<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354715" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Farewell</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">_P_. Farewell to Europe, and at once farewell<br>To all the follies which in Europe dwell;<br>To Eastern India now, a richer clime,<br>Richer, alas! in everything but rhyme,<br>The Muses steer their course; and, fond of change,<br>At large, in other worlds, desire to range;<br>Resolved, at least, since they the fool must play,<br>To do it in a different place, and way.<br>_F_. What whim is this, what error of the brain,<br>What madness worse than in the dog-star's reign? <br>Why into foreign countries would you roam,<br>Are there not knaves and fools enough at home?<br>If satire be thy object--and thy lays<br>As yet have shown no talents fit for praise--<br>If satire be thy object, search all round,<br>Nor to thy purpose can one spot be found<br>Like England, where, to rampant vigour grown,<br>Vice chokes up every virtue; where, self-sown,<br>The seeds of folly shoot forth rank and bold,<br>And every seed brings forth a hundredfold. <br>_P_. No more of this--though Truth, (the more our shame,<br>The more our guilt) though Truth perhaps may claim,<br>And justify her part in this, yet here,<br>For the first time, e'en Truth offends my ear;<br>Declaim from morn to night, from night to morn,<br>Take up the theme anew, when day's new-born,<br>I hear, and hate--be England what she will,<br>With all her faults, she is my country still.<br>_F_. Thy country! and what then? Is that mere word<br>Against the voice of Reason to be heard? <br>Are prejudices, deep imbibed in youth,<br>To counteract, and make thee hate the truth?<br>'Tis sure the symptom of a narrow soul<br>To draw its grand attachment from the whole,<br>And take up with a part; men, not confined<br>Within such paltry limits, men design'd<br>Their nature to exalt, where'er they go,<br>Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow,<br>Where'er the blessed sun, placed in the sky<br>To watch this subject world, can dart his eye, <br>Are still the same, and, prejudice outgrown,<br>Consider every country as their own;<br>At one grand view they take in Nature's plan,<br>Not more at home in England than Japan.<br>_P_. My good, grave Sir of Theory, whose wit,<br>Grasping at shadows, ne'er caught substance yet,<br>'Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine<br>On vain refinements vainly to refine,<br>To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign,<br>To boast of apathy when out of pain, <br>And in each sentence, worthy of the schools,<br>Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules<br>Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault<br>That into practice they can ne'er be brought.<br>At home, and sitting in your elbow-chair,<br>You praise Japan, though you was never there:<br>But was the ship this moment under sail,<br>Would not your mind be changed, your spirits fail?<br>Would you not cast one longing eye to shore,<br>And vow to deal in such wild schemes no more? <br>Howe'er our pride may tempt us to conceal<br>Those passions which we cannot choose but feel,<br>There's a strange something, which, without a brain,<br>Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,<br>Planted in man to bind him to that earth,<br>In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.<br>If Honour calls, where'er she points the way<br>The sons of Honour follow, and obey;<br>If need compels, wherever we are sent<br>'Tis want of courage not to be content; <br>But, if we have the liberty of choice,<br>And all depends on our own single voice,<br>To deem of every country as the same<br>Is rank rebellion 'gainst the lawful claim<br>Of Nature, and such dull indifference<br>May be philosophy, but can't be sense.<br>_F_. Weak and unjust distinction, strange design,<br>Most peevish, most perverse, to undermine<br>Philosophy, and throw her empire down<br>By means of Sense, from whom she holds her crown, <br>Divine Philosophy! to thee we owe<br>All that is worth possessing here below;<br>Virtue and wisdom consecrate thy reign,<br>Doubled each joy, and pain no longer pain.<br>When, like a garden, where, for want of toil<br>And wholesome discipline, the rich, rank soil<br>Teems with incumbrances; where all around,<br>Herbs, noxious in their nature, make the ground,<br>Like the good mother of a thankless son,<br>Curse her own womb, by fruitfulness undone; <br>Like such a garden, when the human soul,<br>Uncultured, wild, impatient of control,<br>Brings forth those passions of luxuriant race,<br>Which spread, and stifle every herb of grace;<br>Whilst Virtue, check'd by the cold hand of Scorn,<br>Seems withering on the bed where she was born,<br>Philosophy steps in; with steady hand,<br>She brings her aid, she clears the encumber'd land;<br>Too virtuous to spare Vice one stroke, too wise<br>One moment to attend to Pity's cries-- <br>See with what godlike, what relentless power<br>She roots up every weed!<br>_P_. And every flower.<br>Philosophy, a name of meek degree,<br>Embraced, in token of humility,<br>By the proud sage, who, whilst he strove to hide,<br>In that vain artifice reveal'd his pride;<br>Philosophy, whom Nature had design'd<br>To purge all errors from the human mind,<br>Herself misled by the philosopher,<br>At once her priest and master, made us err: <br>Pride, pride, like leaven in a mass of flour,<br>Tainted her laws, and made e'en Virtue sour.<br>Had she, content within her proper sphere,<br>Taught lessons suited to the human ear,<br>Which might fair Virtue's genuine fruits produce,<br>Made not for ornament, but real use,<br>The heart of man, unrivall'd, she had sway'd,<br>Praised by the good, and by the bad obey'd;<br>But when she, overturning Reason's throne,<br>Strove proudly in its place to plant her own; <br>When she with apathy the breast would steel,<br>And teach us, deeply feeling, not to feel;<br>When she would wildly all her force employ,<br>Not to correct our passions, but destroy;<br>When, not content our nature to restore,<br>As made by God, she made it all new o'er;<br>When, with a strange and criminal excess,<br>To make us more than men, she made us less;<br>The good her dwindled power with pity saw,<br>The bad with joy, and none but fools with awe. <br>Truth, with a simple and unvarnish'd tale,<br>E'en from the mouth of Norton might prevail,<br>Could she get there; but Falsehood's sugar'd strain<br>Should pour her fatal blandishments in vain,<br>Nor make one convert, though the Siren hung,<br>Where she too often hangs, on Mansfield's tongue.<br>Should all the Sophs, whom in his course the sun<br>Hath seen, or past, or present, rise in one;<br>Should he, whilst pleasure in each sentence flows,<br>Like Plato, give us poetry in prose; <br>Should he, full orator, at once impart<br>The Athenian's genius with the Roman's art;<br>Genius and Art should in this instance fail,<br>Nor Rome, though join'd with Athens, here prevail.<br>'Tis not in man, 'tis not in more than man,<br>To make me find one fault in Nature's plan.<br>Placed low ourselves, we censure those above,<br>And, wanting judgment, think that she wants love;<br>Blame, where we ought in reason to commend,<br>And think her most a foe when most a friend. <br>Such be philosophers--their specious art,<br>Though Friendship pleads, shall never warp my heart,<br>Ne'er make me from this breast one passion tear,<br>Which Nature, my best friend, hath planted there.<br>_F_. Forgiving as a friend, what, whilst I live,<br>As a philosopher I can't forgive,<br>In this one point at last I join with you,<br>To Nature pay all that is Nature's due;<br>But let not clouded Reason sink so low,<br>To fancy debts she does not, cannot owe: <br>Bear, to full manhood grown, those shackles bear,<br>Which Nature meant us for a time to wear,<br>As we wear leading-strings, which, useless grown,<br>Are laid aside, when we can walk alone;<br>But on thyself, by peevish humour sway'd,<br>Wilt thou lay burdens Nature never laid?<br>Wilt thou make faults, whilst Judgment weakly errs,<br>And then defend, mistaking them for hers?<br>Darest thou to say, in our enlighten'd age,<br>That this grand master passion, this brave rage, <br>Which flames out for thy country, was impress'd<br>And fix'd by Nature in the human breast?<br>If you prefer the place where you were born,<br>And hold all others in contempt and scorn,<br>On fair comparison; if on that land<br>With liberal, and a more than equal hand,<br>Her gifts, as in profusion, Plenty sends;<br>If Virtue meets with more and better friends;<br>If Science finds a patron 'mongst the great;<br>If Honesty is minister of state; <br>If Power, the guardian of our rights design'd,<br>Is to that great, that only end, confined;<br>If riches are employ'd to bless the poor;<br>If Law is sacred, Liberty secure;<br>Let but these facts depend on proofs of weight,<br>Reason declares thy love can't be too great,<br>And, in this light could he our country view,<br>A very Hottentot must love it too.<br>But if, by Fate's decrees, you owe your birth<br>To some most barren and penurious earth, <br>Where, every comfort of this life denied,<br>Her real wants are scantily supplied;<br>Where Power is Reason, Liberty a joke,<br>Laws never made, or made but to be broke;<br>To fix thy love on such a wretched spot,<br>Because in Lust's wild fever there begot;<br>Because, thy weight no longer fit to bear,<br>By chance, not choice, thy mother dropp'd thee there,<br>Is folly, which admits not of defence;<br>It can't be Nature, for it is not sense. <br>By the same argument which here you hold,<br>(When Falsehood's insolent, let Truth be told)<br>If Propagation can in torments dwell,<br>A devil must, if born there, love his Hell.<br>_P_. Had Fate, to whose decrees I lowly bend,<br>And e'en in punishment confess a friend,<br>Ordain'd my birth in some place yet untried,<br>On purpose made to mortify my pride,<br>Where the sun never gave one glimpse of day,<br>Where Science never yet could dart one ray, <br>Had I been born on some bleak, blasted plain<br>Of barren Scotland, in a Stuart's reign,<br>Or in some kingdom, where men, weak, or worse,<br>Turn'd Nature's every blessing to a curse;<br>Where crowns of freedom, by the fathers won,<br>Dropp'd leaf by leaf from each degenerate son;<br>In spite of all the wisdom you display,<br>All you have said, and yet may have to say,<br>My weakness here, if weakness I confess,<br>I, as my country, had not loved her less. <br>Whether strict Reason bears me out in this,<br>Let those who, always seeking, always miss<br>The ways of Reason, doubt with precious zeal;<br>Theirs be the praise to argue, mine to feel.<br>Wish we to trace this passion to the root,<br>We, like a tree, may know it by its fruit;<br>From its rich stem ten thousand virtues spring,<br>Ten thousand blessings on its branches cling;<br>Yet in the circle of revolving years<br>Not one misfortune, not one vice, appears. <br>Hence, then, and what you Reason call, adore;<br>This, if not Reason, must be something more.<br>But (for I wish not others to confine;<br>Be their opinions unrestrain'd as mine)<br>Whether this love's of good or evil growth,<br>A vice, a virtue, or a spice of both,<br>Let men of nicer argument decide;<br>If it is virtuous, soothe an honest pride<br>With liberal praise; if vicious, be content,<br>It is a vice I never can repent; <br>A vice which, weigh'd in Heaven, shall more avail<br>Than ten cold virtues in the other scale.<br>_F_. This wild, untemper'd zeal (which, after all,<br>We, candour unimpeach'd, might madness call)<br>Is it a virtue? That you scarce pretend;<br>Or can it be a vice, like Virtue's friend,<br>Which draws us off from and dissolves the force<br>Of private ties, nay, stops us in our course<br>To that grand object of the human soul,<br>That nobler love which comprehends the whole? <br>Coop'd in the limits of this petty isle,<br>This nook, which scarce deserves a frown or smile,<br>Weigh'd with Creation, you, by whim undone,<br>Give all your thoughts to what is scarce worth one.<br>The generous soul, by Nature taught to soar,<br>Her strength confirm'd in philosophic lore,<br>At one grand view takes in a world with ease,<br>And, seeing all mankind, loves all she sees.<br>_P_. Was it most sure, which yet a doubt endures,<br>Not found in Reason's creed, though found in yours, <br>That these two services, like what we're told,<br>And know, of God's and Mammon's, cannot hold<br>And draw together; that, however both,<br>We neither serve, attempting to serve both,<br>I could not doubt a moment which to choose,<br>And which in common reason to refuse.<br>Invented oft for purposes of art,<br>Born of the head, though father'd on the heart,<br>This grand love of the world must be confess'd<br>A barren speculation at the best. <br>Not one man in a thousand, should he live<br>Beyond the usual term of life, could give,<br>So rare occasion comes, and to so few,<br>Proof whether his regards are feign'd, or true.<br>The love we bear our country is a root<br>Which never fails to bring forth golden fruit;<br>'Tis in the mind an everlasting spring<br>Of glorious actions, which become a king,<br>Nor less become a subject; 'tis a debt<br>Which bad men, though they pay not, can't forget; <br>A duty, which the good delight to pay,<br>And every man can practise every day.<br>Nor, for my life (so very dim my eye,<br>Or dull your argument) can I descry<br>What you with faith assert, how that dear love,<br>Which binds me to my country, can remove,<br>And make me of necessity forego,<br>That general love which to the world I owe.<br>Those ties of private nature, small extent,<br>In which the mind of narrow cast is pent, <br>Are only steps on which the generous soul<br>Mounts by degrees till she includes the whole.<br>That spring of love, which, in the human mind,<br>Founded on self, flows narrow and confined,<br>Enlarges as it rolls, and comprehends<br>The social charities of blood and friends,<br>Till, smaller streams included, not o'erpast,<br>It rises to our country's love at last;<br>And he, with liberal and enlarged mind,<br>Who loves his country, cannot hate mankind. <br>_F_. Friend, as you would appear, to Common Sense,<br>Tell me, or think no more of a defence,<br>Is it a proof of love by choice to run<br>A vagrant from your country?<br>_P_. Can the son<br>(Shame, shame on all such sons!) with ruthless eye,<br>And heart more patient than the flint, stand by,<br>And by some ruffian, from all shame divorced,<br>All virtue, see his honour'd mother forced?<br>Then--no, by Him that made me! not e'en then,<br>Could I with patience, by the worst of men, <br>Behold my country plunder'd, beggar'd, lost<br>Beyond redemption, all her glories cross'd,<br>E'en when occasion made them ripe, her fame<br>Fled like a dream, while she awakes to shame.<br>_F_. Is it not more the office of a friend,<br>The office of a patron, to defend<br>Her sinking state, than basely to decline<br>So great a cause, and in despair resign?<br>_P_. Beyond my reach, alas! the grievance lies,<br>And, whilst more able patriots doubt, she dies. <br>From a foul source, more deep than we suppose,<br>Fatally deep and dark, this grievance flows.<br>'Tis not that peace our glorious hopes defeats:<br>'Tis not the voice of Faction in the streets;<br>'Tis not a gross attack on Freedom made;<br>Tis not the arm of Privilege display'd,<br>Against the subject, whilst she wears no sting<br>To disappoint the purpose of a king;<br>These are no ills, or trifles, if compared<br>With those which are contrived, though not declared. <br>Tell me, Philosopher, is it a crime<br>To pry into the secret womb of Time;<br>Or, born in ignorance, must we despair<br>To reach events, and read the future there?<br>Why, be it so--still 'tis the right of man,<br>Imparted by his Maker, where he can,<br>To former times and men his eye to cast,<br>And judge of what's to come, by what is past.<br>Should there be found, in some not distant year,<br>(Oh, how I wish to be no prophet here!) <br>Amongst our British Lords should there be found<br>Some great in power, in principles unsound,<br>Who look on Freedom with an evil eye,<br>In whom the springs of Loyalty are dry;<br>Who wish to soar on wild Ambition's wings,<br>Who hate the Commons, and who love not Kings;<br>Who would divide the people and the throne,<br>To set up separate interests of their own;<br>Who hate whatever aids their wholesome growth,<br>And only join with, to destroy them both; <br>Should there be found such men in after-times,<br>May Heaven, in mercy to our grievous crimes,<br>Allot some milder vengeance, nor to them,<br>And to their rage, this wretched land condemn,<br>Thou God above, on whom all states depend,<br>Who knowest from the first their rise, and end,<br>If there's a day mark'd in the book of Fate,<br>When ruin must involve our equal state;<br>When law, alas! must be no more, and we,<br>To freedom born, must be no longer free; <br>Let not a mob of tyrants seize the helm,<br>Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm;<br>Let not, whatever other ills assail,<br>A damned aristocracy prevail.<br>If, all too short, our course of freedom run,<br>'Tis thy good pleasure we should be undone,<br>Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,<br>Be slaves to one, and be that one a king.<br>_F_. Poets, accustom'd by their trade to feign,<br>Oft substitute creations of the brain <br>For real substance, and, themselves deceived,<br>Would have the fiction by mankind believed.<br>Such is your case--but grant, to soothe your pride,<br>That you know more than all the world beside,<br>Why deal in hints, why make a moment's doubt?<br>Resolved, and like a man, at once speak out;<br>Show us our danger, tell us where it lies,<br>And, to ensure our safety, make us wise.<br>_P_. Rather than bear the pain of thought, fools stray;<br>The proud will rather lose than ask their way: <br>To men of sense what needs it to unfold,<br>And tell a tale which they must know untold?<br>In the bad, interest warps the canker'd heart,<br>The good are hoodwink'd by the tricks of art;<br>And, whilst arch, subtle hypocrites contrive<br>To keep the flames of discontent alive;<br>Whilst they, with arts to honest men unknown,<br>Breed doubts between the people and the throne,<br>Making us fear, where Reason never yet<br>Allow'd one fear, or could one doubt admit, <br>Themselves pass unsuspected in disguise,<br>And 'gainst our real danger seal our eyes.<br>_F_. Mark them, and let their names recorded stand<br>On Shame's black roll, and stink through all the land.<br>_P_. That might some courage, but no prudence be;<br>No hurt to them, and jeopardy to me.<br>_F_. Leave out their names.<br>_P_. For that kind caution, thanks;<br>But may not judges sometimes fill up blanks?<br>_F_. Your country's laws in doubt then you reject? <br>_P_. The laws I love, the lawyers I suspect.<br>Amongst twelve judges may not one be found<br>(On bare, bare possibility I ground<br>This wholesome doubt) who may enlarge, retrench,<br>Create, and uncreate, and from the bench,<br>With winks, smiles, nods, and such like paltry arts,<br>May work and worm into a jury's hearts?<br>Or, baffled there, may, turbulent of soul,<br>Cramp their high office, and their rights control;<br>Who may, though judge, turn advocate at large, <br>And deal replies out by the way of charge,<br>Making Interpretation all the way,<br>In spite of facts, his wicked will obey,<br>And, leaving Law without the least defence,<br>May damn his conscience to approve his sense?<br>_F_. Whilst, the true guardians of this charter'd land,<br>In full and perfect vigour, juries stand,<br>A judge in vain shall awe, cajole, perplex.<br>_P_. Suppose I should be tried in Middlesex?<br>_F_. To pack a jury they will never dare. <br>_P_. There's no occasion to pack juries there.<br>_F_. 'Gainst prejudice all arguments are weak;<br>Reason herself without effect must speak.<br>Fly then thy country, like a coward fly,<br>Renounce her interest, and her laws defy.<br>But why, bewitch'd, to India turn thine eyes?<br>Cannot our Europe thy vast wrath suffice?<br>Cannot thy misbegotten Muse lay bare<br>Her brawny arm, and play the butcher there?<br>_P_. Thy counsel taken, what should Satire do? <br>Where could she find an object that is new?<br>Those travell'd youths, whom tender mothers wean,<br>And send abroad to see, and to be seen;<br>With whom, lest they should fornicate, or worse,<br>A tutor's sent by way of a dry nurse;<br>Each of whom just enough of spirit bears<br>To show our follies, and to bring home theirs,<br>Have made all Europe's vices so well known,<br>They seem almost as natural as our own.<br>_F_. Will India for thy purpose better do? <br>_P_. In one respect, at least--there's something new.<br>_F_. A harmless people, in whom Nature speaks<br>Free and untainted,'mongst whom Satire seeks,<br>But vainly seeks, so simply plain their hearts,<br>One bosom where to lodge her poison'd darts.<br>_P_. From knowledge speak you this? or, doubt on doubt<br>Weigh'd and resolved, hath Reason found it out?<br>Neither from knowledge, nor by Reason taught,<br>You have faith every where, but where you ought.<br>India or Europe--what's there in a name? <br>Propensity to vice in both the same,<br>Nature alike in both works for man's good,<br>Alike in both by man himself withstood.<br>Nabobs, as well as those who hunt them down,<br>Deserve a cord much better than a crown,<br>And a Mogul can thrones as much debase<br>As any polish'd prince of Christian race.<br>_F_. Could you,--a task more hard than you suppose,--<br>Could you, in ridicule whilst Satire glows,<br>Make all their follies to the life appear, <br>'Tis ten to one you gain no credit here;<br>Howe'er well drawn, the picture, after all,<br>Because we know not the original,<br>Would not find favour in the public eye.<br>_P_. That, having your good leave, I mean to try:<br>And if your observations sterling hold,<br>If the piece should be heavy, tame, and cold,<br>To make it to the side of Nature lean,<br>And meaning nothing, something seem to mean:<br>To make the whole in lively colours glow, <br>To bring before us something that we know,<br>And from all honest men applause to win,<br>I'll group the Company, and put them in.<br>_F_. Be that ungenerous thought by shame suppress'd,<br>Add not distress to those too much distress'd;<br>Have they not, by blind zeal misled, laid bare<br>Those sores which never might endure the air?<br>Have they not brought their mysteries so low,<br>That what the wise suspected not, fools know?<br>From their first rise e'en to the present hour, <br>Have they not proved their own abuse of power,<br>Made it impossible, if fairly view'd,<br>Ever to have that dangerous power renew'd,<br>Whilst, unseduced by ministers, the throne<br>Regards our interests, and knows its own?<br>_P_. Should every other subject chance to fail,<br>Those who have sail'd, and those who wish'd to sail<br>In the last fleet, afford an ample field,<br>Which must beyond my hopes a harvest yield.<br>_F_. On such vile food Satire can never thrive. <br>_P_. She cannot starve, if there was only Clive.</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> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <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=354715" data-title="The Farewell de Charles Churchill" data-description="_P_. Farewell to Europe, and at once farewell To all the follies which in Europe dwell; To Eastern India now, a richer clime, Richer, alas! in everything but rhyme, The Muses steer their course; and, fond of change, At large, in other worlds, desi..."></div> </div> </div>

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