather, won the day, when war despair'd?
How oft has providential fuccour aw'd,
Aw'd while it blefs'd us, confcious of our guilt;
Struck dead all confidence in human aid,
And, while we triumph'd, made us tremble too!
Well may we tremble now; what manners
reign ?

But wherefore ask we, when a true reply [events
Would fhock too much? Kind heaven! avert
Whofe fatal nature might reply too plain!
Heaven's half-bar'd arm of vengeance has been
way'd

In northern fkies, and pointed to the south.
Vengeance delay'd but gathers and ferments;
More formidably blackens in the wind;
Brews deeper draughts of unrelenting wrath,
And higher charges the fufpended storm.

"That public vice portends a public fall"-.-
Is this conjecture of adventurous thought!
Or pious coward's pulpit-cushion'd dream;
Far from it. This is certain; this is fate.
What fays experience, in her awful chair
Of ages, her authentic annals spread
Around her? What fays reafon eagle-eyed?
Nay, what fays common sense, with common care
Weighing events, and causes, in her scale?
All give one verdict, one decifion sign;
And this the fentence Delphos could not mend :
"Whatever fecondary props may rise
"From politics, to build the public peace,
"The bafis is the manners of the land.
"When rotten these, the politician's wiles

But ftruggle with deftruction, as a child
"With giants huge, or giants with a Jove.
"The ftatesman's arts to conjure up a peace,
"Or military phantoms void of force,
"But fcare away the vultures for an hour;
"The scent cadaverous (for, oh! how rank
"The stench of profligates!) foon lures them
"back;

"On the proud flutter of a Gallic wing
"Soon they return; foon make their full defcent;
"Soon glut their rage, and riot in our ruin;
"Their idols grac'd and gorgeous with our fpoils,
"Of univerfal empire fure prefage!
"Till now repell'd by feas of British blood."

And whence the manners of the multitude?
The colours of their manners, black or fair,
Falls from above; from the complexion falls
Of ftate Othellos, or white men in power:
And from the greater height example falls,
Greater the weight, and deeper its impress
In ranks inferior, paffive to the ftroke:
From the court-mint, of hearts the current coin,
The pupil preffes, but the pattern drives.
What bonds then, bonds how manifold, and strong
To duty, double duty, are the great!
And are there Samfons that can burft them all?
Yes; and great minds that ftand in need of none,
Whofe pulfe beats virtues, and whose generous
blood

Aids mental motives to push on renown,
In emulation of their glorious fires,
From whom rolls down the confecrated ftream.
Some fow good feeds in the glad people's hearts,
Some curfed tares, like Satan in the text:
This makes a foe moft fatal to the state;
A foe who (like a wizard in his cell)
In his dark cabinet of crooked schemes,
Retembling Cuma's gloomy grot, the forge
Of boafted oracles, and real lies,
(Aided, perhaps, by fecond-fighted Scots,

| French Magi, relics riding poft from Rome,
A Gothic hero rifing from the dead,
And changing for fpruce plaid his dirty shroud,
With fuccour fuitable from lower still)
A foe who, these concurring to the charm,
Excites thofe ftorms that fhall o'erturn the ftate,
Rend up her ancient honours by the root,
And lay the boaft of ages, the rever'd

Of nations, the dear-bought with fumless wealth
And blood illuftrious, (fpite of her La Hogues,
Her Creffeys, and her Blenheims) in the dust.
How must this ftrike a horror through the
breast,

Through every generous breaft where honour
reigns,

Through every breaft where honour claims a fhare!
Yes, and through every breast of honour void!
This thought might animate the dregs of men;
Ferment them into fpirit; give them fire
To fight the caufe, the black opprobrious caufe,
Foul core of all! corruption at our hearts.
What wreck of empire has the stream of time
Swept, with her vices, from the mountain height
Of grandeur, deify'd by half mankind,
To dark oblivion's melancholy lake,

Or flagrant infamy's eternal brand!

Those names, at which furrounding nations fhook,
Those names ador'd, a nuifance! or forget!
Nor this the caprice of a doubtful dye,

But nature's courfe; no fingle chance against it.

For know, my Lord! 'tis writ in adamant,
'Tis fixt, as is the bafis of the world,
Whofe kingdoms ftand or fall by the decree.
What faw thefe eyes, furpris'd?-Yet why fur-
pris'd?-

For aid divine the crifis feem'd to call,
And how divine was the monition given!
As late I walk'd the night in troubled thought,
My peace difturb'd by rumours from the north,
While thunder, o'er my head, portentous, roll'd,
As giving fignal of fome ftrange event,
And ocean groan'd beneath for her he lov'd,
Albion the fair! fo long his empire's queen,
Whofe reign is, now, contested by her foes,
On her white cliffs (a tablet broad and bright,,
Strongly reflecting the pale lunar ray)
By fate's own iron pen I faw it writ,
And thus the title ran:

THE STATESMAN'S CREED.
"YE ftates! and empires! nor of empires leaft,
"Though leaft in fize; hear, Britain! thou whose
"Whole final lot is in the balance laid, [lot,
"Irrefolutely play the doubtful scales,
"Nor know' thou which will win.-Know then
"from me,

"As govern'd well or ill, ftates fink or rife:
"State-minifters, as upright or corrupt,
"Are balm or poifon in a nation's veins;
"Health or diflemper; haften or retard
"The period of her pride, her day of doom:
"And though, for reafons obvious to the wife,
The invader affes the character of Charles XII.
of Sweden.

J. Providence deals otherwife with men,
Tet believe, Britons! nor too late believe,
* 'Tis fix'd! by fate irrevocably fix'd!
"Virtue and vice are empire's life and death."
Thus it is written-Heard you not a groan?
Is Britain on her death-bed?-No, that groan
Was utter'd by her foes--But foon the scale,
If this divine monition is defpis'd,

May turn against us. Read it, ye who rule!
With reverence read; with ftedfaftness believe;
With courage
act as fuch belief inspires;
Then fhall your glory ftand like fate's decree;
Then shall your name in adamant be writ,
In records that defy the tooth of time,

By ratious fav'd, refounding your applaufe. [bafe,
While deep beyond your monument's proud
In block oblivion's kennel, fhall be trod
Their execrable names, who, high in power,
And deep in guilt, most ominnefly fhine,
(The meteors of the ftate!) give vice her head,
To beenfe levd let loofe the public rein;
Querch every fpark of confcience in the land,
And triumph in the profligate's applaufe:
Or who to the fir bidder fell their fouls,
Their country fell, full all their fathers bought
With funds exhausted and exhausted veins,
To demons, by his Holinefs or dam'd
To propagate the gospel-penn'd at Rome;
Hawk'd through the world by confecrated bulls';
And how illuftrated?-by Smithfiel flames:
Who plurge (but not like Curtius) down the gulf,
Down narrow-minded felf s voracious gulf,
Which gapes, and swallows all they fwore to fave:
Hate all that lifted heroes into gods.
And hug the horrors of a victor's chain:
Of bodies politic that deftin'd hell,
Inflicted here, fince here their beings end;
And fall from foes detefted and defpis'd,
On difbelievers-of the ftatefman's creed.
Note, here, my Lord (annote yet it lies
By moft, or all) these truths political
Serve more than public ends: this creed of states
Seconds, and irrefiflibly fupports,

The Chriftian creed. Are you furpris'd?-Attend;
And on the ftatefmen's build a nobler name.

This punctual juftice exercis'd on flates,
With which authentic chronicle abounds,
As all men know, and therefore must believe;
This vengeance pour'd on nations ripe in guilt,
Pour'd on them here, where only they exift,
What is it but an argument of fenfe,
Or rather demonftration, to fupport
Our feeble faith-"That they who ftates compofe,
"That men who ftand not bounded by the grave,
"Shall meet like measure at their proper hour?"
For God is equal, fimilarly deals

With ftates and perfons, or he were not God;
What means a rectitude immutable?
A pattern here of univerfal right.

What, then, fhall rescue an abandon'd man?
Nothing, it is reply'd. Reply'd, by whom?
Reply'd by politicians well as priests:
Writ facred fet afide, mankind's own writ,

Thus (what might feem a daring paradox)
Ev'n politics advance divinity:

True mafters there are better scholars here,
Who travel hiftory in quest of schemes
To govern nations, or perhaps oppress,
May there ftart truths that other aims infpire,
And, like Candace's eunuch, as they read,
By Providence turn Chriftians on their road:
Digging for filver, they may ftrike on gold;
May be furpris'd with better than they fought,
And entertain an angel unawares.

Nor is divinity ungrateful found.
As politics advance divinity,
Thus, in return, divinity promotes

True politics, and crowns the statesman's praise.
All wifdoms are but branches of the chief,
And ftatesmen found but fhoots of honeft men.
Are this world's witchcrafts pleaded in excufe
For deviations in our moral line?

This, and the next world, view'd with such an eye
As fuits a ftatefman, fuch as keeps in view
His own exalted science, both confpire
To recommend and fix us in the right.
If we reward the politics of heaven,
The grand adminiftration of the whole,
What's the next world? A fupplement of this:
Without it, Juftice is defective here;
Juft as to ftates, defective as to men:
If fo, what is this world? as fure as Right
Sits in heaven's throne, a prophet of the next.
Prize you the prophet? then believe him too.
His prophecy more precious than his smile.
How comes it then to pafs, with moft on earth,
That this fhould charm us, that fhould difcompofe?
Long as the ftatefman finds this cafe his own,
So long his politics are uncomplete;

In danger he; nor is the nation fafe,
But foon must rue his inaufpicious power.

What hence refults? a truth that should refound
For ever awful in Britannia's ear:

done,

Their compliment is paid, and 'tis forgot.
What highland pole axe half fo deep can wound?
But how dare I, fo mean, presume so far?
Affume my feat in the dictator's chair?
Pronounce, predict (as if indeed inspir'd),
Promulge my cenfures, lay out all my throat,
Till hoarfe in clamour on enormous crimes?
Two mighty columns rife in my support;
In their more awful and authentic voice,
Record profane and facred, drown the mufe,
Though loud, and far out-threat her threatening
fong.

Still farther, Holles! fuffer me to plead
That I fpeak freely, as I fpeak to thee.
Guilt only ftartles at the name of guilt;
And truth, plain truth, is welcome to the wife.
Thus what feem'd my prefumption is thy praife.
Praife, and immortal praise, is virtue's claim;

The whole world's annals; thefe pronounce his And virtue's fphere is action: yet we grant

dopm,

Some merit to the trumpet's loud alarm

Whose clangour kindles cowards into men.
Nor fhall the verfe, perhaps, be quite forgot,
Which talks of immortality, and bids,
In every British breaft, true glory rife,
As now the warbling lark awakes the morn.
To clofe, my Lord! with that which all should
clofe

And all begin, and strike us every hour,
Though no war wak'd us, no black tempest
frown'd.-

The morning rises gay; yet gayeft morn
Lefs glorious after night's incumbent shades;

Lefs glorious far bright nature, rich array'd
With golden robes, in all the pomp of noon,
Than the first feeble dawn of moral day?
Sole day, (let those whom statesmen serve attend
Though the fun ripens diamonds for their crowns)
Sole day worth his regard whom heaven ordains,
Undarken'd, to behold noon dark, and date,
From the fun's death, and every planet's fall,
His all-illustrious and eternal year;
[awe
Where statesmen and their monarchs, (names of
And distance here) fhall rank with common men,
Yet own their glory never dawn'd before.

THE COMPLAINT: OR, NIGHT THOUHTS.

PREFACE.

As the occafion of this poem was real, not ficlitious; so the method pursued in it, was rather imposed, by what fpontaneoufly arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the poem. The reafon of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

NIGHT J.

To reafon, and on reafon build refolve, (That column of true majefty in man)

ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. | Affift me: I will thank you in the grave;

TO THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW

Speaker of the House of Commons.

TIR'D nature's fweet reflorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays
Where fortune fmiles; the wretched he forfakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unfullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where mywreck'd defponding thought
From wave to wave of fancied misery,
At random drove, her helm of reafon loft.
Though now reflor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for severe.
'The day too fhort for my diftrefs; and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is funfhine to the colour of my fate.

Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne, In raylefs majefty, now ftretches forth Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor liftening ear, an object finds; Creation fleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life ftood still, and nature made a paufe; An awful paufe! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd; Fate drop the curtain; I can lose no more. Silence and darkness! folemn fifters! twins From ancient night, who nurse the tender thought!

[fall

The grave, your kingdom: There this frame fhall A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye?

Thou, who didft put to fight

Primeval filence, when the morning ftars,
Exulting, shouted o'er the rifing ball;

O thou, whofe word from folid darkness ftruck
That spark, the fun; ftrike wisdom from my foul;
My foul, which flies to thee, her truft, her treasure,
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.

Through this opaque of nature and of foul,
This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death;
And from each fcene the nobleft truths infpire.
Nor lefs infpire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reafon, reafon; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm refolve
Wifdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

The bell ftrikes one. We take no note of time
But from its lofs. To give it then a tongue
Is wife in man. As if an angel fpoke,
I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the fignal that demands difpatch:
How much is to be done? My hopes and fearg
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? a fathomlefs abyssi
A dread eternity! how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,
Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How palling wonder he who made him fuch!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures marvellously mix'd,
Connection exquifite of distant worlds!
Diftinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!

A beam ethereal, fully'd, and absorp'd!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, ftill divine!
Dim miniature of greatnefs abfolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft!
Helpless immortal! infect infinite!

A worm! a god !—I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surpris'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own: How reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately tranfported and alarm'd!
What can preferve my life, or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

'Tis paft conjecture; all things rife in proof: While o'er my limbs fleep's foft dominion fpread, What though my foul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs woods; or down the craggy steep Hurl'd headlong, fwam with pain the mantled pool;

Or feal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds,
With antic fhapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceafelefs flight, though devious, fpeaks her

nature

Of fubtler effence than the trodden clod;
Active, aerial, towering, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grofs companions fall.
Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal;
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal heaven husbands all events;
Dull fleep inftructs, nor fport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their lofs deplore that are not loft?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs a-
round

In infidel diftrefs? Are angels there?
Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall
On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the defert, this the folitude:
How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the fad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty fhades!
All, all on earth, is fbadow, all beyond
Is fubftance; the reverfe is folly's creed:

How folid all, where change fhall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the veftibule;
Life's theatre as yet is fhut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the maffy bar,
This grofs impediment of clay remove,

And make us embryos of existence free
From real life; but little more remote
Is be, not yet a candidate for light,

The future embryo, flumbering in his fire.
Embryos we mult be till we burft the fhell,
Yon ambient azure fhell, and fpring to life,
The life of gods, O tranfport! and of man.

Yet man, fool man bere buries all his thoughtsį
Inters celestial hopes without one figh.
Prifoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there
Where feraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, faft by the throne of God. What golden joys ambrofial clustering glow In his full beam, and ripen for the just, Where momentary ages are no more! [pire! | Where time, and pain, and chance, and death, czAnd is it in the flight of threefcore years To push eternity from human thought, And fmother fouls immortal in the duft? A foul immortal, fpending all her fires, Wafting her ftrength in ftrenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, At ought this fcene can threaten or indulge,. Refembles ocean into tempeft wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Where falls this cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself
How was my heart incrusted by the world!
O how felf-fetter'd was my grovelling foul,
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In filken thought, which reptile fancy fpun,
Till darken'd reafon lay quite clouded o'er
With foft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!

Night-vifions may befriend: (as fung above)
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream'd
Of things impoffible! (Could sleep do more ?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funshine in the ftorms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perfpective!
fill at death's toll, whofe reftlefs iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobwebb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The Spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly blifs; it breaks at every breeze.
O ye bleft fcenes of permanent delight!
Full above measure! lafting beyond bound!
A perpetuity of blifs is blifs.

Could you, fo rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghaftly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite unparadife the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres;
The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate,

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Книги

The Works of the British Poets, Том 10