Alas, 'twas but a mortifying stroke Of undesigned severity, that glanced (Made by a monarch) on her own estate, On human grandeur and the courts of kings 'Twas transient in its nature, as in show 'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seemed Intrinsically precious; to the foot Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.
Great princes have great playthings. Some have played At hewing mountains into men, and some At building human wonders mountain high.
Some have amused the dull sad years of life (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad)
With schemes of monumental fame, and sought By pyramids and mausoleum pomp, Short-lived themselves, to immortalise their bones.
Some seek diversion in the tented field, And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world.
When Babel was confounded, and the great Confederacy of projectors wild and vain Was split into diversity of tongues, Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, These to the upland, to the valley those, God drave asunder and assigned their lot To all the nations. Ample was the boon He gave them, in its distribution fair And equal, and he bade them dwell in peace.
Peace was a while their care. They ploughed and sowed, And reaped their plenty without grudge or strife, But violence can never longer sleep Than human passions please. In every heart Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war, Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.
Cain had already shed a brother's blood:
The Deluge washed it out; but left unquenched The seeds of murder in the breast of man.
Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line Of his descending progeny was found The first artificer of death; the shrewd Contriver who first sweated at the forge, And forced the blunt and yet unblooded steel To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.
Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times, The sword and falchion their inventor claim, And the first smith was the first murderer's son.
His art survived the waters; and ere long, When man was multiplied and spread abroad In tribes and clans, and had begun to call These meadows and that range of hills his own, The tasted sweets of property begat Desire of more; and industry in some To improve and cultivate their just demesne, Made others covet what they saw so fair.
Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil, And those in self-defence. Savage at first The onset, and irregular. At length One eminent above the rest, for strength, For stratagem, or courage, or for all, Was chosen leader. Him they served in war, And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare?
Or who so worthy to control themselves As he, whose prowess had subdued their foes?
Thus war, affording field for the display Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, Which have their exigencies too, and call For skill in government, at length made king.
King was a name too proud for man to wear With modesty and meekness, and the crown, So dazzling in their eyes who set it on, Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.
It is the abject property of most, That being parcel of the common mass, And destitute of means to raise themselves, They sink and settle lower than they need.
They know not what it is to feel within A comprehensive faculty, that grasps Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, Almost without an effort, plans too vast For their conception, which they cannot move.
Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunk With gazing, when they see an able man Step forth to notice; and besotted thus Build him a pedestal and say--Stand there, And be our admiration and our praise.
They roll themselves before him in the dust, Then most deserving in their own account When most extravagant in his applause, As if exalting him they raised themselves.
Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound And sober judgment that he is but man, They demi-deify and fume him so That in due season he forgets it too.
Inflated and astrut with self-conceit He gulps the windy diet, and ere long, Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks The world was made in vain if not for him.
Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, born To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears, And sweating in his service. His caprice Becomes the soul that animates them all.
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, Spent in the purchase of renown for him An easy reckoning, and they think the same.
Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings Were burnished into heroes, and became The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and died.
Strange that such folly, as lifts bloated man To eminence fit only for a god, Should ever drivel out of human lips, Even in the cradled weakness of the world!
Still stranger much, that when at length mankind Had reached the sinewy firmness of their youth, And could discriminate and argue well On subjects more mysterious, they were yet Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear And quake before the gods themselves had made.
But above measure strange, that neither proof Of sad experience, nor examples set By some whose patriot virtue has prevailed, Can even now, when they are grown mature In wisdom, and with philosophic deeps Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest!
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To reverence what is ancient, and can plead A course of long observance for its use, That even servitude, the worst of ills, Because delivered down from sire to son, Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
But is it fit, or can it bear the shock Of rational discussion, that a man, Compounded and made up like other men Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust And folly in as ample measure meet, As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, Should be a despot absolute, and boast Himself the only freeman of his land?
