The frenzy of the brain may be redressed By medicine well applied, but without grace The heart's insanity admits no cure.
Enraged the more by what might have reformed His horrible intent, again he sought Destruction, with a zeal to be destroyed, With sounding whip and rowels dyed in blood.
But still in vain. The Providence that meant A longer date to the far nobler beast, Spared yet again the ignobler for his sake.
And now, his prowess proved, and his sincere, Incurable obduracy evinced, His rage grew cool; and, pleased perhaps to have earned So cheaply the renown of that attempt, With looks of some complacence he resumed His road, deriding much the blank amaze Of good Evander, still where he was left Fixed motionless, and petrified with dread.
So on they fared; discourse on other themes Ensuing, seemed to obliterate the past, And tamer far for so much fury shown (As is the course of rash and fiery men)
The rude companion smiled as if transformed.
But 'twas a transient calm. A storm was near, An unsuspected storm. His hour was come.
The impious challenger of power divine Was now to learn that Heaven, though slow to wrath, Is never with impunity defied.
His horse, as he had caught his master's mood, Snorting, and starting into sudden rage, Unbidden, and not now to be controlled, Rushed to the cliff, and having reached it, stood.
At once the shock unseated him; he flew Sheer o'er the craggy barrier, and, immersed Deep in the flood, found, when he sought it not, The death he had deserved, and died alone.
So God wrought double justice; made the fool The victim of his own tremendous choice, And taught a brute the way to safe revenge.
I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path;But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes A visitor unwelcome into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds And guiltless of offence, they range the air, Or take their pastime in the spacious field.
There they are privileged; and he that hunts Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health, Or safety interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all--the meanest things that are--As free to live and to enjoy that life, As God was free to form them at the first, Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons To love it too. The spring-time of our years Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots, If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth, Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule And righteous limitation of its act, By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man;And he that shows none, being ripe in years, And conscious of the outrage he commits, Shall seek it and not find it in his turn.
Distinguished much by reason, and still more By our capacity of grace divine, From creatures that exist but for our sake, Which having served us, perish, we are held Accountable, and God, some future day, Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse Of what He deems no mean or trivial trust.
Superior as we are, they yet depend Not more on human help, than we on theirs.
Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given In aid of our defects. In some are found Such teachable and apprehensive parts, That man's attainments in his own concerns, Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs, Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.
Some show that nice sagacity of smell, And read with such discernment, in the port And figure of the man, his secret aim, That oft we owe our safety to a skill We could not teach, and must despair to learn.
But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop To quadruped instructors, many a good And useful quality, and virtue too, Rarely exemplified among ourselves;Attachment never to be weaned, or changed By any change of fortune, proof alike Against unkindness, absence, and neglect;Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat Can move or warp; and gratitude for small And trivial favours, lasting as the life, And glistening even in the dying eye.
Man praises man. Desert in arts or arms Wins public honour; and ten thousand sit Patiently present at a sacred song, Commemoration-mad; content to hear (Oh wonderful effect of music's power!)
Messiah's eulogy, for Handel's sake.
But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve--(For was it less? What heathen would have dared To strip Jove's statue of his oaken wreath And hang it up in honour of a man?)
Much less might serve, when all that we design Is but to gratify an itching ear, And give the day to a musician's praise.
Remember Handel! who, that was not born Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets, Or can, the more than Homer of his age?
Yes--we remember him; and, while we praise A talent so divine, remember too That His most holy Book from whom it came Was never meant, was never used before To buckram out the memory of a man.
But hush!--the muse perhaps is too severe, And with a gravity beyond the size And measure of the offence, rebukes a deed Less impious than absurd, and owing more To want of judgment than to wrong design.
So in the chapel of old Ely House, When wandering Charles, who meant to be the third, Had fled from William, and the news was fresh, The ****** clerk, but loyal, did announce, And eke did rear right merrily, two staves, Sung to the praise and glory of King George.
