Remonstrance addressed to Wm. Cowper, Esq.

“I would not enter on my list of friends,
“Tho’ grac’d with polish’d manners,” tho’ endow’d
With talents destin’d to immortal fame,
But wanting generosity, the man
Who darts the blighting of satiric wit,
Lanc’d from a spleenful heart, or sullen weaves
The dark anathemas of Calvin’s school
Against a nation’s praise, its grateful praise,
Pour’d for the assiduous culture of those gifts
Bestow’d by Heaven,--not on the general mind,
But on the chosen Few, ordain’d to prove
In what full portion to the human soul
God can impart intelligence; the rays
Destin’d to stream from their eternal source
Through future ages. O’er each feeling heart
Shed they not transport which allays each ill,
Sickness, and pain, and sorrow; lift the mind,
Seating its pleasures high, till waste expense
And frivolous pursuits, fatigue or pall,
While all the grosser train of sensual joys
Prove vapid as they are guilty?--Read we not
On Inspiration’s page, “Who loves not man
Whom he hath seen, how should he love his GOD,
Yet unbeheld?” So he, who would repress
The fervent tribute of each thankful heart
For true delights and pure, receiv’d from Man,
May fear his MAKER, but will never know
The nobler piety, that fits the soul
For happiness and HEAVEN. O! wintry Spirit,
Hurling thine icy bolt of sarcasm
Against the loveliest and most generous rites
That e’er an honest, grateful nation paid
At the bright shrine of Genius! Look’st thou back
With grudging eyes on those applausive hours
When Poesy and Music, with twin’d arms,
Attended jubilant?--to Avon’s bank
From the remotest confines of our isle,
Her silver shores, and mast-aspiring towns,
Her tower’d cities and her villa’d hills,
Her lakes, her rivers, and her golden vales,
Summon’d those glowing votaries, who with hearts
Exulting in their country’s proudest boast,
And by the patriot passion taller grown,
Stood tiptoe on Avona’s brink, and there
Strew’d all the rifled Summer’s bloomy stores;
The incense of the warmer Orient toss’d;
Pour’d in loud pæans the triumphant song,
And from the cup, carv’d from the hallow’d tree,
Sprinkled the bright libation; tree, that fell
At the harsh dictate of a kindred mind,
Kindred in spleen, though much unlike in power,
To thine, Misanthropist! Nor singly rose
This murmur, cold and dreary as the rill
That ink-like huddles through the russet moor,
Powerless to fertilize. Lo! in a strain
Fanatic and illiberal as the lay
Maligning Avon’s festival, thou scorn’st
Thy country, marshalling in holy shrines
The harmonic strength of Europe, to fulfil
The great designs Briarean Handel plann’d;
That mighty, matchless German, who attun’d
His lyre seraphic to thy native tongue!--
Thou heard’st with grudging and disgusted ear
Those great designs attain’d, when, thro’ the aisles
Of the vast ancient fane, in torrents burst
Those floods of harmony, that lift the soul
Upon their swelling and tumultuous waves
Up to the Throne of God.--O! what is Virtue,
If praise of those, who thus their talents ten
Ardent improv’d, is folly, or is vice?

Nor only on the wreaths for Genius twined
Fall the deep shadows of this Cynic spleen;
Mark how ungenerous the beauteous strain
Closes, that sings the desolate of heart,
Forlorn OMAI, on his native hills
Wandering, with eyes that search the watry waste
“For sight of ship from England!”--why pollute
Thy lovely requiem to his vanish’d joys
With heartless taunt on the illustrious band
That led him hither, and restor’d him back,
At his kind, natural wish, that nobly sprung
From patriot love, too probably, alas!
Requited ill, and pregnant with the pangs
Of fruitless, stung regret. Was it for gain
That those illustrious Chiefs, with daring hand,
Rais’d the pale curtains of the southern Pole?--
Loth as thou art to credit human worth,
O! Bard unjust! thou know’st that not for gold,
Gems, or false glory, they explor’d and brav’d
Climes dangerous and unknown; but to diffuse
The blessings mild of cultivated life
Amid the perilous and lonely haunts
Of the lugubrious savage, straying slow,
Silent and comfortless, o’er pathless wastes
Torrid, or frore. Thus on the worth, that rose
Its nation’s honour, thy immortal muse,
Which should record it to succeeding times,
For the bright, fostering dews of just applause,
Sheds cankerous scorn. And was it not enough
To impute to every wild and idle weed
Of human frailty, such envenom’d juice
As slowly circles through thy latent veins,
Death-giving hemlock?--Was not that enough,
Without enlisting a much favour’d muse
Against Just Praise, the spur of great designs,
And O! twice blest, like Mercy? Was thy lyre
Thus highly gifted for such warfare rude?
For notes, O! how unlike the strains that stole
From the sweet harp of Jesse’s pitying son,
Before whose kind, assuasive, melting tones
Flew the despair which spread her raven-wing
O’er the sunk spirit of Saul!--Thee, Bard morose,
Churlish amid thy fancy’s golden stores,
Thee will I teach, censorious as thou art,
What is not Virtue. Listen to my verse;
Confute it if thou canst;--if not, admit
The force of Truth, though rushing from a lyre
Less richly strung, less solemn than thine own!

It was not--is not--and can ne’er be virtue,
Merely from terror to abstain from vice;
Merely to sigh for sufferings, which result
From proud unfeeling Man’s abuse of power,
Careless, or rancorous;--nor yet to seize
The rod of indignation, to chastise
The vanities and follies of mankind
With that asperity, which ill becomes
A fellow-mortal frail.--’Tis not to check,
With cynic sneer, that fervour of the soul,
Which, grateful for the transport Genius gives,
Praises the unwearied culture of its powers,
GOD’s gift magnificent. No, sacred Virtue,
These constitute thee not;--for O ’tis thine
With soft compassion’s pleading eye to look,
And with benign allowance, on each fault
Not wearing crime’s dark hue, though thee thyself
No such weak errors taint. It is to hope
Much from the mercy of a parent judge
On him he made so frail.--It is to know
That all thou see’st of selfish, light, and vain,
Far less of sin possesses, than the pride,
Rigid and drear, which shuts the censor’s heart
Against construction charitable; against
Tender indulgence.--’Tis to love, applaud,
And emulate, whatever has its rise
In glad fraternal kindness, and the power
Of gratitude, dispersing by its glow
Envy, and Hate, and Fear, which darkling roam
That man’s cold mind, who feels another’s right
To Fame’s bright wreath, yet brings no votive flower.

Now, if disdainful of my humble verse,
It soften not the Satirist’s marble breast,
O! may he listen to an higher strain,
A strain of Inspiration, and it breathes
No precept hostile to my lays!--but list,
List, I adjure thee! since it much imports
Thy welfare temporal, and eternal!--try
The censures harsh of thy stern muse, who oft
As with the tongue of missive angels speaks,
Try them by test unerring, by the Voice
Which sounding brass and tinkling cimbal call’d
The human, and angelic strains combin’d,
If wanting Charity;--there should they fail,
Thy censures harsh to that pure ordeal brought,
Reform them, and grow social, just, and kind,
Reform them, and be happy!--With firm hand
Disroot thy bosom’s hemlock!--there it grows,
Dark spots denote the weed, illiberal spleen,
Adverse to praise, however nobly earn’d,
Where latent hope of a reward on high
Prompts not its fervour; sullen, bigot-pride,
Hating for errors, less perhaps than thine.

Since on that anxious and indignant brow
Genius has long her amaranthine crown
Exulting placed, may they, who hold their torch
High o’er the paths of Peace, Daughters of Heaven,
Star-pointing Hope, and meek-voic’d Charity,
Clear that gloom’d brow, illume those eyes severe,
Solicitous, and sad!--O, clasp the veil
Mild Charity extends, of sky-wove grain,
Blessing the hand, which gently lets it fall
Upon a brother’s frailty! From thy hand
When thus it may descend, immortal Hope
Shall, with her silver anchor, thy void grasp
Smiling supply, and, upward soaring, chase
Terror’s black clouds, and to thy gladden’d view
Disclose the realms of Everlasting Light!