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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395928" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Borough. Letter XXIII: Prisons</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'TIS well--that Man to all the varying states<br>Of good and ill his mind accommodates;<br>He not alone progressive grief sustains,<br>But soon submits to unexperienced pains:<br>Change after change, all climes his body bears;<br>His mind repeated shocks of changing cares:<br>Faith and fair Virtue arm the nobler breast;<br>Hope and mere want of feeling aid the rest.<br>Or who could bear to lose the balmy air<br>Of summer's breath, from all things fresh and fair,<br>With all that man admires or loves below;<br>All earth and water, wood and vale bestow,<br>Where rosy pleasures smile, whence real blessings </div><div style="margin:10px 0">flow;<br>With sight and sound of every kind that lives,<br>And crowning all with joy that freedom gives?<br>Who could from these, in some unhappy day,<br>Bear to be drawn by ruthless arms away,<br>To the vile nuisance of a noisome room,<br>Where only insolence and misery come?<br>(Save that the curious will by chance appear,<br>Or some in pity drop a fruitless tear);<br>To a damp Prison, where the very sight<br>Of the warm sun is favour and not right;<br>Where all we hear or see the feelings shock,<br>The oath and groan, the fetter and the lock?<br>Who could bear this and live?--Oh! many a year<br>All this is borne, and miseries more severe;<br>And some there are, familiar with the scene,<br>Who live in mirth, though few become serene.<br>Far as I might the inward man perceive,<br>There was a constant effort--not to grieve:<br>Not to despair, for better days would come,<br>And the freed debtor smile again at home:<br>Subdued his habits, he may peace regain,<br>And bless the woes that were not sent in vain.<br>Thus might we class the Debtors here confined,<br>The more deceived, the more deceitful kind;<br>Here are the guilty race, who mean to live<br>On credit, that credulity will give;<br>Who purchase, conscious they can never pay;<br>Who know their fate, and traffic to betray;<br>On whom no pity, fear, remorse, prevail.<br>Their aim a statute, their resource a jail; -<br>These are the public spoilers we regard,<br>No dun so harsh, no creditor so hard.<br>A second kind are they, who truly strive<br>To keep their sinking credit long alive;<br>Success, nay prudence, they may want, but yet<br>They would be solvent, and deplore a debt;<br>All means they use, to all expedients run,<br>And are by slow, sad steps, at last undone:<br>Justly, perhaps, you blame their want of skill,<br>But mourn their feelings and absolve their will.<br>There is a Debtor, who his trifling all<br>Spreads in a shop; it would not fill a stall:<br>There at one window his temptation lays,<br>And in new modes disposes and displays:<br>Above the door you shall his name behold,<br>And what he vends in ample letters told,<br>The words 'Repository,' 'Warehouse,' all<br>He uses to enlarge concerns so small:<br>He to his goods assigns some beauty's name,<br>Then in her reign, and hopes they'll share her </div><div style="margin:10px 0">fame,<br>And talks of credit, commerce, traffic, trade,<br>As one important by their profit made;<br>But who can paint the vacancy, the gloom,<br>And spare dimensions of one backward room?<br>Wherein he dines, if so 'tis fit to speak<br>Of one day's herring and the morrow's steak:<br>An anchorite in diet, all his care<br>Is to display his stock and vend his ware.<br>Long waiting hopeless, then he tries to meet<br>A kinder fortune in a distant street;<br>There he again displays, increasing yet<br>Corroding sorrow and consuming debt:<br>Alas! he wants the requisites to rise -<br>The true connections, the availing ties:<br>They who proceed on certainties advance,<br>These are not times when men prevail by chance;<br>But still he tries, till, after years of pain,<br>He finds, with anguish, he has tried in vain.<br>Debtors are these on whom 'tis hard to press,<br>'Tis base, impolitic, and merciless.<br>To these we add a miscellaneous kind,<br>By pleasure, pride, and indolence confined;<br>Those whom no calls, no warnings could divert,<br>The unexperienced, and the inexpert;<br>The builder, idler, schemer, gamester, sot, -<br>The follies different, but the same their lot;<br>Victims of horses, lasses, drinking, dice,<br>Of every passion, humour, whim, and vice.<br>See! that sad Merchant, who but yesterday<br>Had a vast household in command and pay;<br>He now entreats permission to employ<br>A boy he needs, and then entreats the boy.<br>And there sits one improvident but kind,<br>Bound for a friend, whom honour could not bind;<br>Sighing, he speaks to any who appear,<br>'A treach'rous friend--'twas that which sent me </div><div style="margin:10px 0">here:<br>I was too kind,--I thought I could depend<br>On his bare word--he was a treach'rous friend.'<br>A Female too!--it is to her a home,<br>She came before--and she again will come:<br>Her friends have pity; when their anger drops,<br>They take her home;--she's tried her schools and </div><div style="margin:10px 0">shops -<br>Plan after plan;--but fortune would not mend,<br>She to herself was still the treach'rous friend;<br>And wheresoe'er began, all here was sure to end:<br>And there she sits, as thoughtless and as gay<br>As if she'd means, or not a debt to pay -<br>Or knew to-morrow she'd be call'd away -<br>Or felt a shilling and could dine to-day.<br>While thus observing, I began to trace<br>The sober'd features of a well-known face -<br>Looks once familiar, manners form'd to please,<br>And all illumined by a heart at ease:<br>But fraud and flattery ever claim'd a part<br>(Still unresisted) of that easy heart;<br>But he at length beholds me--'Ah! my friend!<br>'And have thy pleasures this unlucky end?'<br>'Too sure,' he said, and smiling as he sigh'd;<br>'I went astray, though Prudence seem'd my guide;<br>All she proposed I in my heart approved,<br>And she was honour'd, but my pleasure loved -<br>Pleasure, the mistress to whose arms I fled,<br>From wife-like lectures angry Prudence read.<br>'Why speak the madness of a life like mine,<br>The powers of beauty, novelty, and wine?<br>Why paint the wanton smile, the venal vow,<br>Or friends whose worth I can appreciate now;<br>Oft I perceived my fate, and then could say,<br>I'll think to-morrow, I must live to-day:<br>So am I here--I own the laws are just -<br>And here, where thought is painful, think I must:<br>But speech is pleasant; this discourse with thee<br>Brings to my mind the sweets of liberty,<br>Breaks on the sameness of the place, and gives<br>The doubtful heart conviction that it lives.<br>'Let me describe my anguish in the hour<br>When law detain'd me and I felt its power.<br>'When, in that shipwreck, this I found my shore,<br>And join'd the wretched, who were wreck'd before;<br>When I perceived each feature in the face,<br>Pinch'd through neglect or turbid by disgrace;<br>When in these wasting forms affliction stood<br>In my afiiicted view, it chill'd my blood; -<br>And forth I rush'd, a quick retreat to make,<br>Till a loud laugh proclaim'd the dire mistake:<br>But when the groan had settled to a sigh,<br>When gloom became familiar to the eye,<br>When I perceive how others seem to rest,<br>With every evil rankling in my breast, -<br>Led by example, I put on the man,<br>Sing off my sighs, and trifle as I can.<br>'Homer! nay Pope! (for never will I seek<br>Applause for learning--nought have I with Greek)<br>Gives us the secrets of his pagan hell,<br>Where ghost with ghost in sad communion dwell;<br>Where shade meets shade, and round the gloomy meads<br>They glide, and speak of old heroic deeds, -<br>What fields they conquer'd, and what foes they </div><div style="margin:10px 0">slew,<br>And sent to join the melancholy crew.<br>When a new spirit in that world was found,<br>A thousand shadowy forms came flitting round:<br>Those who had known him, fond inquiries made, -<br>'Of all we left, inform us, gentle shade,<br>Now as we lead thee in our realms to dwell,<br>Our twilight groves, and meads of asphodel.'<br>'What paints the poet, is our station here,<br>Where we like ghosts and flitting shades appear:<br>This is the hell he sings, and here we meet,<br>And former deeds to new-made friends repeat;<br>Heroic deeds, which here obtain us fame,<br>And are in fact the causes why we came:<br>Yes! this dim region is old Homer's hell,<br>Abate but groves and meads of asphodel.<br>Here, when a stranger from your world we spy,<br>We gather round him and for news apply;<br>He hears unheeding, nor can speech endure,<br>But shivering gazes on the vast obscure:<br>We smiling pity, and by kindness show<br>We felt his feelings and his terrors know;<br>Then speak of comfort--time will give him sight,<br>Where now 'tis dark; where now 'tis woe--delight.<br>'Have hope,' we say, 'and soon the place to thee<br>Shall not a prison but a castle be:<br>When to the wretch whom care and guilt confound,<br>The world's a prison, with a wider bound;<br>Go where he may, he feels himself confined,<br>And wears the fetters of an abject mind.'<br>'But now adieu! those giant-keys appear,<br>Thou art not worthy to be inmate here:<br>Go to thy world, and to the young declare<br>What we, our spirits and employments, are;<br>Tell them how we the ills of life endure,<br>Our empire stable, and our state secure;<br>Our dress, our diet, for their use describe,<br>And bid them haste to join the gen'rous tribe:<br>Go to thy world, and leave us here to dwell,<br>Who to its joys and comforts bid farewell.'<br>Farewell to these; but other scenes I view,<br>And other griefs, and guilt of deeper hue;<br>Where Conscience gives to outward ills her pain,<br>Gloom to the night, and pressure to the chain:<br>Here separate cells awhile in misery keep<br>Two doom'd to suffer: there they strive for sleep;<br>By day indulged, in larger space they range,<br>Their bondage certain, but their bounds have </div><div style="margin:10px 0">change.<br>One was a female, who had grievous ill<br>Wrought in revenge, and she enjoy'd it still:<br>With death before her, and her fate in view,<br>Unsated vengeance in her bosom grew:<br>Sullen she was and threat'ning; in her eye<br>Glared the stern triumph that she dared to die:<br>But first a being in the world must leave -<br>'Twas once reproach; 'twas now a short reprieve.<br>She was a pauper bound, who early gave<br>Her mind to vice and doubly was a slave:<br>Upbraided, beaten, held by rough control,<br>Revenge sustain'd, inspired, and fill'd her soul:<br>She fired a full-stored barn, confess'd the fact,<br>And laugh'd at law and justified the act:<br>Our gentle Vicar tried his powers in vain,<br>She answer'd not, or answer'd with disdain;<br>Th' approaching fate she heard without a sigh,<br>And neither cared to live nor fear'd to die.<br>Not so he felt, who with her was to pay<br>The forfeit, life--with dread he view'd the day,<br>And that short space which yet for him remain'd,<br>Till with his limbs his faculties were chain'd:<br>He paced his narrow bounds some ease to find,<br>But found it not,--no comfort reach'd his mind:<br>Each sense was palsied; when he tasted food,<br>He sigh'd and said, 'Enough--'tis very good.'<br>Since his dread sentence, nothing seem'd to be<br>As once it was--he seeing could not see,<br>Nor hearing, hear aright;--when first I came<br>Within his view, I fancied there was shame,<br>I judged resentment; I mistook the air, -<br>These fainter passions live not with despair;<br>Or but exist and die: --Hope, fear, and love,<br>Joy, doubt, and hate, may other spirits move,<br>But touch not his, who every waking hour<br>Has one fix'd dread, and always feels its power.<br>'But will not mercy?'--No! she cannot plead<br>For such an outrage;--'twas a cruel deed:<br>He stopp'd a timid traveller;--to his breast,<br>With oaths and curses, was the danger press'd: -<br>No! he must suffer: pity we may find<br>For one man's pangs, but must not wrong mankind.<br>Still I behold him, every thought employ'd<br>On one dire view!--all others are destroy'd;<br>This makes his features ghastly, gives the tone<br>Of his few words resemblance to a groan;<br>He takes his tasteless food, and when 'tis done,<br>Counts up his meals, now lessen'd by that one;<br>For expectation is on time intent,<br>Whether he brings us joy or punishment.<br>Yes! e'en in sleep the impressions all remain,<br>He hears the sentence and he feels the chain;<br>He sees the judge and jury, when he shakes,<br>And loudly cries, 'Not guilty,' and awakes:<br>Then chilling tremblings o'er his body creep,<br>Till worn-out nature is compell'd to sleep.<br>Now comes the dream again: it shows each scene,<br>With each small circumstance that comes between -<br>The call to suffering and the very deed -<br>There crowds go with him, follow, and precede;<br>Some heartless shout, some pity, all condemn,<br>While he in fancied envy looks at them:<br>He seems the place for that sad act to see,<br>And dreams the very thirst which then will be:<br>A priest attends--it seems, the one he knew<br>In his best days, beneath whose care he grew.<br>At this his terrors take a sudden flight,<br>He sees his native village with delight;<br>The house, the chamber, where he once array'd<br>His youthful person; where he knelt and pray'd:<br>Then too the comforts he enjoy'd at home,<br>The days of joy; the joys themselves are come; -<br>The hours of innocence;--the timid look<br>Of his loved maid, when first her hand he took,<br>And told his hope; her trembling joy appears,<br>Her forced reserve and his retreating fears.<br>All now is present;--'tis a moment's gleam<br>Of former sunshine--stay, delightful dream!<br>Let him within his pleasant garden walk,<br>Give him her arm, of blessings let them talk.<br>Yes! all are with him now, and all the while<br>Life's early prospects and his Fanny's smile:<br>Then come his sister and his village-friend,<br>And he will now the sweetest moments spend<br>Life has to yield;--No! never will he find<br>Again on earth such pleasure in his mind:<br>He goes through shrubby walks these friends among,<br>Love in their looks and honour on the tongue:<br>Nay, there's a charm beyond what nature shows,<br>The bloom is softer and more sweetly glows; -<br>Pierced by no crime, and urged by no desire<br>For more than true and honest hearts require,<br>They feel the calm delight, and thus proceed<br>Through the green lane,--then linger in the mead, -<br>Stray o'er the heath in all its purple bloom, -<br>And pluck the blossom where the wild bees hum;<br>Then through the broomy bound with ease they pass,<br>And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass,<br>Where dwarfish flowers among the gorse are spread,<br>And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed;<br>Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way<br>O'er its rough bridge--and there behold the bay! -<br>The ocean smiling to the fervid sun -<br>The waves that faintly fall and slowly run -<br>The ships at distance and the boats at hand;<br>And now they walk upon the sea-side sand,<br>Counting the number and what kind they be,<br>Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea:<br>Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold<br>The glitt'ring waters on the shingles roll'd:<br>The timid girls, half dreading their design,<br>Dip the small foot in the retarded brine,<br>And search for crimson weeds, which spreading flow,<br>Or lie like pictures on the sand below;<br>With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun<br>Through the small waves so softly shines upon;<br>And those live lucid jellies which the eye<br>Delights to trace as they swim glittering by:<br>Pearl-shells and rubied star-fish they admire,<br>And will arrange above the parlour fire, -<br>Tokens of bliss!--'Oh! horrible! a wave<br>Roars as it rises--save me, Edward! save!'<br>She cries: --Alas! the watchman on his way<br>Calls, and lets in--truth, terror, and the day!</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=395928" data-title="The Borough. Letter XXIII: Prisons de George Crabbe" data-description="'TIS well--that Man to all the varying states
Of good and ill his mind accommodates;
He not alone progressive grief sustains,
But soon submits to unexperienced pains:
Change after change, all climes his body bears;
His mind repeated shocks of chan..."></div>
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