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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354713" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Duellist - Book II</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Deep in the bosom of a wood,<br>Out of the road, a Temple stood:<br>Ancient, and much the worse for wear,<br>It call'd aloud for quick repair,<br>And, tottering from side to side,<br>Menaced destruction far and wide;<br>Nor able seem'd, unless made stronger,<br>To hold out four or five years longer.<br>Four hundred pillars, from the ground<br>Rising in order, most unsound, <br>Some rotten to the heart, aloof<br>Seem'd to support the tottering roof,<br>But, to inspection nearer laid,<br>Instead of giving, wanted aid.<br>The structure, rare and curious, made<br>By men most famous in their trade,<br>A work of years, admired by all,<br>Was suffer'd into dust to fall;<br>Or, just to make it hang together,<br>And keep off the effects of weather, <br>Was patch'd and patch'd from time to time<br>By wretches, whom it were a crime,<br>A crime, which Art would treason hold<br>To mention with those names of old.<br>Builders, who had the pile survey'd,<br>And those not Flitcrofts in their trade,<br>Doubted (the wise hand in a doubt<br>Merely, sometimes, to hand her out)<br>Whether (like churches in a brief,<br>Taught wisely to obtain relief <br>Through Chancery, who gives her fees<br>To this and other charities)<br>It must not, in all parts unsound,<br>Be ripp'd, and pull'd down to the ground;<br>Whether (though after ages ne'er<br>Shall raise a building to compare)<br>Art, if they should their art employ,<br>Meant to preserve, might not destroy;<br>As human bodies, worn away,<br>Batter'd and hasting to decay, <br>Bidding the power of Art despair,<br>Cannot those very medicines bear,<br>Which, and which only, can restore,<br>And make them healthy as before.<br>To Liberty, whose gracious smile<br>Shed peace and plenty o'er the isle,<br>Our grateful ancestors, her plain<br>But faithful children, raised this fane.<br>Full in the front, stretch'd out in length,<br>Where Nature put forth all her strength <br>In spring eternal, lay a plain<br>Where our brave fathers used to train<br>Their sons to arms, to teach the art<br>Of war, and steel the infant heart.<br>Labour, their hardy nurse, when young,<br>Their joints had knit, their nerves had strung;<br>Abstinence, foe declared to Death,<br>Had, from the time they first drew breath,<br>The best of doctors, with plain food,<br>Kept pure the channel of their blood; <br>Health in their cheeks bade colour rise,<br>And Glory sparkled in their eyes.<br>The instruments of husbandry,<br>As in contempt, were all thrown by,<br>And, flattering a manly pride,<br>War's keener tools their place supplied.<br>Their arrows to the head they drew;<br>Swift to the points their javelins flew;<br>They grasp'd the sword, they shook the spear;<br>Their fathers felt a pleasing fear; <br>And even Courage, standing by,<br>Scarcely beheld with steady eye.<br>Each stripling, lesson'd by his sire,<br>Knew when to close, when to retire,<br>When near at hand, when from afar<br>To fight, and was himself a war.<br>Their wives, their mothers, all around,<br>Careless of order, on the ground<br>Breathed forth to Heaven the pious vow,<br>And for a son's or husband's brow, <br>With eager fingers, laurel wove;<br>Laurel, which in the sacred grove,<br>Planted by Liberty, they find,<br>The brows of conquerors to bind,<br>To give them pride and spirit, fit<br>To make a world in arms submit.<br>What raptures did the bosom fire<br>Of the young, rugged, peasant sire,<br>When, from the toil of mimic fight,<br>Returning with return of night, <br>He saw his babe resign the breast,<br>And, smiling, stroke those arms in jest,<br>With which hereafter he shall make<br>The proudest heart in Gallia quake!<br>Gods! with what joy, what honest pride,<br>Did each fond, wishing rustic bride<br>Behold her manly swain return!<br>How did her love-sick bosom burn,<br>Though on parades he was not bred,<br>Nor wore the livery of red, <br>When, Pleasure heightening all her charms,<br>She strain'd her warrior in her arms,<br>And begg'd, whilst love and glory fire,<br>A son, a son just like his sire!<br>Such were the men in former times,<br>Ere luxury had made our crimes<br>Our bitter punishment, who bore<br>Their terrors to a foreign shore:<br>Such were the men, who, free from dread,<br>By Edwards and by Henries led, <br>Spread, like a torrent swell'd with rains,<br>O'er haughty Gallia's trembling plains:<br>Such were the men, when lust of power,<br>To work him woe, in evil hour<br>Debauch'd the tyrant from those ways<br>On which a king should found his praise;<br>When stern Oppression, hand in hand<br>With Pride, stalk'd proudly through the land;<br>When weeping Justice was misled<br>From her fair course, and Mercy dead: <br>Such were the men, in virtue strong,<br>Who dared not see their country's wrong,<br>Who left the mattock and the spade,<br>And, in the robes of War array'd,<br>In their rough arms, departing, took<br>Their helpless babes, and with a look<br>Stern and determined, swore to see<br>Those babes no more, or see them free:<br>Such were the men whom tyrant Pride<br>Could never fasten to his side <br>By threats or bribes; who, freemen born,<br>Chains, though of gold, beheld with scorn;<br>Who, free from every servile awe,<br>Could never be divorced from Law,<br>From that broad general law, which Sense<br>Made for the general defence;<br>Could never yield to partial ties<br>Which from dependant stations rise;<br>Could never be to slavery led,<br>For Property was at their head: <br>Such were the men, in days of yore,<br>Who, call'd by Liberty, before<br>Her temple on the sacred green,<br>In martial pastimes oft were seen--<br>Now seen no longer--in their stead,<br>To laziness and vermin bred,<br>A race who, strangers to the cause<br>Of Freedom, live by other laws,<br>On other motives fight, a prey<br>To interest, and slaves for pay. <br>Valour--how glorious, on a plan<br>Of honour founded!--leads their van;<br>Discretion, free from taint of fear,<br>Cool, but resolved, brings up their rear--<br>Discretion, Valour's better half;<br>Dependence holds the general's staff.<br>In plain and home-spun garb array'd,<br>Not for vain show, but service made,<br>In a green flourishing old age,<br>Not damn'd yet with an equipage, <br>In rules of Porterage untaught,<br>Simplicity, not worth a groat,<br>For years had kept the Temple-door;<br>Full on his breast a glass he wore,<br>Through which his bosom open lay<br>To every one who pass'd that way:<br>Now turn'd adrift, with humbler face,<br>But prouder heart, his vacant place<br>Corruption fills, and bears the key;<br>No entrance now without a fee. <br>With belly round, and full fat face,<br>Which on the house reflected grace,<br>Full of good fare, and honest glee,<br>The steward Hospitality,<br>Old Welcome smiling by his side,<br>A good old servant, often tried,<br>And faithful found, who kept in view<br>His lady's fame and interest too,<br>Who made each heart with joy rebound,<br>Yet never ran her state aground, <br>Was turn'd off, or (which word I find<br>Is more in modern use) resign'd.<br>Half-starved, half-starving others, bred<br>In beggary, with carrion fed,<br>Detested, and detesting all,<br>Made up of avarice and gall,<br>Boasting great thrift, yet wasting more<br>Than ever steward did before,<br>Succeeded one, who, to engage<br>The praise of an exhausted age, <br>Assumed a name of high degree,<br>And call'd himself Economy.<br>Within the Temple, full in sight,<br>Where, without ceasing, day and night<br>The workmen toiled; where Labour bared<br>His brawny arm; where Art prepared,<br>In regular and even rows,<br>Her types, a printing-press arose;<br>Each workman knew his task, and each<br>Was honest and expert as Leach. <br>Hence Learning struck a deeper root,<br>And Science brought forth riper fruit;<br>Hence Loyalty received support,<br>Even when banish'd from the court;<br>Hence Government gain'd strength, and hence<br>Religion sought and found defence;<br>Hence England's fairest fame arose,<br>And Liberty subdued her foes.<br>On a low, simple, turf-made throne,<br>Raised by Allegiance, scarcely known <br>From her attendants, glad to be<br>Pattern of that equality<br>She wish'd to all, so far as could<br>Safely consist with social good,<br>The goddess sat; around her head<br>A cheerful radiance Glory spread:<br>Courage, a youth of royal race,<br>Lovelily stern, possess'd a place<br>On her left hand, and on her right<br>Sat Honour, clothed with robes of light; <br>Before her Magna Charta lay,<br>Which some great lawyer, of his day<br>The Pratt, was officed to explain,<br>And make the basis of her reign:<br>Peace, crown'd with olive, to her breast<br>Two smiling twin-born infants press'd;<br>At her feet, couching, War was laid,<br>And with a brindled lion play'd:<br>Justice and Mercy, hand in hand, <br>Joint guardians of the happy land,<br>Together held their mighty charge,<br>And Truth walk'd all about at large;<br>Health for the royal troop the feast<br>Prepared, and Virtue was high-priest.<br>Such was the fame our Goddess bore<br>Her Temple such, in days of yore.<br>What changes ruthless Time presents!<br>Behold her ruin'd battlements,<br>Her walls decay'd, her nodding spires,<br>Her altars broke, her dying fires, <br>Her name despised, her priests destroy'd,<br>Her friends disgraced, her foes employ'd,<br>Herself (by ministerial arts<br>Deprived e'en of the people's hearts,<br>Whilst they, to work her surer woe,<br>Feign her to Monarchy a foe)<br>Exiled by grief, self-doom'd to dwell<br>With some poor hermit in a cell;<br>Or, that retirement tedious grown,<br>If she walks forth, she walks unknown, <br>Hooted, and pointed at with scorn,<br>As one in some strange country born.<br>Behold a rude and ruffian race,<br>A band of spoilers, seize her place;<br>With looks which might the heart disseat,<br>And make life sound a quick retreat!<br>To rapine from the cradle bred,<br>A staunch old blood-hound at their head,<br>Who, free from virtue and from awe,<br>Knew none but the bad part of law, <br>They roved at large; each on his breast<br>Mark'd with a greyhound stood confess'd:<br>Controlment waited on their nod,<br>High-wielding Persecution's rod;<br>Confusion follow'd at their heels,<br>And a cast statesman held the seals;<br>Those seals, for which he dear shall pay,<br>When awful Justice takes her day.<br>The printers saw--they saw and fled--<br>Science, declining, hung her head. <br>Property in despair appear'd,<br>And for herself destruction fear'd;<br>Whilst underfoot the rude slaves trod<br>The works of men, and word of God;<br>Whilst, close behind, on many a book,<br>In which he never deigns to look,<br>Which he did not, nay, could not read,<br>A bold, bad man (by power decreed<br>For that bad end, who in the dark<br>Scorn'd to do mischief) set his mark <br>In the full day, the mark of Hell,<br>And on the Gospel stamp'd an L.<br>Liberty fled, her friends withdrew--<br>Her friends, a faithful, chosen few;<br>Honour in grief threw up; and Shame,<br>Clothing herself with Honour's name,<br>Usurp'd his station; on the throne<br>Which Liberty once call'd her own,<br>(Gods! that such mighty ills should spring<br>Under so great, so good a king, <br>So loved, so loving, through the arts<br>Of statesmen, cursed with wicked hearts!)<br>For every darker purpose fit,<br>Behold in triumph State-craft sit!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Charles+Churchill">Charles Churchill</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=354713" data-title="The Duellist - Book II de Charles Churchill" data-description="Deep in the bosom of a wood,
Out of the road, a Temple stood:
Ancient, and much the worse for wear,
It call'd aloud for quick repair,
And, tottering from side to side,
Menaced destruction far and wide;
Nor able seem'd, unless made stronger,
To hol..."></div>
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