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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341465" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Golden Age</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Long ere the Muse the strenuous chords had swept,<br>And the first lay as yet in silence slept,<br>A Time there was which since has stirred the lyre<br>To notes of wail and accents warm with fire;<br>Moved the soft Mantuan to his silvery strain,<br>And him who sobbed in pentametric pain;<br>To which the World, waxed desolate and old,<br>Fondly reverts, and calls the Age of Gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, without toil, by vale and mountain side,<br>Men found their few and simple wants supplied;<br>Plenty, like dew, dropped subtle from the air,<br>And Earth's fair gifts rose prodigal as prayer.<br>Love, with no charms except its own to lure,<br>Was swiftly answered by a love as pure.<br>No need for wealth; each glittering fruit and flower,<br>Each star, each streamlet, made the maiden's dower.<br>Far in the future lurked maternal throes,<br>And children blossomed painless as the rose.<br>No harrowing question `why,' no torturing `how,'<br>Bent the lithe frame or knit the youthful brow.<br>The growing mind had naught to seek or shun;<br>Like the plump fig it ripened in the sun.<br>From dawn to dark Man's life was steeped in joy,<br>And the gray sire was happy as the boy.<br>Nature with Man yet waged no troublous strife,<br>And Death was almost easier than Life.<br>Safe on its native mountains throve the oak,<br>Nor ever groaned 'neath greed's relentless stroke.<br>No fear of loss, no restlessness for more,<br>Drove the poor mariner from shore to shore.<br>No distant mines, by penury divined,<br>Made him the sport of fickle wave or wind.<br>Rich for secure, he checked each wish to roam,<br>And hugged the safe felicity of home.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those days are long gone by; but who shall say<br>Why, like a dream, passed Saturn's Reign away?<br>Over its rise, its ruin, hangs a veil,<br>And naught remains except a Golden Tale.<br>Whether 'twas sin or hazard that dissolved<br>That happy scheme by kindly Gods evolved;<br>Whether Man fell by lucklessness or pride,-<br>Let jarring sects, and not the Muse, decide.<br>But when that cruel Fiat smote the earth,<br>Primeval Joy was poisoned at its birth.<br>In sorrow stole the infant from the womb,<br>The agëd crept in sorrow to the tomb.<br>The ground, so bounteous once, refused to bear<br>More than was wrung by sower, seed, and share.<br>Ofttimes would ruthless winds or torrents raze<br>The ripening fruit of toilsome nights and days.<br>Each one in turn grew jealous of his own,<br>And fenced his patch with ditch and churlish stone.<br>As greed uprose, and greed engendered strife,<br>Contention raged coincident with life.<br>Man against man, maid against maiden turned,<br>And the soft breast with envious passions burned.<br>The loss of one was hailed as others' gain,<br>And pleasure took unnatural birth from pain.<br>Goaded by woe, and through tradition's lore<br>Mindful of all the blissfulness of yore,<br>The Human Race, its sorrows to assuage,<br>Dreamed afar off a second Golden Age;<br>Not in the dim irrevocable Past,<br>But in a Future just as vague and vast.<br>The prophet's lips, the poet's flattering pen,<br>Revelled in forecasts of that golden Then.<br>The days should come when grief would be no more,<br>And Peace and Plenty rule from shore to shore;<br>All men alike enjoy what none did earn,<br>And even more than Saturn's Reign return.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As years rolled on, as centuries went by,<br>And still that Promised Time seemed no more nigh,<br>Mankind at length, outwearied with delays,<br>Gave up all hope of those seductive days.<br>Then other prophets, other scribes arose,<br>A nearer, surer Eden to disclose.<br>`O, long-befooled!' they said, `awake, and deem<br>The Past a tale, the Future but a dream.<br>Here, in the living Present, act your part,<br>Straining its vulgar blessings to your heart.<br>Let hand with hand and brain with brain contend,<br>And each one labour to some selfish end.<br>In wealth and riot, luxury and power,<br>Baffle the mockery of the transient hour.<br>If thousands fall, if tens of thousands bleed,<br>Will not a hundred, or a score, succeed?<br>Let those who cannot yield to those who can-<br>Fate has its piles of victims; why not Man?<br>Better a furious fight where some one wins,<br>Than sluggish life which ends as it begins.<br>Vain was the bard who, whilst the World was new,<br>'Twixt men and beasts the fond distinction drew,<br>That these confine their downward gaze to earth,<br>Whilst man looks up, enamoured of his birth.<br>Not in the skies, but deep beneath the soil,<br>There will you find your happiness and spoil.<br>Enough for brutes its simple face to know,<br>But godlike man must pierce and delve below.<br>Deep in its bowels seek the shining ore,<br>And at its touch shall Saturn reign once more.<br>For him whose thews are sound, whose vision clear,<br>Whose purpose firm, the Golden Age is here.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never from cave or tripod, mount or glade,<br>Issued a voice so welcomed, so obeyed.<br>From zone to zone the Golden Gospel flew,<br>And in its train mankind obedient drew.<br>See from their seats the ancient Gods dethroned,<br>Altars upset, and oracles disown'd.<br>The Muses, scared, conceal the smothered lyre;<br>No longer prized, the Graces swift retire;<br>Virtue, a butt for ribalds, seeks her shroud,<br>And even Venus veils herself in cloud.<br>Religion, Ethics, all men erst adored,<br>Hymned on the harp, or fought for with the sword,<br>All lofty scopes, all ends esteemed of old,<br>Dissolve like mist before the rage for gold.<br>The priest for gold makes traffic of his robe;<br>For gold the soldier desolates the globe;<br>The poet shapes for gold his venal lays;<br>Through gold Vice stalks caparisoned with praise.<br>Tempted by gold, the virgin sells her charms,<br>Though no Immortal slips into her arms.<br>Saddled with gold, the adventurer can buy<br>Titles, precedence, place, and dignity.<br>High, middle, low, the young, the ripe, the old,<br>Man, woman, child, live, die, are damned for Gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soon as the youthful mind begins to ope,<br>It searches Life's significance and scope;<br>And, fed by generous impulse year by year,<br>Dreams for itself some glorious career.<br>Its shall it be, instructed by the Muse,<br>Truth to abet, and beauty to diffuse;<br>With full-blown sail, and genius at the helm,<br>To steer men's thoughts to a serener realm.<br>Perhaps the ingenuous boy would fain recall<br>Tintoret's canvas, Memmi's fresco'd wall;<br>With godlike pencil purify the mart,<br>And life ennoble with the breath of Art.<br>Maybe he burns, by Plato's failure fired,<br>To scale the heights which every wing have tired,<br>Seize first each part, then comprehend the whole,<br>And solve the eternal problem of the Soul.<br>Be these his aims, or, nobler still, to train<br>His kind to mutiny till Virtue reign,<br>Soon doth he learn to count his lovely schemes<br>A host of bubbles in a world of dreams.<br>Experience whispers early, Have a care!<br>Who with the Muse would live must live on air.<br>The tempting maid is but a poet's lie,<br>`Who gave to song what gold could never buy.'<br>Confront the world, take counsel with the throng;<br>Their verdict what? `The thing's not worth a song.'<br>Are you content you now have learnt your price?<br>Come, sink the Muse, and don't be quite so nice.<br>Start a new Company, and float the shares,<br>Then lunch with Ministers and dine with Mayors.<br>Pimp for a Party, praise a Premier's heart,<br>Head a subscription, and then shine-a Bart.<br>Return your income fifty thousand clear-<br>The devil's in it, or you'll die a peer.<br>Success so great is never done by halves-<br>'Tis only virtue, when 'tis greatest, starves.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Perhaps his breast, untutored yet to serve,<br>Spurns the base counsel with a proud reserve;<br>For Youth is stubborn, and when Nature draws,<br>In vain a parent's warning, wisdom's saws.<br>Let cravens straight their impotence confess,<br>And sell their birthright for a filthy mess;<br>In flowers see, bee-like, nought but stuff for hives,<br>And for foul lucre prostitute their lives;<br>They have not failed who never once have tried,<br>Or, if they failed, they failed for want of pride.<br>He, he at least his soul will ne'er demean,<br>But 'mong the foul will keep his honour clean.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O touching sight, to witness day by day<br>His splendid generous day-dreams fade away!<br>His sire reproaches, and his brothers scoff,<br>His mother doubts, his sisters e'en fall off.<br>The neighbours pity, strangers deem him mad;<br>Girls, smiling, whisper, What a foolish lad!<br>Meanwhile his compeers, started in the race,<br>Are swiftly marching on to power and place.<br>One makes a coup, and weds a wife of rank;<br>Another's junior partner in a bank.<br>A third in sugar with unscriptural hand,<br>Traffics, and builds a lasting house on sand.<br>A fourth, for beer and piety renowned,<br>Owns all the publics in the country round;<br>Its drink adulterates with face demure,<br>But burns with zeal to keep opinion pure;<br>Cares not one jot for bodies drunk or sick,<br>But scans your soul like a new Dominick.<br>The fifth, the patron of a new balloon,<br>Projects a Company to reach the moon;<br>Baits his prospectus with a batch of peers,<br>And vows nought pays like money in the Spheres.<br>Shares in the moon advanced-advancing still.<br>Then comes a crash-stock guaranteed at nil.<br>But sure, the man is ruined? Not at all;<br>He scarce can tumble who has sense to crawl.<br>Your modern Icarus is much too wise<br>On his own pinions to attempt the skies-<br>On others' soaring follies doth he rise.<br>Long ere the bubble burst his shares were sold;<br>Just at that moment he had need of gold.<br>Singed wings, you know, are but for simple folk;<br>He, with his peers, 'scapes safe from flame and smoke,<br>And buys a borough with the happy stroke.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Few are the souls who die for Cato's creed:<br>To fail seems base, when all around succeed.<br>Foiled in his purpose, both by foe and friend,<br>Through noble means to reach a noble end,<br>The baffled boy forswears his cherished dream,<br>And learns to swim, like others, with the stream.<br>Keen to recover precious moments lost,<br>And taught by bitter tasks what Virtue cost,<br>He midst the rush, whilst others rise and fall,<br>Swims on, the most unscrupulous of all.<br>Let others chouse with care, he cheats with pluck,<br>And millions stake their all upon his luck.<br>His daring overawes the small, the great,<br>And whilst he plunders they but peculate.<br>He lures the easy, makes the fat his spoil,<br>Pares the lean wage of proletarian toil;<br>Swindles the widow of her hoarded mite,<br>Drags the poor pensioner once more to fight;<br>Robs age of rest, and youth of prospects fair,<br>Plunges the sanguine bridegroom in despair;<br>Severs the ties made sacred long by home,<br>And sends the son from sire across the foam;<br>Dashes the faith of plighted swain and maid,<br>And helps alone the cynic sexton's spade:<br>Does all that well beseems a Fallen Star-<br>It needs a Lucifer to fall so far!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sometimes will Fortune on the traitor scowl,<br>And e'en with gold not pay a deed so foul.<br>He who was born a glittering child of light,<br>Trenchant as Raphael, as Ithuriel bright,<br>Yet sells his soul a vulgar prize to reap,<br>And for brute guerdons holds his honour cheap,<br>Too often finds that he who, grovelling, flies<br>From unrewarded reverie in the skies,<br>And seeks in venal efforts to employ<br>The gifts God formed for beauty and for joy,<br>Makes but a barren barter of his birth,<br>And Heaven foregoes, without securing earth.<br>See how he sinks! The more he strains to clutch<br>Terrestrial spoil, unworthy of his touch,<br>It seems, for him, to take elusive shapes,<br>And like a shadow from his grasp escapes.<br>As baser wax his aims, more mean his scope,<br>More and still more he sprawls-the sport of Hope.<br>Still as he tries to suffocate his soul,<br>Farther beyond him seems the carnal goal.<br>In vain he turns to catch the favouring gale;<br>Becalmed he lies-he labours but to fail.<br>Poor and despised, he now would fain retrace<br>His erring steps to his first dwelling-place,<br>But finds, alas! baseness hath borne its fruit;<br>Wings long unused have withered at the root.<br>He who in vain has crawled in vain would fly,<br>And rots abandoned both by earth and sky.<br>Meaner his end than that poor tradesman's doom,<br>Who, asked what words of honour on his tomb<br>His friends should place, with cynic touch replied,<br>`Here lies who, born a man, a grocer died!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whom doth this foe of human virtue spare?<br>Look round! More sweet its victims, the more fair.<br>Its natural slaves, who, spawned from wealth, are born<br>To Traffic's tricks they lack the soul to scorn,<br>Whose lust for lucre is their proper lot,<br>It just as oft impoverishes as not.<br>'Tis those in whom the Unseen God inspires<br>The restless leaven of divine desires;<br>Who, from the moment that they lisp, betray<br>An alien spirit housed within their clay;<br>Whose fretful youth life's narrow limits chafe,<br>And yearns for worlds more spacious, if less safe;<br>Striving to reach, despite its fleshly thrall,<br>That larger Something which surrounds us all;-<br>These, these the souls-and not that baser band-<br>To whom Gold loves to stretch a helping hand;<br>With early smiles their generous aims to bless,<br>And lead them, blind, to ruinous success.<br>When Lelius chanted first his fragrant lays,<br>Men praised, and he was amply paid with praise.<br>Not salons' sycophant, nor Fashion's bard,<br>No glittering heaps did his sweet notes reward.<br>He was content with audience fit, though few,<br>When to his side the cunning demon drew.<br>`Your pen's worth gold; you need but blunt its point;<br>Come, cut the Muse; the times are out of joint.<br>Fame's well enough, but comfort has its laws;<br>You'll make a damned poor supper off applause.<br>Sing, be select, and starve. Prose is the thing-<br>The thing that pays. The Million now is King.<br>Write gossip, scandal, slander-what you will;<br>A well-filled purse awaits a ready quill.'<br>The curst insidious demon has his way,<br>And Grub-street swallows Lelius for aye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Turn from the pen, and for a while survey<br>The wide domains which brush and canvas sway.<br>Enter those realms, and what do we behold?<br>Art, heavenly Art, the slave and pimp of gold!<br>Time was when its poor votaries were too proud<br>To sate the itch of a vain-glorious crowd,<br>Serve the mean aims of narrow personal pelf,<br>And swell the ignoble retinue of Self.<br>Only the State, which merges private ends,<br>Or sacred Church, which lifts them and extends,<br>Might then presume the artist's craft to claim,<br>And paid him, happy, with immortal Fame.<br>Here, Friendship's guest, where fairest Florence lies,<br>A dream in stone, stretched out before mine eyes,<br>I think of all the treasures there enshrined,<br>And what small dole nurtured each master mind;<br>Or led by memory o'er the classic chain<br>Which Umbrian slope divides from Tuscan plain,<br>I all the priceless unbought gems recall<br>That link with heaven Assisi's frescoed wall;<br>Then, borne on wings of weakness, I repair<br>To mine own land, and groan to think that there,<br>Debased by Fashion to a venal trade,<br>Art counts its triumphs by its fortunes made;<br>Spurned by the State, and by the Church unsought,<br>Works but for wealth, and by the base is bought;<br>Stranger to altars, palaces, or domes,<br>Pampers the pomp of ostentatious homes.<br>How changed the days since Duccio's hand of old<br>On Saints and Virgins lavished costly gold;<br>But for himself asked but a few poor crowns,<br>Less than we give to harlequins and clowns.<br>Now do our mercenary tricksters grudge<br>Almost the very canvas that they smudge;<br>Yet scan with greedy eyes the glittering heap<br>That opulent folly holds, for once, so cheap.<br>See, too, how Genius, when its touch was true,<br>On humble walls its lasting fancies drew;<br>Whose modern apes, ridiculously bold,<br>Hang their ephemeral daubs in frames of gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In vain doth Heaven, while Gold thus rules the earth,<br>With generous instincts sow the soul at birth.<br>Swift in the genial soil the seed takes root,<br>Then seeks the sun with many a venturous shoot.<br>But, ah, how soon the cruel outer air<br>Checks the brave growth and nips its promise fair!<br>Warmed by the glow of Tasso's splendid lay,<br>Or borne by Dante to the gates of Day;<br>Softly seduced by Scott's romantic strain<br>To deem all ends, excepting honour, vain;<br>Or nobly trained by Shelley's burning song<br>To cherish an eternal feud with wrong,-<br>The simple girl constructs a future fair,<br>Rears a whole world of castles in the air,<br>And nowhere warned, or deaf to warning, deems<br>That life will clothe and justify her dreams.<br>As year by year the maiden grows apace,<br>And half the woman mantles in her face,<br>With sickening sense, sad eye, and sinking heart,<br>She sees her forecasts one by one depart.<br>Slowly, but, ah, too surely doth she find<br>That poets' tales no longer rule mankind;<br>That Peace is homeless as the hunted hare,<br>And Love far less a shelter than a snare;<br>That godlike Valour meets a demon's doom,<br>Whilst Prudence prospers even from the tomb;<br>That Youth, save schooled in Mammon's miry ways,<br>Groans o'er the lapse of unrequited days;<br>That Beauty, Genius, all are vain and cold,<br>Till foully touched and fertilised by Gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soon as the time so dear to mother's vows<br>Draws nigh, to find the maid some fitting spouse,<br>Then most of all she learns what leading part<br>Is played by Gold in dramas of the heart.<br>Chance to young Hylas, beautiful as Dawn,<br>And sweet as fair, she feels her fancy drawn.<br>Are you a nymph? one whispers. Let him pass.<br>He doth but gather daisies in the grass.<br>Where your cool wave, hidden from human eyes,<br>In which to lure and love him till he dies?<br>Bid him rejoin his Hercules, and seize<br>The golden apples of the Hesperides;<br>And then perchance, should none more rich than he<br>Engage your love, you may his Hera be.<br>Alas, poor Hylas! worse than Mysian fate<br>Doth his meandering flowery feet await.<br>If that a Solon, versed in every art<br>Of song and science, touch the maiden's heart,<br>The neighbours softly whisper, Have a care;<br>Can Erudition keep a chaise and pair?<br>Pundits, alas, like fools, must pay their bills,<br>And Knowledge figures sorrily in wills.<br>For single life learning is well enough,<br>But marriage should be made of sterner stuff.<br>Should Cato's fame her pious soul attract,<br>The whole world cries, The woman must be cracked.<br>What! wed with Virtue! Is the girl awake?<br>Sure, she confounds the altar with the stake.<br>Send for the doctor. Try a change of air.<br>Swear Cato drinks. In war and love all's fair.<br>Bring Croesus to the front. At four he's free-<br>There's no one left to swindle after three.<br>In one brief hour behold him curled and drest,<br>And borne on wings of fashion to the West!<br>What though to regions fondly deemed refined,<br>He brings his City manners, City mind,<br>And cynics titter?-he laughs best who wins,-<br>A Greenwhich dinner covers many sins.<br>What! dine with Croesus? Surely. Is a feast<br>One jot the worse because the host's a beast?<br>He's worse than that-a snob-a cad. Agreed;<br>But then his goblets smack of Ganymede?<br>Do some strange freaks his conversation mar?<br>He stops your censure with a prime cigar.<br>A Norway stream, a shooting-lodge in Perth,<br>In practice look uncommonly like worth.<br>The Town to hear some new soprano flocks.<br>You long to go? Well, Croesus has a box.<br>How at this hour are tickets to be got<br>For the Regatta? Croesus has a yacht.<br>Goodwood is here. Your hopes begin to flag.<br>One chance awaits you: Croesus has a drag.<br>You doat on Flower-shows: Croesus has a bone.<br>Be friends with Croesus, and the World's your own.<br>Who could resist seductions such as these?<br>Or what could charm, if Croesus failed to please?<br>Blinded and bribed, the critical are cured,<br>And loud extol whom late they scarce endured.<br>Caressed and courted, Croesus grows the rage,<br>The type and glory of our Golden Age;<br>And Cato, Hylas, Solon, shoved aside,<br>Our heavenly maid is hailed as Croesus' bride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shade of Lucretius! if thy lyre waxed wild<br>With sacred rage for Clytemnestra's child,<br>And nought could hold thee as thy soul surveyed<br>The cursëd ills Religion can persuade,<br>How would thy verse impetuously shower<br>Sonorous scorn on Gold's atrocious power;<br>Embalm its victims with a touch divine,<br>And damn the monster in one sounding line!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Can honeyed forms or stereotyped applause<br>Alter the scope of Heaven's eternal laws?<br>What though with gifts should massive sideboards groan,<br>And every heart be glad except her own,<br>And troops of blooming girls behold with pride,<br>Perchance with envy, this resplendent bride;<br>Though vieing voices hail her Fashion's queen,<br>And even a Bishop's blessing crown the scene,<br>No rites, no rings, no altars, can avail<br>To make a sacred contract of a sale,<br>Stir the far depths of the reluctant mind,<br>Or join the hearts which love hath failed to bind.<br>If soul stands passive whilst the flesh is sold,<br>Is there no foul aroma in the gold?<br>Is the base barter covered by the price,<br>And do huge figures make the nasty nice?<br>The nameless outcast, prowling for her prey,<br>Renews her filthy bargain day by day;<br>Let Croesus give her what he gave his wife,<br>She's virtuous too-at least, she's his for life.<br>Croesus-but hold! Let Charity presume<br>That Croesus' wife but dimly knew her doom.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The luckless maid, since knowledge comes too late,<br>In splendour seeks oblivion of her fate;<br>Of every tender pious aim bereft,<br>Hugs in despair the only idol left;<br>In alien worship seeks to be consoled,<br>And builds her hopes of happiness on Gold.<br>Gold rules her steps, determines her desires-<br>Mere puppet she, whilst Mammon jerks the wires.<br>Futile to ask if London suits her health-<br>Would you consult her doctor, not her wealth?<br>You soon are answered: Whether ill or well,<br>A house in Town is indispensable.<br>Where shall it be? On gravel or on clay?<br>Wherever tenants have the most to pay.<br>Price is the thing, not soil. If Fashion's camp<br>Be pitched just here, what matter dry or damp?<br>But, health apart, 'tis known that Croesus' wife,<br>If left to choose, prefers a country life.<br>Well, she shall have it when the Parks are brown,<br>And Fashion, wearied, hath dispersed the Town.<br>But whilst the woods are leafy, and the lanes<br>With lush wild-flowers rob life of half its pains;<br>While sweetest scents and softest sounds combine<br>To make existence, did they last, divine;<br>Not for the world must Croesus' wife be missed<br>From fetid streets, foul rooms, and Fashion's list;<br>And only thence to rural refuge flies<br>As, self-exhausted, pleasant Summer dies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say, shall we marvel, amid scenes like these,<br>With all to dazzle, but with nought to please,<br>If links of simple gold should fail to cleave,<br>And tempters prompt their webs not vainly weave?<br>See, Plutus, first in each ignoble strife,<br>Battered and bored, bethinks him of a wife.<br>The happy tidings, spreading through the West,<br>Fires each maternal mercenary breast.<br>The soaring dames parade their daughters' charms,<br>To lure the hug of Plutus' palsied arms;<br>And as brave Eld for one fair woman fought,<br>For one foul man our world to rage is wrought.<br>At last, opining he might chance do worse,<br>Plutus to proud Olympia flings his purse.<br>Olympia lifts it with triumphant smile,<br>Whilst round her crowds congratulating guile,<br>Escorts her to the altar, decks her brows<br>With orange-buds, then leaves her with her spouse,<br>Who, though his suit by golden showers throve,<br>Can grasp his Danaë with no thews of Jove.<br>O, who shall tell Olympia's tale aright,<br>Each splendid day, each miserable night;<br>Her thirst divine by human draughts but slaked,<br>Her smiling face whilst the heart sorely ached,<br>Or note the edge whence one we loved so well<br>To sweet, seductive, base perdition fell?<br>I cast no stone, but half by rage consoled,<br>I snatch the lyre and curse this fiendish Gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though Beauty's fame oft spreads through all the land,<br>Splendour is far more curiously scanned;<br>And they who once upon Olympia threw<br>A passing glance, since she was fair to view,<br>Now gilded pomp and Ostentation's choir<br>Attend her path, of gazing never tire;<br>Suck up her speech, translate her silent eyes,<br>Each movement, look, and posture scrutinise,<br>Stalk all her steps, as matron, friend, and wife,<br>And feed in greedy gossip on her life.<br>Not mine to follow to the noisome den<br>Where woman's frailty stands the gaze of men,<br>And well-coached menials, limed with gold, detail<br>The piteous scenes that pass behind the veil.<br>Enough to know that, thanks to wealth, once more<br>Plutus can woo, e'en richer than before.<br>The tottering cuckold leaves the court consoled;<br>Considerate juries tip his horns with Gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sure some malicious demon in the brain<br>It needs must be, drives men reputed sane<br>To spurn the joys adjacent to their feet,<br>In the fond chase of this receding cheat?<br>Say, when the Stoic on his tranquil height,<br>And swinish crowd, sweating in miry fight,<br>In every age a like conclusion reach,<br>And sage and simple one same sermon preach-<br>That whether Heaven hath made one serf or king,<br>Reason alone true happiness can bring-<br>Can we but stand astounded as we scan<br>This race untaught, unteachable, called Man?<br>Would you be truly rich, how small the heap<br>Your aims require, the price how passing cheap!<br>A modest house, from urban jars removed,<br>By thrist selected, yet by taste approved;<br>Whose walls are gay with every sweet that blows,<br>Whose windows scented by the blushing rose;<br>Whose chambers few to no fine airs pretend,<br>Yet never are too full to greet a friend;<br>A garden plot, whither unbidden come<br>Bird's idle pipe and bee's laborious hum;<br>Smooth-shaven lawn, whereon in pastime's hours<br>The mallet rings within a belt of flowers;<br>A leafy nook where to enjoy at will<br>Gibbon's rich prose or Shakespeare's wizard quill;<br>A neighbouring copse wherein the stock-doves coo,<br>And a wild stream unchecked sings all day through;<br>Two clean bright stalls, where midday, night, and morn,<br>Two good stout roadsters champ their well-earned corn;<br>A few learned shelves from modern rubbish free,<br>Yet always, Mill, with just a place for Thee;<br>Head ne'er at dawn by clownish bouts obscured,<br>And limbs by temperate exercise inured;<br>A few firm friendships made in early life,<br>Yet doubly fastened by a pleasant wife;<br>A wholesome board, a draught of honest wine;-<br>This is true wealth; and this, thank Heaven, is mine!<br>And though you ransacked worlds from shore to shore,<br>From sea to sky, you could not give me more.<br>And if, all these beyond, I still should crave<br>Something impossible this side the grave,<br>Let humbler souls my soaring hopes forgive-<br>After my life still in my verse to live.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well would it be if Mammon's feverish rage<br>Did but the vulgar and the base engage;<br>If those alone whose undistinguished name,<br>Haply if fouled, would shed no slur on Fame,<br>Sought in this sordid, despicable strife,<br>To find the good and snatch the crown of life.<br>But in the mire of venal fight embroiled,<br>Have we not seen the noblest scutcheons soiled?<br>Not the proud thought that many a splendid fray,<br>When crowns obeyed the fortunes of the day,<br>To stalwart arms its pregnant issue owed,<br>Whose glorious blood in their own body flowed;<br>Not the remembrance that their sires did share<br>The toils that made this England great and fair;<br>Not their resplendent pedigree, nor all<br>The line of haught fierce faces on the wall,<br>That tells the tale of their ancestral hall,<br>Have yet availed, in days like these, to hold<br>Men, thus seduced, from the coarse race for Gold.<br>Have we not seen the generous beast, whose sires<br>Once bore their fathers into battle's fires,<br>By titled gamblers' mercenary taste<br>His once stout loins to nimble flanks debased,<br>Made for curst gold to sweat through all his pores,<br>The panting pet of blacklegs, lords, and whores?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On such a course what dismal woes await,<br>Let the world learn by young Lucullus' fate.<br>Whilst yet the bloom of boyhood matched his cheek,<br>And all his duty was to master Greek.<br>Make a long score, bound o'er the running brook,<br>Cleave the clear wave, Lucullus had a book.<br>No glorious volume was't, whose subtle page<br>The wisdom breathed of many a studious age.<br>No wealth of wit, no Learning's garnered sheaves<br>Lay, like a treasure, lurking in its leaves.<br>But, in their place, crabbed Calculation scrawled<br>Symbols which shocked and figures that appalled.<br>Not for sweet Fancy, nor the simple stake<br>Of generous sports, did he his tasks forsake.<br>Ere sentiment could move, or sense control,<br>Adventurous Greed had swallowed up his soul.<br>If Gold Acrisius' Tower of Brass could flout,<br>How will the playground shut the monster out?<br>Thus by his own base instincts first betrayed,<br>The race of harpies lend their shameful aid,<br>With evil eye his smiling lands behold,<br>And smooth his path to infamy with gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length behold him grown to man's estate,<br>Rich, noble, noted, lord of his own fate.<br>Here Duty beckons, Honour there incites,<br>And Love entices to its saving rites.<br>He heeds them not; he joins the madding crowd,<br>King of the base, the vulgar, and the loud;<br>Builds his most precious friendships on a bet,<br>And through the gutter trails his coronet.<br>Vain fool! inflamed by flattery and conceit,<br>He marks no pitfalls yawning at his feet;<br>But, winning, deems the cunning snare his luck,<br>And losing, pays, to plume him on his pluck;<br>Accepts each challenge, doubles every stake,<br>While tipsy plaudits follow in his wake.<br>But what avails, if Fortune quits his side?<br>Curse on the jade, he cries, she always lied!<br>Well, now's an end! . . . A comrade plucks his gown:<br>An end as yet, man! cut the timber down.<br>The luck will turn; you lost for want of skill;<br>Come, play again-you'll win. . . . By G-, I will!<br>Done soon as said. The swift sure axe resounds<br>Through the green stretch of his ancestral grounds.<br>The soaring elm, whose topmost boughs defied<br>The scaling valour of his boyish pride;<br>The umbrageous beech, beneath whose courtly shade<br>The loves that issued in his life were made;<br>The lordly oak, young when his line was young,<br>To which with pride inherited had clung<br>His sires and they from whom his sires were sprung;<br>Behold them now, around the naked hall,<br>One after one in fell succession fall.<br>Lo, the wide woods which centuries had seen<br>By frosts unmoved, mid thunder-fugues serene,<br>By thousand suns, by tens of thousand showers,<br>Fostered and fed, one greedy day devours.<br>And all in vain! Lured by the severed spoil,<br>The foul fierce harpies fasten on the soil.<br>`My lands on luck.' We take you. Clear the course;<br>Twenty to one upon Lucullus' horse!<br>One minute more, and poor Lucullus flies,<br>The beggared heir of all the centuries.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then scoffed, and scourged, and stripped of all his wealth,<br>His last friends leave him-energy and health.<br>Anxiety and fierce Excitement's flame<br>Have scorched his blood and shrivelled up his frame.<br>`Plum to a pony!' hear the cripple call;<br>`Ere six months pass, the grave will end it all.'<br>Lucky at last, he wins his bootless bet,<br>And dies of drink, debauchery, and debt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gone are the times indeed when savage Might<br>Usurped the throne and claimed the wage of Right.<br>No longer now the tiller of the soil<br>Sees his fair fields the lusty robber's spoil;<br>No timid burgher now grows rich by stealth,<br>Lest some rude noble swoop upon his wealth;<br>The quiet citizen no longer fears<br>A raid upon his money or his ears,<br>That local turmoil or imperial strife<br>Will wreck his home or leave him bare for life.<br>But say, is Force the only fearful foe,<br>Or the keen Sword worst source of human woe?<br>Wielding base weapons Violence disdained,<br>Cunning prevails where once Compulsion reigned.<br>The tyrant's lance, Oppression's piercing shaft,<br>Torment no more, but abdicate to Craft.<br>Could feudal despot swooping on his prey,<br>Could bandit burning for the unequal fray,<br>Could fire, sword, famine, spread more wreck abroad,<br>Than marks the path of Greed allied with Fraud;<br>Or waits on life, where no rude signs portend<br>When the dread bolt of Ruin will descend?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See the poor father, who for years has toiled,<br>At one fell stroke of all his store despoiled.<br>His was the pious wish, by daily care<br>And safe degrees to make his hearth more fair;<br>His the ambition-far too meek to roam-<br>To swell the simple luxuries of home;<br>By loving thrift to deck his comely spouse<br>With some poor gem, the summit of her vows;<br>To instruct his boys in every generous art<br>Which trains the man to act a shining part;<br>By culture's aid to see his daughters armed<br>With each fair grace that in their mother charmed;<br>Year after year, as strength and vigour waned,<br>To find his fondest forecasts all attained;<br>And then, since faithful to the final stage,<br>Doff the hard harness from the back of age.<br>But watchful Greed with jealous eye beheld<br>Day after day his little earnings swelled;<br>Studied the tender workings of his mind,<br>Marked the fond aims to which his heart inclined;<br>With specious lips his trusting senses stole,<br>And with false visions fired his prudent soul.<br>Poor wretch! but yesterday in modest state<br>He lived, secure from every bolt of Fate.<br>To-day, he wanders feverish and depressed,<br>As though whole Andes weighed upon his breast.<br>To-morrow, back unto his home he crawls,<br>A beggared man, and at the threshold falls.<br>Now will no more his trustful wife behold<br>The gladsome face returning as of old,<br>And read in sparkling eye and smiling cheek<br>The day's good tidings e'en before he speak;<br>Never again in hastening footsteps guess<br>Some pretty love-gift, token of success.<br>Their blooming boys, for whom parental hope<br>So oft had cast the fairest horoscope,<br>And seen with fond anticipating eyes<br>Each proud successive civic honour rise,<br>Torn from their noble studies, have to crave<br>From base pursuits the pittance of a slave,<br>Pour the soul's wine into the body's sieve,<br>And grand life lose in mean attempts to live.<br>Perchance, at home their humble wants denied,<br>Gaunt Hunger drives them from their mother's side;<br>Leaves her to weep alone o'er what hath been,<br>And places ocean, pitiless, between.<br>The tender girls, their father's pride and joy,<br>Whose dreams a fiend had scrupled to destroy;<br>From childhood's earliest days whose only care<br>Was to be gracious, virtuous, and fair,<br>And who from Heaven could nothing else implore<br>Save to be all their mother was before;<br>Who pictured as their perfect scheme of life<br>A clinging daughter and a helpful wife,-<br>At one rude flash behold the world enlarge,<br>And stand, pale victims, trembling on the marge.<br>Little, alas, now boots it where they roam,<br>Since they must leave the tranquil shores of home.<br>Whether, poor slaves, they crawl with aching feet<br>Hour after hour from dreary street to street,<br>Or, as in mockery of home, alas!<br>Beneath the stranger's icy portal pass,<br>And thankless task and miserable wage<br>Their exiled cheerless energies engage,<br>Their youth, their life, is blasted at the core,<br>And Hope's sweet sap will mount their veins no more.<br>Should every door their humble prayers repel,<br>Scorning to buy what Hunger kneels to sell,<br>And they, half thankful that the strangers spurn,<br>To their own roof be driven to return,<br>How strange the scene that meets their wearied gaze!<br>How changed the hearth, the home, of other days!<br>Contracting Care usurps the mother's face,<br>Whose smiles of old spread sunshine through the place.<br>Alone she weeps; but should she chance to hear<br>Her husband's steps, she hides the furtive tear;<br>Follows his movements with an anxious dread,<br>Studies his brow, and scans his restless tread;<br>Assails his woe with every female wile,<br>Prattles of hope, and simulates a smile.<br>He, broken man, wrapt in perpetual gloom,<br>Wanders anon from vacant room to room;<br>Then, creeping back, the image of despair,<br>With a deep sigh he sinks into his chair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He seldom speaks; and when his voice is heard,<br>Peevish its tone, and querulous his word;<br>And vain laments and childish tears attest<br>The lamp of life is dying in his breast.<br>Perhaps his death some timely pittance frees,<br>Secured by prudence in their days of ease;<br>And, O the pity! posthumous relief<br>Stanches love's wounds, and blunts the edge of grief.<br>Unless, indeed-for this too hath been known-<br>All-grasping Greed hath made that mite its own,<br>Filched from the widow her last hopes of bread,<br>And whom it ruined living, plunders dead!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are thy triumphs, Gold! thy trophies these,<br>To nurture fraud, and rob the world of ease,<br>Faith to befool, young genius to seduce,<br>And blight at once its beauty and its use.<br>Thine is the bait, as loveless hearths avouch,<br>Which drags fresh victims to the venal couch;<br>Thine the foul traps wherewith our ways are rife,<br>That lure them first, then close upon their life;<br>Thine, thine the springes, set in regions fair,<br>Whose unseen nooses strangle whom they snare;<br>The cynic glory thine to lie in wait<br>To make men little who had else been great,<br>Frustrate our plenty, aggravate our dearth,<br>And keep eternal feud 'twixt Heaven and Earth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lo, where huge London, huger day by day,<br>O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway,<br>A tract there lies by Fortune's favours blest,<br>And at Fame's font yclept the happy West.<br>There, as by wizard touch, for miles on miles,<br>Rise squares, streets, crescents of palatial piles.<br>In the brave days when England's trusty voice<br>Made grappling rivals tremble or rejoice;<br>When, foremost shield of Weakness or of Right,<br>She scorned to warn unless resolved to smite;<br>When, few but firm, her stalwart children bore<br>The terror of her Flag from shore to shore,<br>Purged Christ's dear tomb from sacrilege and shame,<br>And made the Moslem quake at Richard's name;<br>Taught the vain Gaul, though gallant, still to kneel,<br>And Spain's proud sons the weight of northern steel;-<br>Then were her best in no such splendour nursed<br>As now awaits her basest and her worst.<br>No kingly Harry glittering with renown,<br>No Edward radiant in a peaceful crown,<br>Was housed as now, at turn of Fortune's wrist,<br>Some lucky navvy turned capitalist,<br>Some convict's bastard who a-sudden shines<br>In the bright splendour of Australian mines,<br>Or subtle Greek, who, skilled in Eastern ways,<br>Exposes all Golconda to our gaze.<br>These, as to Pomp's pretentious peaks they rush,<br>Heed not the crowds their sordid conquests crush:<br>Secure in glaring opulence, they scan<br>With placid eyes the miseries of man;<br>Fat units, watch the leanness of the whole,<br>And gag remonstrance with a paltry dole:<br>Mid harrowing want, with conscience unafraid,<br>Die on the golden dirt-heaps they have made.<br>Here Plenty gorges gifts from every zone,<br>There thankful Hunger gnaws its meagre bone;<br>Profusion here melts more than pearls in wine,<br>There craves gaunt Penury some shucks from swine;<br>And whilst rich rogues quaff deep round roaring fires,<br>At Dives' portal Lazarus expires!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Betwixt these fierce extremes of wealth and woe,<br>A crowd of strugglers hustles to and fro,<br>Whose one sole aim and only hope in life<br>Are just to wrench subsistence from the strife.<br>To what base shifts these hideous straits compel<br>The straining wretches, let our records tell.<br>Victims of greedy Competition's craft,<br>We drain cheap poison in each sparkling draught,<br>Purchase a lie in every vaunted ware,<br>And swallow filth in the most frugal fare.<br>Building a refuge for our age, we find<br>The crumbling mortar lets in wet and wind;<br>Face the rude waves, by science freed from awe,<br>To sink, poor dupes, on life-belts made of straw!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor this the worst! When ripened Shame would hide<br>Fruits of that hour when Passion conquered Pride,<br>There are not wanting in this Christian land<br>The breast remorseless and the Thuggish hand,<br>To advertise the dens where Death is sold,<br>And quench the breath of baby-life for gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor man alone, case-hardened man, surveys<br>These shocking contrasts with a careless gaze.<br>Fair melting woman of the tender breast<br>Here finds no room for pity as her guest.<br>Unsexed, she strains to Ostentation's goal,<br>While Splendour's dreams demoralise her soul;<br>Drains, like a goddess, hecatombs of lives,<br>Nor heeds who lags, provided she arrives.<br>See Claribel, by every gift designed<br>Mid anguish keen to be an angel kind,<br>Once plunged in rival factions' golden fight,<br>Turned to a demon in her own despite.<br>Behold, to-morrow in the Royal smile<br>Will bask the birth and wealth of all the Isle.<br>She, long abroad, received the summons late.<br>What's to be done? Nor time nor tide will wait.<br>She turns her wardrobe over, racks her brain;<br>Nothing will do. She wants a dress and train.<br>Drive to the modiste's. Not a finger free.<br>There's only Clara. Clara let it be.<br>But Clara's sick and sorry. Give her gold;<br>Her aches will cease, her sorrows be consoled.<br>It must be done. Sure Lilian there will glow<br>In gorgeous newness decked from top to toe;<br>Shall it be said that Claribel did less?<br>To-morrow, then, in time the train and dress.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So Clara drags her weary limbs from bed,<br>O'er the brave finery hangs her throbbing head;<br>Still as her senses swim sews on and on,<br>Till day dies out and twilight pale is gone.<br>Then, by the taper's soft and silent light,<br>Like a pale flower that opens most by night,<br>Her pace she quickens, and the needle moves<br>Subtler and swifter through the gauzy grooves;<br>But as the dawn on guttering sockets gains,<br>Her tired lids drop, and sleep arrests her pains.<br>But sleep how short! She feels her shoulder clutched:<br>`Clara, awake! the train's not even touched!<br>Day strides apace. See, there's the morning sun,<br>And ere again he sinks, 't must all be done.'<br>Again, again, the shooting thread she plies,<br>In silent agony of smothered sighs.<br>She seems to breathe her breath into the gown,<br>To give it life the while she lays hers down.<br>Fast as the task advances set by pride,<br>So fast within her ebbs the vital tide.<br>The daylight goes, and softly comes the moon's,<br>And then poor Clara over the last stitch swoons.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Meanwhile, the panting Claribel awaits<br>The precious gown within her golden gates.<br>It comes-it comes. Now who shall shine her down?<br>Not Lilian, surely? No, not the entire Town.<br>She not for worlds had lost this courtly chance;<br>And Clara dies that Claribel may dance!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If private worth, thus languishing, expires,<br>Will public Virtue keep alive her fires?<br>The slaves of wealth, in Britain as in Rome,<br>Bring to the Forum vices formed at home.<br>First the community, and then the State,<br>Falls to their fangs, which naught can satiate.<br>Not born nor bred to rule, of culture void,<br>And by no wave of young ambition buoyed,<br>Anxious on heights conspicuous to flaunt<br>Nought but the tawdry trophies they can vaunt,<br>They woo the grasping crowd with golden guile,<br>And spread Corruption's canker through the Isle.<br>You want a seat? Then boldly sate your itch.<br>Be very radical, and very rich.<br>Sell your opinions first to please the pure,<br>Then buy the sordid, and your triumph's sure.<br>Do all, in brief, that honest men abhor,<br>And England hails another Senator.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See the vain Tribune who, in lust of power,<br>Bows to the base exactions of the hour,<br>And, fooled by sycophants, stands forth at last<br>A devotee turned sworn iconoclast!<br>Behind him sit dense rows of golden mutes,<br>Deaf to whate'er demonstrates or refutes,<br>Ready to vote, rescind, obey in all<br>The whip demands, as hounds the huntsman's call.<br>They neither know nor reck what helpful deeds<br>In this grave hour their perilled Country needs.<br>They want to see their daughters nobly wed,<br>Their wives at Court, their own names trumpeted,<br>Their private Bills advanced another stage,<br>Their schemes of plunder foisted on the age.<br>Leave them but these, the gamblers come to call,<br>Nor heed an Empire nodding to its fall!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Power is built on props like these, how vain<br>The hope that Law the giddy will restrain!<br>Spoilt by twin sops, servility and gold,<br>The headstrong crowd is then but ill controlled.<br>In vain they now would sway who lately served,<br>And Riot cows Authority unnerved.<br>Better that such base compromise should end,<br>And the dread bolt of Anarchy descend!<br>Goths of the gutter, Vandals of the slum,<br>Thieves and Reformers, come! Barbarians, come!<br>Before your might let rails and rules be hurled,<br>And sweep Civilisation from the world!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor now, alas, do Commoners alone<br>To private ends the public weal postpone.<br>Those too, whom worth ancestral plants on seats<br>High above where all vulgar Clamour beats,<br>With paltry fear to their clipped ermine cling,<br>And shrink from right, lest right should ruin bring.<br>The Peers stand firm; the Commons disagree.<br>The Peers be-well, it now is close on three.<br>By five, a world of reasons will be found.<br>Throw Jonas over, or the ship's aground.<br>You know the fury of the hand that steers;<br>And what were Britain with no House of Peers?<br>Would Primogeniture its fall survive,<br>Or even Property be kept alive?<br>Let Herbert fume, or frantic Cecil chafe,<br>Better a deal to choose the side that's safe;<br>Bow to the will of Finlen and his hordes,<br>And still thank Heavën for a House of Lords!<br>Thus may the British breast exult to think.<br>That noble names can sell ignoble ink;<br>That ill-got gains, if deftly spent, unlock<br>Birth's choicest circles to the ambitious smock;<br>That Dives foul mounts fine Aristo's stairs,<br>If but Aristo Dives' plunder shares;<br>And half Debrett urbanely flocks to White's,<br>To back the boor who saves them from the kites.<br>His son succeeds him. `Make the son a Peer.<br>Why not? His income's eighty thousand clear.<br>New blood is wanted. Here's the very stuff.<br>Besides, he wields the county vote.' Enough.<br>But hold! there's Cato. `Cato! are you sane?<br>Why, Cato's means but one small hearth sustain.<br>Ennoble Cato, you'll have Peers for life,<br>Or else forbid the man to take a wife.<br>He can't maintain the necessary state,<br>And would you have a poor name legislate?<br>No, Dives' son's the very man we need.<br>What says the Crown?' The Crown! Of course, Agreed.<br>And the young fool, enriched by parent knaves,<br>From Ruin's jaws our Constitution saves!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is there no path of honour for the great,<br>No sound and clean salvation for the State?<br>Must we for ever fly to shifts like this,<br>And trust to Gold to save us from the abyss?<br>Must honours old by new-got wealth be vamped,<br>And Valour's stock by plutocrats be swamped?<br>Back to your lands, base sons of splendid sires!<br>From spendthrift squares back to your native shires!<br>Back, back from Baden, and leave Homburg's shades<br>To dazzling Jews and mercenary jades.<br>Leave London's round of vulgar joys to those<br>Who seek in such from base pursuits repose.<br>Cease to contend with upstart Wealth's parade,<br>To wring your lands to vie with tricks of trade;<br>And, proudly spurning Glitter's transient lies,<br>At least be honest, if you can't be wise!<br>Worship your household gods, and spend at home<br>The solid earnings of the generous loam.<br>Delve, fence, and drain; the dripping waste reclaim;<br>With spreading woodlands multiply your fame.<br>Yours let it be to screen the reverent hind,<br>Who loves your presence, 'gainst the frost and wind;<br>Scorning to count the profit, raise his lot;<br>Lure the shy Graces to his lowly cot;<br>Be, one and all, acknowledged, far and wide,<br>Patriarchs and patterns of the country side.<br>And whether demagogues shall rise or fall,<br>A Cleon mount, or Boänerges bawl,<br>True to yourselves and native duty, thus<br>Save this poor England by being virtuous!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And you, Sir, hope of this once famous isle,<br>Round whom its halo plays, its favours smile,<br>Hark to the Muse, which, poised on Candour's wings,<br>Flouts the base crowd, but scorns to flatter kings.<br>Hark, while she tells you, nor her counsel spurn,<br>From giddy Pleasure's gilded toys to turn;<br>That not from minions opulent or coarse<br>Do Princes gain their lustre and their force;<br>That Reverence anchors not in deep carouse,<br>And that a Crown fits only kingly brows!<br>Fired by each bright example, shun the shade,<br>Where Scandal best can ply her noxious trade.<br>Learn from your pious Father how to share<br>With hands, too lonely now, a Kingdom's care.<br>Be by your fair loved Consort's pattern moved,<br>And like your virtuous Mother, stand approved;<br>Do for this England all the Sceptre can,<br>And be at least a stainless gentleman.<br>Be this too much, you well may live to find<br>That firmest Thrones can fail the weak and blind,<br>And, though no Samson, sharing half his fate,<br>Pull down the pillars of a mighty State!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whilst our domestic fortunes thus obey<br>All-searching Gold's demoralising sway,<br>We hug the limits of our puny shore,<br>And Glory knows our once great name no more.<br>First are we still in every bloodless fray,<br>Where piles of gold adventurous prows repay;<br>But when flushed Honour sets the world on fire,<br>We furl our sails and to our coasts retire;<br>And, basely calm whilst outraged nations bleed,<br>Invent new doctrines to excuse our greed.<br>When gallant Denmark, now the spoiler's prey,<br>Flashed her bright blade, and faced the unequal fray,<br>And, all abandoned both by men and gods,<br>Fell, faint with wounds, before accursèd odds,-<br>Where, where was England's vindicating sword,<br>Her promised arm, to stay the invading horde;<br>Bid the rude German drop his half-clutched spoil,<br>And scare the robber from ancestral soil?<br>The fair young Dane, beloved by every Grace,<br>And all the Virtues shining in her face,<br>Who, more an angel than a princess deemed,<br>Withal was even sweeter than she seemed,<br>With noisy throats we summoned o'er the foam,<br>And with cheap cheers escorted to her home.<br>But when with streaming eye and throbbing breast<br>She, pious child, her loving fears confessed,<br>And, leagued with Honour's voice and Valour's ire,<br>Prayed us to save her country and her sire,<br>We turned away, and opulently cold,<br>Put back our swords of steel in sheaths of gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet what sandy base doth Gold afford,<br>Though crowned by Law, and fenced round by the Sword,<br>Learn from that Empire which, a scorn for aye,<br>Grew in a night and perished in a day!<br>Helped by a magic name and doubtful hour,<br>See the Adventurer scale the steeps of Power.<br>Upon him groups of desperate gamesters wait,<br>To snatch their profit from a sinking State.<br>Folly, and Fate which Folly still attends,<br>Conspire to shape and expedite their ends.<br>The Hour, the Man are here! No pulse? No breath?<br>Wake, Freedom, wake! In vain! She sleeps like Death.<br>The impious hands, emboldened by her swoon,<br>Choke in the night, and slay her in the noon!<br>Then, when vain crowds with dilatory glaive<br>Rush to avenge the life they would not save,<br>The prompt conspirators with lavish hand<br>Fling their last pieces to a pampered band,<br>Bribe cut-throat blades Vengeance' choked ways to hold,<br>And bar the avenues of rage with gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then mark how soon, amid triumphant hymns,<br>The Imperial purple girds the blood-stained limbs.<br>The perjured hands a golden sceptre gain,<br>A crown of gold screens the seared brow of Cain,<br>And golden eagles, erst of simpler ore,<br>Assert the Caesar, and his rod restore.<br>See round his throne Pomp's servile tributes swell,<br>Not Nero knew, e'er Rome to ruin fell,<br>Far from his feet the lust of glitter spread,<br>And the vain herd on Splendour's follies fed!<br>Nor they alone, the shallow, base, and gay,<br>Bend to this Idol with the feet of clay:<br>Statesmen and soldiers kneel with flattering suit,<br>Kings are his guests, e'en queens his cheeks salute;<br>Senates extol him, supple priests caress,<br>And even thou, O Pius, stoop'st to bless!<br>And the World's verdict, ever blind as base,<br>Welcomes the `Second Saviour' of the race!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet how weak this Empire girt with gold<br>Did prove to save when Battle's torrents rolled,<br>Have we not seen in ruin, rout, and shame,<br>Burnt deep in Gaul's for ever broken fame?<br>What then availed her courts of pomp and pride,<br>What her bright camps with glittering shows allied?<br>What, in that hour, the luxury which passed<br>To soldiers' lips the sybarite repast?<br>Did all her gold suffice, when steel withstood<br>Her stride, to make her rash, vain challenge good?<br>Behold her Chief, in comfort longwhile slung,<br>By War's rough couch and random fare unstrung<br>His vaunted Leaders, who to Power had mown<br>Their path with swords that propped a venal Throne,<br>Brandishing rival blades, his brain confound,<br>While still, but sure, the solid foe press round.<br>See her soft sons, whom arms enervate lead,<br>Spurn the long marches which to victory speed,<br>And, fondly deeming Science served by Wealth<br>Will snatch the fight at distance and by stealth,<br>Smitten with fear at Valour's downright face,<br>And taught swift limbs in Flight's ignoble chase!<br>See one, see all, before the Victor fleet,<br>Then lay their swords, submissive, at his feet!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O hapless France! e'en then insurgent ire<br>Had your soiled scutcheon lifted from the mire,<br>Placed the bright helm on Honour's front once more,<br>And laurels reaped more lasting than of yore,<br>Had not rich ease your manhood's marrow stole,<br>And gold emollient softened all your soul.<br>O, what a sight-a sight these eyes beheld-<br>Her fair green woods by the invader felled;<br>Her fields and vineyards by the Teuton trod,<br>Those she once smote encamped upon her sod;<br>Her homes, in dread, abandoned to the foe,<br>Or saved from rapine by obsequience low;<br>Her cities ransomed, provinces o'erawed,<br>Her iron strongholds wrenched by force or fraud;<br>Her once proud Paris grovelling in the dust,<br>And-crowning irony, if lesson just-<br>The grasping victor, loth to quit his hold,<br>Coaxed slowly homewards o'er a bridge of gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is there no warning, England, here, for thee?<br>Or are Heaven's laws balked by a strip of sea?<br>Are thy foundations, Albion, so approved,<br>Thou canst behold such downfall all unmoved?<br>Have we not marked how this Briarean Gold<br>Doth all our life and energies enfold?<br>And as our practice, so our doctrines too-<br>We shape new ethics for our vices new;<br>Our sires forswear, our splendid Past defame,<br>And in high places glory in our shame!<br>Hear our loud-tinkling Tribunes all declare<br>Once lavish England hath no blood to spare,<br>No gold to spend; within her watery wall<br>She needs to roll and wallow in it all.<br>Doth towering Might some poor faint Cause oppress,<br>They bid her turn, impartial, from distress;<br>Indulge her tears, but hide her ire from sight,<br>Lest a like doom her angry front invite.<br>And when this craven caution fails to save<br>Her peaceful fortunes from the braggart glaive,<br>They bid her still be moral and be meek,<br>Hug tight her gold, and turn the other cheek.<br>Her very sons, sprung from her mighty loins,<br>We aliens make, to save some paltry coins;<br>With our own hands destroy our Empire old,<br>And stutter, `All is lost, except our gold!'<br>With languid limbs, by comfortable fire,<br>We see our glories, one by one, expire;<br>A Nelson's flag, a Churchill's flashing blade,<br>Debased to menials of rapacious Trade;<br>Lost by a Cardwell what a Wellesley won,<br>And by a Gladstone Chatham's world undone!<br>Pale, gibbering spectres fumbling at the helm,<br>Whilst dark winds howl, and billowy seas o'erwhelm.<br>Yet deem you, England, that you thus will save,<br>Even your wealth from rapine or the grave?<br>Will your one chain of safety always hold,<br>Or `silver streak' for ever guard your gold?<br>If through long slumbrous years the ignoble rust<br>Of selfish ease your erst bright steel encrust,<br>When Storm impends, you vainly will implore<br>The Gods of Ocean to protect your shore.<br>Bribed by the foe, behold Britannia stand<br>At Freedom's portals with a traitress hand,<br>Help the Barbarian to its sacred hold,<br>Then, like Tarpeia, sink oppressed with Gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Perish the thought! O, rather let me see<br>Conspiring myriads bristling on the sea,<br>Our tranquil coasts bewildered by alarms,<br>And Britain, singly, face a World in arms!<br>What if a treacherous Heaven befriend our foes?<br>Let us go down in glory, as we rose!<br>And if that doom-the best that could betide-<br>Be to our Fame by envious Fate denied,<br>Then come, primeval clouds and seasons frore,<br>And wrap in gloom our luckless land once more!<br>Come, every wind of Heaven that rudely blows,<br>Plunge back our Isle in never-ending snows!<br>Rage, Eurus, rage! fierce Boreas, descend!<br>With glacial mists lost Albion befriend!<br>E'en of its name be every trace destroyed,<br>And Dark sit brooding o'er the formless Void!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alfred+Austin">Alfred Austin</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341465" data-title="The Golden Age de Alfred Austin" data-description="Long ere the Muse the strenuous chords had swept,
And the first lay as yet in silence slept,
A Time there was which since has stirred the lyre
To notes of wail and accents warm with fire;
Moved the soft Mantuan to his silvery strain,
And him who s..."></div>
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