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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395886" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Sir Eustace Grey</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scene: --A MADHOUSE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Persons: --VISITOR, PHYSICIAN, AND PATIENT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VISITOR.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'll know no more;--the heart is torn<br>By views of woe we cannot heal;<br>Long shall I see these things forlorn,<br>And oft again their griefs shall feel,<br>As each upon the mind shall steal;<br>That wan projector's mystic style,<br>That lumpish idiot leering by,<br>That peevish idler's ceaseless wile,<br>And that poor maiden's half-form'd smile,<br>While struggling for the full-drawn sigh! -<br>I'll know no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PHYSICIAN.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, turn again;<br>Then speed to happier scenes thy way,<br>When thou hast view'd, what yet remain,<br>The ruins of Sir Eustace Grey,<br>The sport of madness, misery's prey:<br>But he will no historian need,<br>His cares, his crimes, will he display,<br>And show (as one from frenzy freed)<br>The proud lost mind, the rash-done deed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That cell to him is Greyling Hall: -<br>Approach; he'll bid thee welcome there;<br>Will sometimes for his servant call,<br>And sometimes point the vacant chair:<br>He can, with free and easy air,<br>Appear attentive and polite;<br>Can veil his woes in manners fair,<br>And pity with respect excite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PATIENT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who comes?--Approach!--'tis kindly done: -<br>My learn'd physician, and a friend,<br>Their pleasures quit, to visit one<br>Who cannot to their ease attend,<br>Nor joys bestow, nor comforts lend,<br>As when I lived so blest, so well,<br>And dreamt not I must soon contend<br>With those malignant powers of hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PHYSICIAN.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Less warmth, Sir Eustace, or we go.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PATIENT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See! I am calm as infant love,<br>A very child, but one of woe,<br>Whom you should pity, not reprove: -<br>But men at ease, who never strove<br>With passions wild, will calmly show<br>How soon we may their ills remove,<br>And masters of their madness grow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some twenty years, I think, are gone, -<br>(Time flies I know not how, away,)<br>The sun upon no happier shone,<br>Nor prouder man, than Eustace Grey.<br>Ask where you would, and all would say,<br>The man admired and praised of all,<br>By rich and poor, by grave and gay,<br>Was the young lord of Greyling Hall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes! I had youth and rosy health;<br>Was nobly form'd, as man might be;<br>For sickness, then, of all my wealth,<br>I never gave a single fee:<br>The ladies fair, the maidens free,<br>Were all accustom'd then to say,<br>Who would a handsome figure see<br>Should look upon Sir Eustace Grey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He had a frank and pleasant look,<br>A cheerful eye and accent bland;<br>His very speech and manner spoke<br>The generous heart, the open hand;<br>About him all was gay or grand,<br>He had the praise of great and small;<br>He bought, improved, projected, plann'd,<br>And reign'd a prince at Greyling Hall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My lady!--she was all we love;<br>All praise (to speak her worth) is faint;<br>Her manners show'd the yielding dove,<br>Her morals, the seraphic saint:<br>She never breath'd nor look'd complaint;<br>No equal upon earth had she -<br>Now, what is this fair thing I paint?<br>Alas! as all that live shall be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was, beside, a gallant youth,<br>And him my bosom's friend I had; -<br>Oh! I was rich in very truth,<br>It made me proud--it made me mad! -<br>Yes, I was lost--but there was cause! -<br>Where stood my tale?--I cannot find -<br>But I had all mankind's applause,<br>And all the smiles of womankind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There were two cherub-things beside,<br>A gracious girl, a glorious boy;<br>Yet more to swell my full-blown pride,<br>To varnish higher my fading joy,<br>Pleasures were ours without alloy,<br>Nay, Paradise,--till my frail Eve<br>Our bliss was tempted to destroy -<br>Deceived and fated to deceive.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I deserved;--for all that time,<br>When I was loved, admired, caress'd,.<br>There was within, each secret crime,<br>Unfelt, uncancell'd, unconfess'd:<br>I never then my God address'd,<br>In grateful praise or humble prayer;<br>And if His Word was not my jest -<br>(Dread thought!) it never was my care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I doubted: --fool I was to doubt!<br>If that all-piercing eye could see, -<br>If He who looks all worlds throughout,<br>Would so minute and careful be<br>As to perceive and punish me: -<br>With man I would be great and high,<br>But with my God so lost, that He,<br>In His large view should pass me by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus blest with children, friend, and wife,<br>Blest far beyond the vulgar lot;<br>Of all that gladdens human life,<br>Where was the good that I had not?<br>But my vile heart had sinful spot,<br>And Heaven beheld its deep'ning stain;<br>Eternal justice I forgot,<br>And mercy sought not to obtain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come near,--I'll softly speak the rest! -<br>Alas! 'tis known to all the crowd,<br>Her guilty love was all confess'd;<br>And his, who so much truth avow'd,<br>My faithless friend's.--In pleasure proud<br>I sat, when these cursed tidings came;<br>Their guilt, their flight was told aloud,<br>And Envy smiled to hear my shame!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I call'd on Vengeance; at the word<br>She came: --Can I the deed forget?<br>I held the sword--the accursed sword<br>The blood of his false heart made wet;<br>And that fair victim paid her debt,<br>She pined, she died, she loath'd to live; -<br>I saw her dying--see her yet:<br>Fair fallen thing! my rage forgive!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those cherubs still, my life to bless,<br>Were left; could I my fears remove,<br>Sad fears that check'd each fond caress,<br>And poison'd all parental love?<br>Yet that with jealous feelings strove,<br>And would at last have won my will,<br>Had I not, wretch! been doom'd to prove<br>Th' extremes of mortal good and ill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In youth! health! joy! in beauty's pride!<br>They droop'd--as flowers when blighted bow;<br>The dire infection came: --they died,<br>And I was cursed--as I am now; -<br>Nay, frown not, angry friend,--allow<br>That I was deeply, sorely tried;<br>Hear then, and you must wonder how<br>I could such storms and strifes abide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Storms!--not that clouds embattled make,<br>When they afflict this earthly globe;<br>But such as with their terrors shake<br>Man's breast, and to the bottom probe;<br>They make the hypocrite disrobe,<br>They try us all, if false or true;<br>For this one Devil had power on Job;<br>And I was long the slave of two.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PHYSICIAN.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Peace, peace, my friend; these subjects fly;<br>Collect thy thoughts--go calmly on. -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PATIENT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And shall I then the fact deny?<br>I was--thou know'st--I was begone,<br>Like him who fill'd the eastern throne,<br>To whom the Watcher cried aloud;<br>That royal wretch of Babylon,<br>Who was so guilty and so proud.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like him, with haughty, stubborn mind,<br>I, in my state, my comforts sought;<br>Delight and praise I hoped to find,<br>In what I builded, planted! bought!<br>Oh! arrogance! by misery taught -<br>Soon came a voice! I felt it come;<br>'Full be his cup, with evil fraught,<br>Demons his guides, and death his doom!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then was I cast from out my state;<br>Two fiends of darkness led my way;<br>They waked me early, watch'd me late,<br>My dread by night, my plague by day!<br>Oh! I was made their sport, their play,<br>Through many a stormy troubled year;<br>And how they used their passive prey<br>Is sad to tell: --but you shall hear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And first before they sent me forth.<br>Through this unpitying world to run,<br>They robb'd Sir Eustace of his worth,<br>Lands, manors, lordships, every one;<br>So was that gracious man undone,<br>Was spurn'd as vile, was scorn'd as poor,<br>Whom every former friend would shun,<br>And menials drove from every door.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then rose ill-favour'd Ones, whom none<br>But my unhappy eyes could view,<br>Led me, with wild emotion, on,<br>And, with resistless terror, drew.<br>Through lands we fled, o'er seas we flew,<br>And halted on a boundless plain;<br>Where nothing fed, nor breathed, nor grew,<br>But silence ruled the still domain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Upon that boundless plain, below,<br>The setting sun's last rays were shed,<br>And gave a mild and sober glow,<br>Where all were still, asleep, or dead;<br>Vast ruins in the midst were spread,<br>Pillars and pediments sublime,<br>Where the gray mass had form'd a bed,<br>And clothed the crumbling spoils of time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was I fix'd, I know not how,<br>Condemn'd for untold years to stay:<br>Yet years were not;--one dreadful Now<br>Endured no change of night or day;<br>The same mild evening's sleeping ray<br>Shone softly solemn and serene,<br>And all that time I gazed away,<br>The setting sun's sad rays were seen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length a moment's sleep stole on, -<br>Again came my commission'd foes;<br>Again through sea and land we're gone,<br>No peace, no respite, no repose;<br>Above the dark broad sea we rose,<br>We ran through bleak and frozen land;<br>I had no strength their strength t'oppose,<br>An infant in a giant's hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They placed me where those streamers play,<br>Those nimble beams of brilliant light;<br>It would the stoutest heart dismay,<br>To see, to feel, that dreadful sight:<br>So swift, so pure, so cold, so bright,<br>They pierced my frame with icy wound;<br>And all that half-year's polar night,<br>Those dancing streamers wrapp'd me round.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Slowly that darkness pass'd away,<br>When down upon the earth I fell, -<br>Some hurried sleep was mine by day;<br>But soon as toll'd the evening bell,<br>They forced me on, where ever dwell<br>Far-distant men, in cities fair,<br>Cities of whom no travellers tell,<br>Nor feet but mine were wanderers there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their watchmen stare, and stand aghast,<br>As on we hurry through the dark;<br>The watch-light blinks as we go past,<br>The watch-dog shrinks and fears to bark;<br>The watch-tower's bell sounds shrill; and, hark<br>The free wind blows--we've left the town -<br>A wild sepulchral ground I mark,<br>And on a tombstone place me down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What monuments of mighty dead!<br>What tombs of various kinds are found!<br>And stones erect their shadows shed<br>On humble graves, with wickers bound,<br>Some risen fresh, above the ground,<br>Some level with the native clay:<br>What sleeping millions wait the sound,<br>'Arise, ye dead, and come away!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! they stay not for that call;<br>Spare me this woe! ye demons, spare!<br>They come! the shrouded shadows all, -<br>'Tis more than mortal brain can bear;<br>Rustling they rise, they sternly glare<br>At man upheld by vital breath;<br>Who, led by wicked fiends, should dare<br>To join the shadowy troops of death!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, I have felt all man can feel,<br>Till he shall pay his nature's debt;<br>Ills that no hope has strength to heal,<br>No mind the comfort to forget:<br>Whatever cares the heart can fret,<br>The spirits wear, the temper gall,<br>Woe, want, dread, anguish, all beset<br>My sinful soul!--together all!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those fiends upon a shaking fen<br>Fix'd me, in dark tempestuous night;<br>There never trod the foot of men,<br>There flock'd the fowl in wint'ry flight;<br>There danced the moor's deceitful light<br>Above the pool where sedges grow;<br>And when the morning-sun shone bright,<br>It shone upon a field of snow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They hung me on a bow so small,<br>The rook could build her nest no higher;<br>They fix'd me on the trembling ball<br>That crowns the steeple's quiv'ring spire;<br>They set me where the seas retire,<br>But drown with their returning tide;<br>And made me flee the mountain's fire,<br>When rolling from its burning side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I've hung upon the ridgy steep<br>Of cliffs, and held the rambling brier;<br>I've plunged below the billowy deep,<br>Where air was sent me to respire;<br>I've been where hungry wolves retire;<br>And (to complete my woes) I've ran<br>Where Bedlam's crazy crew conspire<br>Against the life of reasoning man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I've furl'd in storms the flapping sail,<br>By hanging from the topmast-head;<br>I've served the vilest slaves in jail,<br>And pick'd the dunghill's spoil for bread;<br>I've made the badger's hole my bed:<br>I've wander'd with a gipsy crew;<br>I've dreaded all the guilty dread,<br>And done what they would fear to do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On sand, where ebbs and flows the flood,<br>Midway they placed and bade me die;<br>Propp'd on my staff, I stoutly stood<br>When the swift waves came rolling by;<br>And high they rose, and still more high,<br>Till my lips drank the bitter brine;<br>I sobb'd convulsed, then cast mine eye,<br>And saw the tide's re-flowing sign.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then, my dreams were such as nought<br>Could yield but my unhappy case;<br>I've been of thousand devils caught,<br>And thrust into that horrid place<br>Where reign dismay, despair, disgrace;<br>Furies with iron fangs were there,<br>To torture that accursed race<br>Doom'd to dismay, disgrace, despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Harmless I was; yet hunted down<br>For treasons, to my soul unfit;<br>I've been pursued through many a town,<br>For crimes that petty knaves commit;<br>I've been adjudged t'have lost my wit,<br>Because I preached so loud and well;<br>And thrown into the dungeon's pit,<br>For trampling on the pit of hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such were the evils, man of sin,<br>That I was fated to sustain;<br>And add to all, without--within,<br>A soul defiled with every stain<br>That man's reflecting mind can pain;<br>That pride, wrong, rage, despair, can make;<br>In fact, they'd nearly touch'd my brain,<br>And reason on her throne would shake.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But pity will the vilest seek,<br>If punish'd guilt will not repine, -<br>I heard a heavenly teacher speak,<br>And felt the SUN OF MERCY shine:<br>I hailed the light! the birth divine!<br>And then was seal'd among the few;<br>Those angry fiends beheld the sign,<br>And from me in an instant flew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come hear how thus the charmers cry<br>To wandering sheep, the strays of sin,<br>While some the wicket-gate pass by,<br>And some will knock and enter in:<br>Full joyful 'tis a soul to win,<br>For he that winneth souls is wise;<br>Now hark! the holy strains begin,<br>And thus the sainted preacher cries: --</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Pilgrim, burthen'd with thy sin,<br>Come the way to Zion's gate,<br>There, till Mercy let thee in,<br>Knock and weep and watch and wait.<br>Knock!--He knows the sinner's cry!<br>Weep!--He loves the mourner's tears:<br>Watch!--for saving grace is nigh:<br>Wait,--till heavenly light appears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Hark! it is the Bridegroom's voice:<br>Welcome, pilgrim, to thy rest;<br>Now within the gate rejoice,<br>Safe and seal'd and bought and blest!<br>Safe--from all the lures of vice,<br>Seal'd--by signs the chosen know,<br>Bought--by love and life the price,<br>Blest--the mighty debt to owe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Holy Pilgrim! what for thee<br>In a world like this remain?<br>From thy guarded breast shall flee<br>Fear and shame, and doubt and pain.<br>Fear--the hope of Heaven shall fly,<br>Shame--from glory's view retire,<br>Doubt--in certain rapture die,<br>Pain--in endless bliss expire.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But though my day of grace was come,<br>Yet still my days of grief I find;<br>The former clouds' collected gloom<br>Still sadden the reflecting mind;<br>The soul, to evil things consign'd,<br>Will of their evil some retain;<br>The man will seem to earth inclined,<br>And will not look erect again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus, though elect, I feel it hard<br>To lose what I possess'd before,<br>To be from all my wealth debarr'd, -<br>The brave Sir Eustace is no more:<br>But old I wax, and passing poor,<br>Stern, rugged men my conduct view;<br>They chide my wish, they bar my door,<br>'Tis hard--I weep--you see I do. -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Must you, my friends, no longer stay?<br>Thus quickly all my pleasures end;<br>But I'll remember when I pray,<br>My kind physician and his friend;<br>And those sad hours, you deign to spend<br>With me, I shall requite them all;<br>Sir Eustace for his friends shall send,<br>And thank their love at Greyling Hall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VISITOR.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The poor Sir Eustace!--Yet his hope<br>Leads him to think of joys again;<br>And when his earthly visions droop,<br>His views of heavenly kind remain:<br>But whence that meek and humbled strain,<br>That spirit wounded, lost, resign'd?<br>Would not so proud a soul disdain<br>The madness of the poorest mind?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PHYSICIAN.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No! for the more he swell'd with pride,<br>The more he felt misfortune's blow;<br>Disgrace and grief he could not hide,<br>And poverty had laid him low:<br>Thus shame and sorrow working slow,<br>At length this humble spirit gave;<br>Madness on these began to grow,<br>And bound him to his fiends a slave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though the wild thoughts had touch'd his brain,<br>Then was he free: --So, forth he ran;<br>To soothe or threat, alike were vain:<br>He spake of fiends; look'd wild and wan;<br>Year after year, the hurried man<br>Obey'd those fiends from place to place;<br>Till his religious change began<br>To form a frenzied child of grace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For, as the fury lost its strength,<br>The mind reposed; by slow degrees<br>Came lingering hope, and brought at length,<br>To the tormented spirit, ease:<br>This slave of sin, whom fiends could seize,<br>Felt or believed their power had end: -<br>''Tis faith,' he cried, 'my bosom frees,<br>And now my SAVIOUR is my friend.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But ah! though time can yield relief,<br>And soften woes it cannot cure;<br>Would we not suffer pain and grief,<br>To have our reason sound and sure?<br>Then let us keep our bosoms pure,<br>Our fancy's favourite flights suppress;<br>Prepare the body to endure,<br>And bend the mind to meet distress;<br>And then HIS guardian care implore,<br>Whom demons dread and men adore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</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=395886" data-title="Sir Eustace Grey de George Crabbe" data-description="Scene: --A MADHOUSE.

Persons: --VISITOR, PHYSICIAN, AND PATIENT.

VISITOR.

I'll know no more;--the heart is torn
By views of woe we cannot heal;
Long shall I see these things forlorn,
And oft again their griefs shall feel,
As each upon the mind ..."></div>
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