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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416979" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The World In The House</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PILGRIMS who journey in the narrow way,<br>Should go as little cumbered as they may.<br>'Tis heavy sailing with a freighted ship ;<br>'Tis pleasant travelling with a staff and scrip.<br>Gold clogs the path, dispose it how we will ;<br>Makes it fatiguing as we climb the hill :<br>And 'tis but here and there you may descry<br>The camel passing through the needle's eye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Love not the world ;'--most merciful decree<br>That makes its friendship enmity to Thee !<br>Oh, if God had not said it,--did I know<br>Some way to bliss through luxury and show ;<br>Might I have followed Christ to heaven's door,<br>With gold and purple, in my coach and four ;<br>I dare not choose it--I would rather wait<br>A safer convoy at the rich man's gate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See yonder modern mansion, light and fair,<br>Reared just beyond the taint of London air :<br>But not beyond, by many a dale and hill,<br>The taint of manners more unwholesome still.<br>Wide spreads in front the soft and sloping lawn,<br>With carriage roads in sweeping circles drawn :<br>The ample gardens, neat and well disposed,<br>Stretch far behind, by hectared walls enclosed ;<br>The shrubbery-walks in serpent windings run ;<br>The costly green-house blazes in the sun.<br>Rare fruits and flowers the gardener's skill employ,<br>More than the pampered owners can enjoy.<br>Within, a palace shines, superbly planned ;<br>No pains nor cost were spared to make it grand : <br>Our thrifty merchants, fifty years ago,<br>Nor thought nor dreamed of such a stately show.<br>The bloated master stalks delighted thence,<br>Proud of the thing, more proud of the expense.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here dwells an old professor in his nest,<br>With comely wife and dashing daughters blest ;<br>They, fresh from school, with all the native graces<br>They once possessed, quite polished off their faces ;<br>A trifling, useless, unharmonious train,<br>Accomplished, artificial, showy, vain ;<br>In all they do and say, and look and wear,<br>Aping the rank they were not born to bear :<br>And she, his help-meet, ever in her pride,<br>Teasing and pleading on the worldly side ;--<br>Such is his household, such, perchance, that he<br>Would blush to ask the Apostle Paul to tea.<br>--Not that the show and fashion of the place,<br>Itself, could certify the want of grace ;<br>(Though bounds there are, so wise and safe to keep,<br>That watchful Christians rarely overleap <br>But 'tis his soul retains the earthly leaven,<br>Would fain keep terms and compromise with Heaven ;<br>Striving, with pain, in Zion's paths to plod,<br>But keeping Mammon for his household god.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus live our merchant and his hopeful train,<br>Bound to the world, nor would they break the chain.<br>Its laws they own, its stamp and image bear,<br>There lies their portion, and their hearts are there.<br>Where then appears the faith they yet profess ?--<br>Not in their looks, their language, or their dress ;<br>But some cold forms remain, and some restraints,<br>To keep their name and place among the saints.<br>They never dance ; they never play at cards ;<br>One day in seven he duly still regards :<br>That tasty chapel, twice on Sabbath day,<br>Sees him and his set out in fair array.<br>And much they praise--the ladies and their sire,<br>The favourite preacher whom they all admire ;<br>Some soft, and sleek, and seraph-spoken boy,<br>The rabble's wonder and the ladies' toy ;<br>Snatched immature from academic bowers,<br>To dress up truth in artificial flowers.<br>Besides, our fair professor's name behold,<br>On neat Esquired committee-lists enrolled,<br>And long subscription-rows, that bring to light<br>Name, place, donation, and the annual mite ;<br>Duly proclaiming every right hand deed,<br>Trusting the left has never learnt to read.<br>A little gold, a morning or a day,<br>Spent in the cause, he freely gives away :<br>Perhaps, his pious zeal may even reach<br>The neat dimensions of an annual speech,<br>Gliding in well-turned compliments along,<br>To every titled Christian in the throng.<br>The ladies too, his daughters, draw up rules<br>For lady-charities, and Sunday schools ;<br>Set down their names, their fair committees call ;<br>Busy and pleased, if they may manage all.<br>Meantime, the pious bustle, praised and told,<br>Has cost them nothing but their father's gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How customs and opinions change their place !<br>Religion, now, is scarcely in disgrace :<br>Her outward signs, at least, will even raise<br>Your credit high in these convenient days.<br>Fashion, herself, the cause of virtue pleads,<br>Becomes chief patroness of pious deeds,<br>And lets us e'en pursue, without restraint,<br>What once had stamped us puritan and saint. <br>The good is done,--let fashion bear her part,<br>And claim the praise, with all the Christian's heart<br>Motives are all in Heaven's impartial eye ;<br>But 'tis not ours to doubt and give the lie :<br>Let each grant credit to his neighbour's share,<br>But analyze his own with utmost care,--<br>That thus the scale is turned, the praise is due<br>To Him, who hears and owns the righteous few ;<br>Whose silent prayers and labours Heaven employs<br>To do the good, while others make the noise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">--'Tis trite to praise the country's green retreats,<br>Opposed to city smoke and noisy streets :<br>And scores of epithets, all ready strung,<br>That theme will furnish to be said or sung.<br>The limpid streamlet and the whispering breeze<br>Slip into rhyme with such spontaneous ease,<br>That he must be an humble scribe indeed,<br>Who could not write it--or who loves to read.<br>Trite though it be, it is a task I choose ;<br>A hackneyed theme befits an humble muse :<br>But leaving rills to ripple, woods to wave,<br>And birds to warble out the other stave,<br>I sing the choicest fruit of country air,<br>--The human plant that buds and blossoms there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Happy the mother, who her train can rear<br>Far 'mid its breezy hills from year to year !<br>There healthful springs the body, and combined<br>With health, more precious, to the precious mind.<br>Not that there dwells a charm in country air,<br>Or chemic power, to bleach the Ethiop fair :<br>Romantic hope !--The poisonous breath of vice<br>Tainted the very airs of Paradise.<br>Sin spreads in every soil, in every gale ;<br>O'er-runs alike the mountain and the vale<br>But springs in cities, rank and noisome both,<br>Their foul and sultry vapour speeds its growth. '<br>Youth's sweetest grace, simplicity, is seen<br>Sporting with native smiles in meadows green,<br>In pleasant gardens, on the daisied ground,<br>Where simple joys, and few besides are found.<br>The knowing, forward, pert, and showy miss,<br>Springs rarely up in such a soil as this ;<br>For such a plant exotic, send us down<br>Some hot-house produce of the polished town.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The rage for competition, show, and style,<br>Is London's plague, and spreads for many a mile.<br>No rank, nor age, escapes that vulgar sin,<br>Breathed in its nurseries,--in its schools worked in :<br>And thus the mania, in maturer years,<br>In every form of pride and pomp appears,<br>As each were striving for a near approach--<br>Climax of grandeur !--to the lord mayor's coach.<br>--How short the triumph, many a prison cell,<br>And many a pining family could tell.--<br>The bridal equipage, in half a year<br>Brought to the hammer of the auctioneer,<br>Suffices not to liquidate the debt,<br>And fame's last bugle sounds in the Gazette. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Regions of intellect ! serenely fair,<br>Hence let us rise, and breathe your purer air.<br>--There shine the stars ! one intellectual glance<br>At that bright host,--on yon sublime expanse,<br>Might prove a cure ;--well, say they, let them shine<br>With all our hearts,--but let us dress and dine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are, above the petty influence placed,<br>By human science and a mental taste.<br>The man who feels the dignity of thought,<br>By culture much refined, by science taught,<br>To loved pursuits devoted, looks below,<br>With true contempt upon the paltry show :<br>Compared with those in pleasure's vortex hurled,<br>He loves it not, and lives above the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But happier he who views the toys of time<br>From loftier heights, from regions more sublime ;<br>Who walks with God while yet he sojourns here ;<br>His hopes still climbing to a brighter sphere.<br>--Is he of wealth and earthly good possessed ?<br>He takes Heaven's bounty with a cheerful zest.<br>His quarrel with the world you might not note<br>From texture, cut, or colour of his coat ;<br>For studied plainness, whether dress or speech,<br>Defeats the very end it aims to reach.<br>And yet, on all he has there stands imprest<br>One truth conspicuous--' This is not my rest.'--<br>From that divine remembrance ever springs<br>A moderated care for other things :<br>--Pilgrim and stranger in a desert spot,<br>He holds them all as though he held them not.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Peace, order, comfort, in his household reign ;<br>And more than these he seeks not to obtain.<br>His mansion, furnished in no costly style,<br>Oft makes his tasty neighbours stare and smile ;<br>But that unmoved and unavenged he bears,<br>Unless it be, sometimes, to smile at theirs.<br>His neat, plain parlour wants our modern air,<br>But comfort smiles on every object there.<br>--Tables of costly wood, and chairs whose mould<br>Bespeaks the fashion not a fortnight old,<br>The window drapery's elegant costume, <br>Arranged and deeply fringed to match the room,<br>Carpets, where eastern patterns richly crawl,<br>Vases, and mirrors blazing on the wall,<br>Cupids that wave their waxen flames in air,<br>Sideboards of plate, cut-glass, and china rare,--<br>These things he sees, and Oh ! surprising phlegm !<br>Wastes not a thought nor wish for one of them.<br>Still more surprising, that his house and board<br>Are plainer far than he could well afford !<br>No seasoned dainties on his table steal ;<br>Frugal, though ample, is the daily meal.<br>The 'olive plants' in graceful order sit ;<br>No greedy hands implore the savoury bit ;<br>Taught from the very cradle to despise<br>The wish for more than hunger's claim supplies.<br>A pampered body, and a vigorous mind,<br>Are things, he deems, that cannot be combined ;<br>And aiming thus the mental string to brace,<br>He rears a hardy, independent race.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His girls, a blooming train, their home adorn ;<br>Simply attired, and cheerful as the morn :<br>Industrious, active, frugal, like their sire ;<br>Trained to resist each frivolous desire ;<br>To scorn the trifles that the sex pursues,<br>And rise superior to its petty views.<br>Slightly accomplished, but their minds are fraught<br>With taste and knowledge, and inured to thought.<br>Year after year, four precious hours a day,<br>Is deemed by him too dear a price to pay<br>E'en for that art, which all the world reveres,<br>Up from the tradesman's daughter to the peer's.<br>Yet not with narrow, much mistaken view,<br>Would he deny them mental culture too ;<br>Though vulgar zealots love to state the case,<br>That human learning is a foe to grace ;<br>And rear their ill-bred, rude, illiterate youth,<br>To loathe their shackles, and despise the truth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Religion here, in all her native grace,<br>Shines out serene in every heart and face ;<br>Nor e'er is banished, though pursuits may claim<br>Attention oft, that do not bear her name.<br>Thus he adorns the doctrine he avows ;<br>Thus in the fear of God, he guides his house.<br>And while it prospers, that memorial word,--<br>'The poor are always with you,' still is heard.<br>The hungry throng that crowd his open gate<br>Not there, like Lazarus, unregarded wait ;<br>Since each expensive pleasure is denied,<br>Which, while it starves the needy, pampers pride.<br>Many condemn his plan, and many deem<br>He carries things to an absurd extreme ;<br>Think he might live in style, and yet afford<br>A decent crum from his superfluous board :<br>--Still there were other poor, and still the sums<br>That style would cost might furnish other crums.<br>'Tis thus he argues, thus that order reads,<br>'Sell all thou hast, and give to him that needs.'<br>At that hard saying, many turn away ;<br>Let him who can, receive it, and obey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, for a soul magnanimous, to know,<br>Poor world, thy littleness, and let thee go !<br>Not with a gloomy, proud, ascetic mind,<br>That loves thee still, and only hates mankind ;<br>Reverse the line, and that my temper be,<br>--To love mankind, and pour contempt on thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Jane+Taylor">Jane Taylor</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=416979" data-title="The World In The House de Jane Taylor" data-description="PILGRIMS who journey in the narrow way,
Should go as little cumbered as they may.
'Tis heavy sailing with a freighted ship ;
'Tis pleasant travelling with a staff and scrip.
Gold clogs the path, dispose it how we will ;
Makes it fatiguing as we cl..."></div>
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