Nor is thy heart unequal to thy mind;
There glows each passion of the purer kind;
Kind to the last where'er thy friendship moves,
And more than gen'rous where thy reason loves.
Come then, my friend, with candour lead me forth, My bright example, and my guide to worth!
Pilot my little bark, and with the gale
That sped thy vessel, speed my rising sail!
But if, unequal to the dang'rous theme,
*Advent'rous youth should miss its arduous aim,
Point to that path which humbler bards attend,
And be the Muse's patron and her friend.
How shall we gain what vanity would have, What soon or late must perish in the grave? How shall we catch this shadow of renown, Which, meteor-like, is seen, and quickly gone! Say, shall we sail as wand'ring fancy guides, In search of honour, thro' the furthest tides? Columbus-like another world explore,
In other suns, where other oceans roar?
* The greatest part of this poem was written at a very early age, when the author was neither in the practice, nor had the opportunity of seeing men and manners. Much therefore should be allowed to the solitary dictates of pure imagination; and not a little to the original design of the undertaking, which was literally a school-boy's self-enjoined task for the cultivation of his native language in a foreign country.
Through savage nature meditate the prize,
And catch the shadow while it tempts our eyes?
How dear, alas! the tribute which we pay,
For what so soon is destin'd to decay!
Our warmest wish can honour's breath acquire,
When in the tomb that honour must expire?
There heroes, kings, and poets humbly lie,
Without a passion, and without a sigh:
There titled wickedness, and injur'd worth,
Contented occupy their speck of earth:
And THERE, thou giddy coxcomb of an hour,
Insulting mimic of the man in pow'r!
Slave to the dazzling nonsense of the times!
Thy dust shall mingle with the man of rhymes:
And if remembrance should hereafter trace,
In some sad daub, that ignominious face,
Still shall contempt attend thy hated name,
And ages spare thee to be damn'd by fame!
Why then, ye vain! thus ever on the stretch,
Why blindly grasp at what you cannot reach?
Is it in man his humblest wish to gain,
Or, if once gain'd, uninjur'd to maintain?
Scarce round the brows of Ammon's warlike son,
The laurel circles which his courage won,
Drunk with his conquests, triumphs, and his pow'r,
When Fate commands, and Ammon's Son's no more!
Now what avail the terrours of his name,
His Persian laurels, or his Indian fame?
Lost! or at best unnotic'd, see they pass,
And millions know not Alexander was.
What heroes fall! what honours disappear,
Nor fame itself can tell us that they were!
To-day all triumph! scarce to-morrow's come,
When ev'ry laurel withers in the tomb;
The storied arch, adorn'd with many a rhyme,
Betrays its charge, and owns the touch of Time.
So sink the Great, so Tully's hope was vain;
Which HYDE has lost, and CHATHAM scarce could gain.
Go madly then, in reason's spite aspire,
Where fancy points, and vanity can fire;
Shine forth in arms, the bloody combat guide,
Bid nations bleed, and ruin swell the tide;
Supremely vain, the giddy height explore
Of sov'reign pride, and risen-be no more!
Or vainly great in science, shew the plan
Creation form'd, and fathom into man;
Sound all his turns, his passions, and his end,
Point how to one fair common whole they tend;
Look nature through with study's choicest ray,
Pervade this whole, and all its parts display;
Spring from our earth, this little spot despise!
Frame worlds on worlds, and range along the skies;
Bid planets roll, bid suns and moons appear
At stated hours, and tell us how they steer:
Yet, spite of all, this bitter truth adore,
"Fate drops the veil, and Science is no more."
Fate drops the veil!-Ambition, take thy sting,
And wisely curb the mad advent'ring wing;
What millions look for, think not solely thine!
"Tis A-
-d's!* Eliott's!+ Palliser's, and mine; 'Tis the vile wretch's, in whose trait'rous breast Lurks ev'ry vice by which the world's opprest.
Weak, foolish man! is thirst of fame confin'd
Within the partial limits of thy mind;
Look round our world, each little being see,
And say, vain wretch, is fame alone for thee?
All nature feels, nor can her breath inspire
One single atom with unequal fire;
The smallest part, though in an humbler space,
Roams as we roam, and eyes the flying chace:
The courser foams, and measures o'er the plain,
Champs the stiff bit, and tosses' in the rein;
Burns while his rider rushes on the foe,
And points his bosom to receive the blow;
Triumphant spurns the relics of the slain,
And beats with wanton hoof the hollow-sounding plain:
'Tis not the spur that makes his eye-ball roll
With dauntless fire, and calls forth all his soul,
Resistless drives him where the battle glows,
Through seas of blood, and heaps of dying foes.
* The gentleman who betrayed his country.
+ Lord Heathfield, commonly called the Cock of the Rock. Sir H. Palliser, who was tried for permitting the French and Spanish Fleets to escape.
The feather'd bards that chaunt in ev'ry grove,
And tune their voices to the sound of love,
Announce the spring, and with soft music hail
The bright'ning beauties of the flow'ry vale;
Say, does not fame their little souls inspire,
And honour's breath the little concert fire?
If chance a linnet, on the glitt'ring thorn,
Warbling salute the rising of the morn,
The lark attends; it listens to the note,
And pours forth all the music of its throat;
With envy swells, and stretches out the lay,
Till the poor vanquish'd linnet quits the spray.
The packs that echo thro' the sounding wood,
Start ev'ry game, and riot in its blood,
With all the rage of emulation bear,
Through thorns and thickets, on the sylvan war:
The love-sick bull whose jealous eyes survey
A beauteous heifer with his rival stray,
Provokes the fight with butting horns, and pours
Resounding echoes through the distant bow'rs;
Undaunted spreads his terrours round the field,
Attacks his foe, and, living, scorns to yield:
Rapine and love act but a second part,
'Tis thirst of fame that vibrates to the heart.
With diff'rent names, though in effect the same,
Our ruling passion is but thirst of fame:
Lust, pride, and gain, have all one common end,
And hundreds would expire, did none commend.
There are, 'tis true-but such we seldom find---
Whose wishes seem to wander from mankind:
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