Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/142

He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars
In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores,
The standards of all nations are unfurled,
She has one foe, and that one foe, the world.
And if he doom that people with a frown,
And mark them with the seal of wrath, pressed down,
Obduracy takes place; callous and tough
The reprobated race grows judgment proof:
Earth shakes beneath them, and Heaven roars above,
But nothing scares them from the course they love;
To the lascivious pipe and wanton song
That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,
Down to the gulph from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail,
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail;
They trust in armies, and their courage dies,
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies;
But all they trust in, withers, as it must,
When he commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast,
A long despised, but now victorious host,
Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege,
Gives liberty the last, the mortal shock,
Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.
A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach,
Mean you to prophecy, or but to preach?
B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire
The muse imparts, and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame,
She pours a sensibility divine
Along the nerve of every feeling line.
But if a deed not tamely to be borne,
Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,
The strings are swept with such a power, so loud,
The storm of music shakes the astonished crowd.
So when remote futurity is brought
Before the keen enquiry of her thought,
A terrible sagacity informs
The poet's heart, he looks to distant storms,
He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers,
And armed with strength surpassing human powers,
Seizes events as yet unknown to man,
And darts his soul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the same,
Hence British poets too the priesthood shared,
And every hallowed Druid was a bard.