We're bound our great light to display,
And Indian darkness drive away,
Yet none but drunken watchmen fend,
And scoundrel link-boys for that end;
When they cry up this holy war,
Which every christian should be for,
Yet fuch as owe the law their ears,
We find employ'd as engineers:
This view my forward zeal so shocks,
In vain they hold the money-box.
At fuch a conduct, which intends
By vicious means fuch virtuous ends,
I laugh off Spleen, and keep my pence
From spoiling Indian innocence.
Yet philofophic love of eafe
I fuffer not to prove disease,
But rise up in the virtuous caufe
Of a free prefs, and equal laws.
The press restrain'd! nefandous thought!
In vain our fires have nobly fought:
While free from force the prefs remains,
Virtue and Freedom cheer our plains,
And Learning largeffes bestows,
And keeps uncenfur'd open house.
We to the nation's public mart
Our works of wit, and schemes of art,
And philofophic goods this way,
Like water carriage, cheap convey.
This tree, which knowledge fo affords,
Inquifitors with flaming fwords
From lay-approach with zeal defend,
Left their own paradife should end.
The press from her fecundous womb
Brought forth the arts of Greece and Rome;
Her offspring, fkill'd in logic war,
Truth's banner wav'd in open air;
The monster Superftition fled,
And hid in fhades its Gorgon head;
And lawless pow'r, the long kept field,
By reafon quell'd, was forc'd to yield.
This nurse of arts, and freedom's fence
To chain, is treason against sense;
And, Liberty, thy thousand tongues
None filence, who defign no wrongs;
For thofe, that use the gag's reftraint,
First rob, before they stop complaint.
Since disappointment galls within,
And fubjugates the foul to Spleen,
Moft schemes, as money-fnares, I hate,
And bite not at projector's bait.
Sufficient wrecks appear each day,
And yet fresh fools are cast away.
Ere well the bubbled can turn round,
Their painted veffel runs aground;
Or in deep feas it oversets
By a fierce hurricane of debts;
Or helm-directors in one trip,
Freight first embezzled, fink the ship.
Such was of late a corporation,
The brazen ferpent of the nation,
Which, when hard accidents distress'd,
The poor must look at to be blest,
And thence expect, with paper feal'd
By fraud and usʼry, to be heal'd.
I in no foul-consumption wait
Whole years at levees of the great,
And hungry hopes regale the while
On the spare diet of a smile.
Above, below, now here, now there
He throws about the funny glare:
Crowds pant, and prefs to feize the prize,
delufion of their eyes.
When Fancy tries her limning skill
To draw and colour at her will,
And raise and round the figures well,
And fhew her talent to excel,
I guard my heart, left it should woo
Unreal beauties Fancy drew,
And disappointed, feel defpair
At lofs of things, that never were.
When I lean politicians mark
Grazing on æther in the park;
Who e'er on wing with open throats
Fly at debates, expreffes, votes,
Juft in the manner swallows use,
Catching their airy food of news;
Whofe latrant ftomachs oft moleft
The deep-laid plans their dreams fuggeft;
Or fee fome poet penfive fit,
Fondly mistaking Spleen for Wit;
Who, though fhort-winded, ftill will aim
To found the epic trump of Fame;
Who ftill on Phoebus' fmiles will doat,
Nor learn conviction from his coat ;
I bless my stars, I never knew
Whimfies, which clofe purfu'd, undo,
And have from old experience been
Both parent and the child of Spleen.
Thefe fubjects of Apollo's ftate,
Who from falfe fire derive their fate,
With airy purchases undone
Of lands, which none lend money on,
Born dull, had follow'd thriving ways,
Nor loft one hour to gather bays.
Their fancies first delirious grew,
And scenes ideal took for true.
Fine to the fight Parnaffus lies,
And with falfe profpects cheats their eyes;
The fabled gods the poets fing,
A feafon of perpetual spring,
Brooks, flow'ry fields, and groves
Affording sweets and fimiles,
Gay dreams infpir'd in myrtle bow'rs,
And wreaths of undecaying flow'rs,
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