Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/137

When Admirals extolled for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill,
Generals who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay,—
When freedom wounded almost to despair,
Though discontent alone can find out where,—
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue.
I hear,—as mute as if a syren sung.
Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains200
A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains?
That were a theme might animate the dead,
And move the lips of poets cast in lead.
B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet elude
Conjecture and remark, however shrewd.
They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Liberal in all things else, yet Nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours210
A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending, curl the streams;
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work.
Thus with a rigour, for his good designed,
She rears her favourite man of all mankind.
His form robust and of elastic tone,
Proportioned well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force 220
A mind well lodged, and masculine of course.
Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty, inspires,
And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires.
Patient of constitutional control,
He bears it with meek manliness of soul;
But if authority grow wanton, woe
To him that treads upon his free-born toe!
One step beyond the boundary of the laws
Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud Prerogative, not much revered, 230
Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard;
And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay,
Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away.
Born in a climate softer far than ours,
Not formed like us, with such Herculean powers,
The Frenchman, easy, debonair and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of misery far away.
He drinks his simple beverage with a gust,240
And feasting on an onion and a crust,
We never feel the alacrity and joy
With which he shouts and carols, "Vive le Roy!"