Classic Poem

A Poem

Since men like beasts each other's prey were made,
Since trade began, and priesthood grew a trade,
Since realms were formed, none sure so cursed as those
That madly their own happiness oppose;
There heaven itself and godlike kings in vain
Shower down the manna of a gentle reign,
While pampered crowds to mad sedition run,
And monarchs by indulgence are undone.
Thus David's clemency was fatal grown,
While wealthy faction awed the wanting throne.
For now their sov'reign's orders to contemn
Was held the charter of Jerusalem;
His rights t' invade, his tributes to refuse
A privilege peculiar to the Jews,
As if from heavenly call this licence fell,
And Jacob's seed were chosen to rebel!
Achitophel with triumph sees his crimes
Thus suited to the madness of the times;
And Absalom, to make his hopes succeed,
Of flattering charms no longer stands in need;
While fond of change, though ne'er so dearly bought,
Our tribes outstrip the youth's ambitious thought;
His swiftest hopes with swifter homage meet,
And crowd their servile necks beneath his feet.
Thus to his aid while pressing tides repair,
He mounts and spreads his streamers in the air.
The charms of empire might his youth mislead,
But what can our besotted Israel plead?
Swayed by a monarch whose serene command
Seems half the blessing of our promised land,
Whose only grievance is excess of ease,
Freedom our pain, and plenty our disease!
Yet, as all folly would lay claim to sense,
And wickedness ne'er wanted a pretence,
With arguments they'd make their treason good,
And righteous David's self with slanders load:
That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites from law protect,
Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed;
Nay, we have seen their sacrificers bleed!
Accusers' infamy is urged in vain,
While in the bounds of sense they did contain,
But soon they launched into th' unfathomed tide,
And in the depths they knew disdained to ride;
For probable discoveries to dispense
Was thought below a pensioned evidence;
Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pampered Corah, when advanced to court.
No less than wonders now they will impose,
And projects void of grace or sense disclose.
Such was the charge on pious Michal brought,
Michal that ne'er was cruel e'en in thought,
The best of queens, and most obedient wife,
Impeached of cursed designs on David's life!
His life, the theme of her eternal prayer,
'Tis scarce so much his guardian angel's care.
Not summer morns such mildness can disclose,
The Hermon lily nor the Sharon rose.
Neglecting each vain pomp of majesty,
Transported Michal feeds her thoughts on high.
She lives with angels, and as angels do
Quits heaven sometimes to bless the world below,
Where cherished by her bounty's plenteous spring
Reviving widows smile, and orphans sing.
O! when rebellious Israel's crimes at height
Are threatened with her Lord's approaching fate,
The piety of Michal then remain
In heaven's remembrance, and prolong his reign.
Less desolation did the pest pursue
That from Dan's limits to Beersheba slew;
Less fatal the repeated wars of Tyre,
And less Jerusalem's avenging fire.
With gentler terror these our state o'erran
Than since our evidencing days began!
On every cheek a pale confusion sat,
Continued fear beyond the worst of fate!
Trust was no more, art, science useless made,
All occupations lost but Corah's trade.
Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state.
Well might he deem each peer and prince his slave,
And lord it o'er the tribes which he could save:
E'en vice in him was virtue — what sad fate
But for his honesty had seized our state?
And with what tyranny had we been cursed
Had Corah never proved a villain first?
T' have told his knowledge of th' intrigue in gross
Had been alas to our deponent's loss:
The travelled Levite had th' experience got
To husband well and make the best of's plot;
And therefore like an evidence of skill
With wise reserves secured his pension still;
Nor quite of future power himself bereft,
But limbos large for unbelievers left.
And now his writ such reverence had got
'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot.
Some were so well convinced they made no doubt
Themselves to help the foundered swearers out;
Some had their sense imposed on by their fear,
But more for int'rest sake believe and swear.
E'en to that height with some the frenzy grew,
They raged to find their danger not prove true.
Yet than all these a viler crew remain,
Who with Achitophel the cry maintain;
Not urged by fear, nor through misguided sense,
(Blind zeal and starving need had some pretence)
But for the Good Old Cause that did excite
Th' original rebels' wiles, revenge and spite;
These raise the plot to have the scandal thrown
Upon the bright successor of the crown,
Whose virtue with such wrongs they had pursued
As seemed all hope of pardon to exclude.
Thus while on private ends their zeal is built
The cheated crowd applaud and share their guilt.
Such practices as these, too gross to lie
Long unobserved by each discerning eye,
The more judicious Israelites unspelled,
Though still the charm the giddy rabble held.
Ev'n Absalom amidst the dazzling beams
Of empire, and ambition's flattering dreams,
Perceives the plot (too foul to be excused)
To aid designs no less pernicious used;
And, filial sense yet striving in his breast,
Thus to Achitophel his doubts expressed:
" Why are my thoughts upon a crown employed,
Which once obtained, can be but half enjoyed?
Not so when virtue did my arms require,
And to my father's wars I flew entire.
My regal power how will my foes resent,
When I myself have scarce my own consent?
Give me a son's unblemished truth again,
Or quench the sparks of duty that remain.
How slight to force a throne that legions guard
The task to me; to prove unjust, how hard!
And if th' imagined guilt thus wound my thought,
What will it when the tragic scene is wrought?
Dire war must first be conjured from below:
The realm we'd rule we first must overthrow.
And when the civil furies are on wing
That blind and undistinguished slaughters fling,
Who knows what impious chance may reach the King?
O rather let me perish in the strife
Than have my crown the price of David's life!
Or if the tempest of the war he stand,
In peace some vile officious villain's hand
His soul's anointed temple may invade;
Or, pressed by clamorous crowds, myself be made
His murtherer — rebellious crowds, whose guilt
Shall dread his vengeance till his blood be spilt:
Which if my filial tenderness oppose,
Since to the empire by their arms I rose,
Those very arms on me shall be employed,
A new usurper crowned, and I destroyed.
The same pretence of public good will hold,
And new Achitophels be found, as bold
To urge the needful change — perhaps the old."
He said. The statesman with a smile replies
(A smile that did his rising spleen disguise):
" My thoughts presumed our labours at an end,
And are we still with conscience to contend?
Whose want in kings as needful is allowed
As 'tis for them to find it in the crowd.
Far in the doubtful passage you are gone,
And only can be safe by pressing on.
The crown's true heir, a Prince severe and wise,
Has viewed your motions long with jealous eyes,
Your person's charms, your more prevailing arts,
And marked your progress in the people's hearts;
Whose patience is th' effect of stinted power,
But treasures vengeance for the fatal hour;
And if remote the peril he can bring,
Your present danger's greater from the King.
Let not a parent's name deceive your sense,
Nor trust the father in a jealous Prince!
Your trivial faults if he could so resent
To doom you little less than banishment,
What rage must your presumption since inspire,
Against his orders your return from Tyre?
Nor only so, but with a pomp more high
And open court of popularity,
The factious tribes' — " And this reproof from thee?",
The Prince replies, " O statesman's winding skill,
They first condemn that first advised the ill!"
" Illustrious youth", returned Achitophel,
" Misconstrue not the words that mean you well.
The course you steer I worthy blame conclude,
But 'tis because you leave it unpursued.
A monarch's crown with fate surrounded lies,
Who reach lay hold on death that miss the prize.
Did you for this expose yourself to show,
And to the crowd bow popularly low?
For this your glorious progress next ordain,
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train,
With fame before you like the morning star,
And shouts of joy saluting from afar?
O from the heights you've reached but take a view,
Scarce leading Lucifer could fall like you!
And must I here my shipwracked arts bemoan?
Have I for this so oft made Israel groan,
Your single int'rest with the nation weighed,
And turned the scale where your desires were laid?
Ev'n when at helm a course so dang'rous moved
To land your hopes, as my removal proved."
" I not dispute", the royal youth replies,
" The known perfection of your policies,
Nor in Achitophel yet grudge or blame
The privilege that statesmen ever claim,
Who private int'rest never yet pursued,
But still pretended 'twas for others' good.
What politician yet e'er scaped his fate,
Who saving his own neck not saved the state?
From hence on every hum'rous wind that veered
With shifted sails a several course you steered.
What form of sway did David e'er pursue
That seemed like absolute, but sprung from you?
Who at your instance quashed each penal law
That kept dissenting factious Jews in awe;
And who suspends fixed laws may abrogate;
That done, form new, and so enslave the state.
Ev'n property, whose champion now you stand,
And seem for this the idol of the land,
Did ne'er sustain such violence before
As when your counsel shut the royal store:
Advice that ruin to whole tribes procured,
But secret kept till your own bank's secured.
Recount with this the triple cov'nant broke,
And Israel fitted for a foreign yoke.
Nor here your counsel's fatal progress stayed,
But sent our levied powers to Pharaoh's aid.
Hence Tyre and Israel low in ruins laid,
And Egypt, once their scorn, their common terror made.
Ev'n yet of such a season we can dream
When royal rights you made your darling theme,
For power unlimited could reasons draw,
And place prerogative above the law;
Which on your fall from office grew unjust,
The laws made king, the King a slave in trust,
Whom with statecraft, to int'rest only true,
You now accuse of ills contrived by you."
To this hell's agent: " Royal youth fix here;
Let int'rest be the star by which I steer.
Hence to repose your trust in me was wise,
Whose int'rest most in your advancement lies;
A tie so firm as always will avail
When friendship, nature and religion fail.
On ours the safety of the crowd depends:
Secure the crowd and we obtain our ends,
Whom I will cause so far our guilt to share
Till they are made our champions by their fear.
What opposition can your rival bring
While Sanhedrins are jealous of the King?
His strength as yet in David's friendship lies,
And what can David's self without supplies?
Who with exclusive bills must now dispense,
Debar the heir, or starve in his defence:
Conditions which our elders ne'er will quit,
And David's justice never can admit.
Or forced by wants his brother to betray,
To your ambition next he clears the way;
For if succession once to nought they bring,
Their next advance removes the present King:
Persisting else his senates to dissolve,
In equal hazard shall his reign involve.
Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms,
Shall rise without their Prince t' oppose his arms;
Nor boots it on what cause at first they join,
Their troops once up are tools for our design.
At least such subtle covenants shall be made
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Associations of mysterious sense
Against, but seeming for, the King's defence,
Ev'n on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.
By which, a conquest if we fail to make,
'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake."
He said; and for the dire success depends
On various sects, by common guilt made friends,
Whose heads, though ne'er so diff'ring in their creed,
I' th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
'Mongst these, extorting Ishban first appears,
Pursued b' a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs.
Blessed times, when Ishban, he whose occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ishban of conscience suited to his trade,
As good a saint as usurer e'er made.
Yet Mammon has not so engrossed him quite
But Belial lays as large a claim of spite;
Who for those pardons from his Prince he draws
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did sway
He left rebellion in a hopeful way.
Yet his ambition once was found so bold
To offer talents of extorted gold,
Could David's wants have so been bribed to shame
And scandalise our peerage with his name;
For which his dear sedition he'd forswear,
And e'en turn loyal to be made a peer.
Next him let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;
A saint that can both flesh and spirit use,
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews;
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i' th' preacher's or the bawd's arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
" Double our guards", he cries, " we are undone."
Protesting that he dares not sleep in's bed
" Lest he should rise next morn without his head."
Next these a troop of busy spirits press,
Of little fortunes, and of conscience less;
With them the tribe whose luxury had drained
Their banks, in former sequestrations gained;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some future hopes, some present payment draws,
To sell their conscience and espouse the cause;
Such stipends those vile hirelings best befit,
Priests without grace, and poets without wit.
Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse,
Judas that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;
Judas that pays the treason-writer's fee,
Judas that well deserves his namesake's tree;
Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects;
Young prophets with an early care secures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures.
What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Israel's promised land have you?
Here Phaleg the lay Hebronite is come,
'Cause like the rest he could not live at home;
Who from his own possessions could not drain
An omer ev'n of Hebronitish grain;
Here struts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injured subjects, altered property;
An emblem of that buzzing insect just
That mounts the wheel and thinks she raises dust.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldizing juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and at the table fed
Returned the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting man to trav'lling nobles chose,
He his own laws would saucily impose,
Till bastinadoed back again he went
To learn those manners he to teach was sent.
Chastised he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Absalom:
For never Hebronite, though kicked and scorned,
To his own country willingly returned.
But leaving famished Phaleg to be fed
And to talk treason for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let hell produce a man
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan.
A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree:
His pride no higher than the desk aspired,
But for the drudgery of priests was hired
To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up single shekels from the grave.
Married at last, and finding charge come faster,
He could not live by God, but changed his master;
Inspired by want was made a factious tool,
They got a villain and we lost a fool.
Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forsook;
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.
So this prose-prophet took most monstrous pains
To let his masters see he earned his gains.
But as the dev'l owes all his imps a shame,
He chose th' apostate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflection took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;
To trace 'em from their infancy of sinning,
And show 'em factious from their first beginning;
To prove they could rebel, and rail and mock,
Much to the credit of the chosen flock;
A strong authority, which must convince
That saints own no allegiance to their Prince:
As 'tis a leading-card to make a whore,
To prove her mother had turned up before.
But tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The son that showed his father's nakedness?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was so primitive.
Must ancient failings be examples made?
Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.
As thou the heathen and the saint hast drawn,
Methinks th' apostate was the better man,
And thy hot father (waiving my respect)
Not of a mother church, but of a sect.
And such he needs must be of thy inditing;
This comes of drinking ass's milk and writing.
If Balack should be called to leave his place
(As profit is the loudest call of grace)
His temple, dispossessed of one, would be
Replenished with seven devils more by thee.
Levi, thou art a load, I'll lay thee down,
And show rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below ev'n David's psalms translated.
Some in my speedy pace I must outrun,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son:
To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox,
And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse,
Who by my Muse to all succeeding times
Shall live, in spite of their own doggerel rhymes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;
Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And in one word, heroically mad.
He was too warm on picking work to dwell,
But faggotted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhymed and rattled all was well.
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill nature;
He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink.
If he call " rogue" and " rascal" from a garret
He means you no more mischief than a parrot.
The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter 'em in verse is all his trade.
For almonds he'll cry " whore" to his own mother,
And call young Absalom King David's brother.
Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant.
Hanging supposes human soul and reason;
This animal's below committing treason.
Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman that committed buggery
Was rightly sentenced by the law to die,
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog that never heard the statute read.
Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him.
Instinct he follows, and no farther knows,
For to write verse with him is to transprose.
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who " makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key".
Let him rail on, let his invective Muse
Have four and twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is we know
But to be master of a puppet show:
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight-work to come,
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.
Round as a globe, and liquored every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link;
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch that is not fool is rogue:
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spewed to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme
He curses God, but God before cursed him;
And if man could have reason, none has more
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That ev'n on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though heaven made him poor (with rev'rence speaking)
He never was a poet of God's making.
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull
With this prophetic blessing: " Be thou dull."
Drink, swear and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk, do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity — but for the pen.
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou may'st live avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason botched in rhyme will be thy bane.
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good King David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Dar'st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou whom the penny pamphlet foiled in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade;
Doeg to thee — thy paintings are so coarse —
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull
For writing treason, and for writing dull:
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy King expressed,
Thy praises had been satire at the best;
But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's Anointed.
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of King David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom;
And for my foes may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee.
Achitophel each rank, degree and age
For various ends neglects not to engage;
The wise and rich for purse and counsel brought,
The fools and beggars for their number sought:
Who yet not only on the town depends,
For ev'n in court the faction had its friends.
These thought the places they possessed too small,
And in their hearts wished court and King to fall;
Whose names the Muse disdaining holds i' th' dark,
Thrust in the villain herd without a mark,
With parasites and libel-spawning imps,
Intriguing fops, dull jesters and worse pimps.
Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
Their set cabals are yet a viler crew;
See where involved in common smoke they sit,
Some for our mirth, some for our satire fit.
These gloomy, thoughtful and on mischief bent,
While those for mere good fellowship frequent
Th' appointed club, can let sedition pass,
Sense, nonsense, anything t' employ the glass;
And who believe in their dull, honest hearts
The rest talk treason but to show their parts,
Who ne'er had wit or will for mischief yet,
But pleased to be reputed of a set.
But in the sacred annals of our Plot,
Industrious Arod never be forgot:
The labours of this midnight-magistrate
May vie with Corah's to preserve the state;
In search of arms he failed not to lay hold
On war's most powerful, dang'rous weapon, gold;
And last, to take from Jebusites all odds,
Their altars pillaged, stole their very gods.
Oft would he cry, when treasure he surprised,
" 'Tis Baalish gold in David's coin disguised",
Which to his house with richer relicts came,
While lumber idols only fed the flame;
For our wise rabble ne'er took pains t' enquire
What 'twas he burnt, so 't made a rousing fire;
With which our elder was enriched no more
Than false Gehazi with the Syrian's store:
So poor that when our choosing tribes were met
Ev'n for his stinking votes he ran in debt;
For meat the wicked, and as authors think
The saints he choused for his electing drink.
Thus every shift and subtle method passed,
And all to be no Zaken at the last.
Now, raised on Tyre's sad ruins, Pharaoh's pride
Soared high, his legions threat'ning far and wide;
As when a batt'ring storm engendered high
By winds upheld hangs hov'ring in the sky,
Is gazed upon by every trembling swain,
This for his vineyard fears, and that his grain;
For blooming plants and flowers new opening, these
For lambs eaned lately, and far-lab'ring bees;
To guard his stock each to the gods does call,
Uncertain where the fire-charged clouds will fall:
Ev'n so the doubtful nations watch his arms,
With terror each expecting his alarms.
Where Judah, where was now thy lion's roar?
Thou only couldst the captive lands restore;
But thou with inbred broils and faction pressed
From Egypt need'st a guardian with the rest.
Thy Prince from Sanhedrins no trust allowed,
Too much the representers of the crowd,
Who for their own defence give no supply
But what the crown's prerogatives must buy:
As if their monarch's rights to violate
More needful were than to preserve the state!
From present dangers they divert their care,
And all their fears are of the royal heir,
Whom now the reigning malice of his foes
Unjudged would sentence, and ere crowned depose.
Religion the pretence, but their decree
To bar his reign whate'er his faith shall be!
By Sanhedrins and clam'rous crowds thus pressed,
What passions rent the righteous David's breast,
Who knows not how t' oppose, or to comply,
Unjust to grant, and dangerous to deny!
How near in this dark juncture Israel's fate,
Whose peace one sole expedient could create,
Which yet th' extremest virtue did require,
Ev'n of that Prince whose downfall they conspire!
His absence David does with tears advise;
T' appease their rage, undaunted he complies;
Thus he who prodigal of blood and ease
A royal life exposed to winds and seas,
At once contending with the waves and fire,
And heading danger in the wars of Tyre,
Inglorious now forsakes his native sand,
And like an exile quits the promised land.
Our monarch scarce from pressing tears refrains,
And painfully his royal state maintains,
Who now embracing on th' extremest shore
Almost revokes what he enjoined before;
Concludes at last more trust to be allowed
To storms and seas than to the raging crowd.
Forbear, rash Muse, the parting scene to draw,
With silence charmed as deep as theirs that saw!
Not only our attending nobles weep,
But hardy sailors swell with tears the deep.
The tide restrained her course, and more amazed
The twin stars on the royal brothers gazed,
While this sole fear — —
Does trouble to our suff'ring hero bring
Lest next the popular rage oppress the King.
Thus parting, each for th' other's danger grieved,
The shore the King, and seas the Prince received.
Go, injured hero, while propitious gales
Soft as thy consort's breath inspire thy sails;
Well may she trust her beauties on a flood,
Where thy triumphant fleets so oft have rode!
Safe on thy breast reclined, her rest be deep,
Rocked like a Nereid by the waves asleep,
While happiest dreams her fancy entertain,
And to Elysian fields convert the main.
Go, injured hero, while the shores of Tyre
At thy approach so silent shall admire,
Who on thy thunder still their thoughts employ,
And greet thy landing with a trembling joy.
On heroes thus the prophet's fate is thrown,
Admired by every nation but their own;
Yet while our factious Jews his worth deny,
Their aching conscience gives their tongue the lie.
Ev'n in the worst of men the noblest parts
Confess him, and he triumphs in their hearts,
Whom to his King the best respects commend
Of subject, soldier, kinsman, prince and friend:
All sacred names of most divine esteem,
And to perfection all sustained by him.
Wise, just and constant, courtly without art,
Swift to discern and to reward desert;
No hour of his in fruitless ease destroyed,
But on the noblest subjects still employed;
Whose steady soul ne'er learned to separate
Between his monarch's int'rest and the state,
But heaps those blessings on the royal head
Which he well knows must be on subjects shed.
On what pretence could then the vulgar rage
Against his worth and native rights engage?
Religious fears their argument are made,
Religious fears his sacred rights invade!
Of future superstition they complain,
And Jebusitic worship in his reign;
With such alarms his foes the crowd deceive,
With dangers fright which not themselves believe.
Since nothing can our sacred rites remove
Whate'er the faith of the successor prove,
Our Jews their ark shall undisturbed retain,
At least while their religion is their gain;
Who know by old experience Baal's commands
Not only claimed their conscience but their lands.
They grutch God's tithes; how therefore shall they yield
An idol full possession of the field?
Grant such a Prince enthroned, we must confess
The people's suff'rings than that monarch's less,
Who must to hard conditions still be bound,
And for his quiet with the crowd compound.
Or should his thoughts to tyranny incline,
Where are the means to compass the design?
Our crown's revenues are too short a store,
And jealous Sanhedrins would give no more!
As vain our fears of Egypt's potent aid;
Not so has Pharaoh learned ambition's trade,
Nor ever with such measures can comply
As shock the common rules of policy;
None dread like him the growth of Israel's King,
And he alone sufficient aids can bring;
Who knows that Prince to Egypt can give law,
That on our stubborn tribes his yoke could draw,
At such profound expense he has not stood,
Nor dyed for this his hands so deep in blood;
Would ne'er through wrong and right his progress take,
Grudge his own rest, and keep the world awake,
To fix a lawless prince on Judah's throne,
First to invade our rights, and then his own;
His dear-gained conquests cheaply to despoil,
And reap the harvest of his crimes and toil.
We grant his wealth vast as our ocean's sand,
And curse its fatal influence on our land,
Which our bribed Jews so num'rously partake
That ev'n an host his pensioners would make.
From these deceivers our divisions spring,
Our weakness, and the growth of Egypt's King;
These with pretended friendship to the state
Our crowd's suspicion of their Prince create,
Both pleased and frightened with the specious cry
To guard their sacred rights and property;
To ruin thus the chosen flock are sold
While wolves are ta'en for guardians of the fold;
Seduced by these we groundlessly complain,
And loathe the manna of a gentle reign.
Thus our forefathers' crooked paths are trod,
We trust our Prince no more than they their God.
But all in vain our reasoning prophets preach
To those whom sad experience ne'er could teach,
Who can commence new broils in bleeding scars,
And fresh remembrance of intestine wars;
When the same household mortal foes did yield,
And brothers stained with brothers' blood the field;
When sons' cursed steel the fathers' gore did stain,
And mothers mourned for sons by fathers slain!
When thick as Egypt's locusts on the sand
Our tribes lay slaughtered through the promised land,
Whose few survivors with worse fate remain
To drag the bondage of a tyrant's reign;
Which scene of woes unknowing we renew,
And madly ev'n those ills we fear pursue,
While Pharaoh laughs at our domestic broils,
And safely crowds his tents with nations' spoils.
Yet our fierce Sanhedrin in restless rage
Against our absent hero still engage,
And chiefly urge (such did their frenzy prove)
The only suit their Prince forbids to move;
Which till obtained they cease affairs of state,
And real dangers waive for groundless hate.
Long David's patience waits relief to bring
With all th' indulgence of a lawful king,
Expecting till the troubled waves would cease
But found the raging billows still increase.
The crowd, whose insolence forbearance swells,
While he forgives too far, almost rebels.
At last his deep resentments silence broke,
Th' imperial palace shook, while thus he spoke:
" Then Justice wake, and Rigour take her time,
For lo! our mercy is become our crime.
While halting Punishment her stroke delays,
Our sov'reign right, heaven's sacred trust, decays;
For whose support ev'n subjects' interest calls,
Woe to that kingdom where the monarch falls.
That Prince who yields the least of regal sway
So far his people's freedom does betray.
Right lives by law, and law subsists by power,
Disarm the shepherd, wolves the flock devour.
Hard lot of empire o'er a stubborn race
Which heaven itself in vain has tried with grace.
When will our reason's long-charmed eyes unclose,
And Israel judge between her friends and foes?
When shall we see expired deceivers' sway,
And credit what our God and monarchs say?
Dissembled patriots bribed with Egypt's gold
Ev'n Sanhedrins in blind obedience hold;
Those patriots' falsehood in their actions see,
And judge by the pernicious fruit the tree.
If aught for which so loudly they declaim —
Religion, laws and freedom — were their aim,
Our senates in due methods they had led,
T' avoid those mischiefs which they seemed to dread;
But first, ere yet they propped the sinking state,
T' impeach and charge as urged by private hate
Proves that they ne'er believed the fears they pressed,
But barb'rously destroyed the nation's rest.
O whither will ungoverned senates drive,
And to what bounds licentious votes arrive?
When their injustice we are pressed to share,
The monarch urged t' exclude the lawful heir.
Are princes thus distinguished from the crowd,
And this the privilege of royal blood?
But grant we should confirm the wrongs they press,
His sufferings yet were than the people's less;
Condemned for life the murd'ring sword to wield,
And on their heirs entail a bloody field:
Thus madly their own freedom they betray,
And for th' oppression which they fear make way;
Succession fixed by heaven the kingdom's bar
Which once dissolved admits the flood of war;
Waste, rapine, spoil without th' assault begin,
And our mad tribes supplant the fence within.
Since then their good they will not understand,
'Tis time to take the monarch's power in hand,
Authority and force to join with skill
And save the lunatics against their will.
The same rough means that swage the crowd appease
Our senates, raging with the crowd's disease.
Henceforth unbiassed measures let 'em draw
From no false gloss, but genuine text of law;
Nor urge those crimes upon religion's score
Themselves so much in Jebusites abhor.
Whom laws convict, and only they, shall bleed,
Nor pharisees by pharisees be freed.
Impartial justice from our throne shall shower,
All shall have right, and we our sov'reign power."
He said; th' attendants heard with awful joy,
And glad presages their fixed thoughts employ.
From Hebron now the suffering heir returned,
A realm that long with civil discord mourned,
Till his approach, like some arriving god,
Composed and healed the place of his abode,
The deluge checked that to Judaea spread,
And stopped sedition at the fountain's head.
Thus in forgiving David's paths he drives,
And chased from Israel, Israel's peace contrives.
The field confessed his power in arms before,
And seas proclaimed his triumphs to the shore;
As nobly has his sway in Hebron shown
How fit t' inherit godlike David's throne.
Through Zion's streets his glad arrivals spread,
And conscious faction shrinks her snaky head;
His train their sufferings think o'erpaid, to see
The crowd's applause with virtue once agree.
Success charms all, but zeal for worth distressed
A virtue proper to the brave and best;
'Mongst whom was Jothran, Jothran always bent
To serve the crown, and loyal by descent;
Whose constancy so firm, and conduct just
Deserved at once two royal masters' trust;
Who Tyre's proud arms had manfully withstood
On seas, and gathered laurels from the flood;
Of learning yet no portion was denied,
Friend to the Muses, and the Muses' pride.
Nor can Benaiah's worth forgotten lie,
Of steady soul when public storms were high;
Whose conduct while the Moor fierce onsets made
Secured at once our honour and our trade.
Such were the chiefs who most his suff'rings mourned,
And viewed with silent joy the Prince returned;
While those that sought his absence to betray
Press first their nauseous false respects to pay:
Him still th' officious hypocrites molest,
And with malicious duty break his rest.
While real transports thus his friends employ,
And foes are loud in their dissembled joy,
His triumphs so resounded far and near
Missed not his young ambitious rival's ear;
And as when joyful hunters' clam'rous train
Some slumb'ring lion wakes in Moab's plain,
Who oft had forced the bold assailants yield,
And scattered his pursuers through the field,
Disdaining furls his mane, and tears the ground,
His eyes inflaming all the desert round,
With roar of seas directs his chasers' way,
Provokes from far, and dares them to the fray:
Such rage stormed now in Absalom's fierce breast,
Such indignation his fired eyes confessed;
Where now was the instructor of his pride?
Slept the old pilot in so rough a tide,
Whose wiles had from the happy shore betrayed
And thus on shelves the cred'lous youth conveyed?
In deep revolving thoughts he weighs his state,
Secure of craft, nor doubts to baffle fate;
At least, if his stormed bark must go adrift
To baulk his charge, and for himself to shift;
In which his dext'rous wit had oft been shown,
And in the wreck of kingdoms saved his own;
But now with more than common danger pressed,
Of various resolutions stands possessed,
Perceives the crowd's unstable zeal decay,
Lest their recanting chief the cause betray,
Who on a father's grace his hopes may ground,
And for his pardon with their heads compound.
Him therefore, ere his Fortune slip her time,
The statesman plots t' engage in some bold crime
Past pardon, whether to attempt his bed,
Or threat with open arms the royal head,
Or other daring method, and unjust
That may confirm him in the people's trust.
But failing thus t' ensnare him, nor secure
How long his foiled ambition may endure,
Plots next to lay him by, as past his date,
And try some new pretender's luckier fate;
Whose hopes with equal toil he would pursue,
Nor cares what claimer's crowned, except the true.
Wake Absalom, approaching ruin shun,
And see, O see for whom thou art undone!
How are thy honours and thy fame betrayed,
The property of desp'rate villains made!
Lost power and conscious fears their crimes create,
And guilt in them was little less than fate;
But why shouldst thou, from every grievance free,
Forsake thy vineyards for their stormy sea?
For thee did Canaan's milk and honey flow,
Love dressed thy bowers, and laurels sought thy brow;
Preferment, wealth and power thy vassals were,
And of a monarch all things but the care.
O should our crimes again that curse draw down
And rebel arms once more attempt the crown,
Sure ruin waits unhappy Absalon,
Alike by conquest or defeat undone.
Who could relentless see such youth and charms
Expire with wretched fate in impious arms,
A Prince so formed with earth's and heaven's applause
To triumph o'er crowned heads in David's cause?
Or grant him victor, still his hopes must fail,
Who conquering would not for himself prevail;
The faction whom he trusts for future sway
Him and the public would alike betray,
Amongst themselves divide the captive state,
And found their hydra-empire in his fate.
Thus having beat the clouds with painful flight,
The pitied youth with sceptres in his sight
(So have their cruel politics decreed)
Must by that crew that made him guilty bleed!
For could their pride brook any prince's sway,
Whom but mild David would they choose t' obey?
Who once at such a gentle reign repine
The fall of monarchy itself design:
From hate to that their reformations spring,
And David not their grievance, but the King.
Seized now with panic fear the faction lies,
Lest this clear truth strike Absalom's charmed eyes;
Lest he perceive, from long enchantment free,
What all beside the flattered youth must see.
But whate'er doubts his troubled bosom swell,
Fair carriage still became Achitophel,
Who now an envious festival installs,
And to survey their strength the faction calls,
Which fraud religious worship too must gild;
But O how weakly does sedition build!
For lo! the royal mandate issues forth
Dashing at once their treason, zeal and mirth!
So have I seen disastrous chance invade
Where careful emmets had their forage laid;
Whether fierce Vulcan's rage the furzy plain
Had seized, engendered by some careless swain,
Or swelling Neptune lawless inroads made
And to their cell of store his flood conveyed,
The commonwealth broke up distracted go,
And in wild haste their loaded mates o'erthrow:
Ev'n so our scattered guests confus'dly meet
With boiled, baked, roast all jostling in the street,
Dejected all and ruefully dismayed
For shekel without treat or treason paid.
Sedition's dark eclipse now fainter shows,
More bright each hour the royal planet grows,
Of force the clouds of envy to disperse
In kind conjunction of assisting stars.
Here, lab'ring Muse, those glorious chiefs relate
That turned the doubtful scale of David's fate;
The rest of that illustrious band rehearse
Immortalized in laurelled Asaph's verse.
Hard task! yet will not I thy flight recall;
View heaven and then enjoy thy glorious fall.
First write Bezaliel, whose illustrious name
Forestalls our praise and gives his poet fame.
The Kenites' rocky province his command,
A barren limb of fertile Canaan's land,
Which for its gen'rous natives yet could be
Held worthy such a president as he!
Bezaliel with each grace and virtue fraught,
Serene his looks, serene his life and thought,
On whom so largely Nature heaped her store,
There scarce remained for arts to give him more.
To aid the crown and state his greatest zeal,
His second care that service to conceal;
Of dues observant, firm in every trust,
And to the needy always more than just;
Who truth from specious falsehood can divide,
Has all the gownmen's skill without their pride.
Thus crowned with worth from heights of honour won
Sees all his glories copied in his son,
Whose forward fame should every Muse engage,
Whose youth boasts skill denied to others' age.
Men, manners, language, books of noblest kind
Already are the conquest of his mind;
Whose loyalty before its date was prime,
Nor waited the dull course of rolling time.
The monster faction early he dismayed,
And David's cause long since confessed his aid.
Brave Abdael o'er the prophets' school was placed,
Abdael with all his father's virtue graced;
A hero who, while stars looked wond'ring down,
Without one Hebrew's blood restored the crown.
That praise was his; what therefore did remain
For following chiefs, but boldly to maintain
That crown restored; and in this rank of fame
Brave Abdael with the first a place must claim.
Proceed, illustrious, happy chief, proceed,
Foreseize the garlands for thy brow decreed,
While th' inspired tribe attend with noblest strain
To register the glories thou shalt gain:
For sure, the dew shall Gilboah's hills forsake,
And Jordan mix his stream with Sodom's lake,
Or seas retired their secret stores disclose,
And to the sun their scaly brood expose,
Or swelled above the cliffs their billows raise,
Before the Muses leave their patron's praise.
Eliab our next labour does invite,
And hard the task to do Eliab right:
Long with the royal wanderer he roved,
And firm in all the turns of Fortune proved.
Such ancient service and desert so large
Well claimed the royal household for his charge.
His age with only one mild heiress blessed
In all the bloom of smiling nature dressed,
And blessed again to see his flower allied
To David's stock, and made young Othniel's bride!
The bright restorer of his father's youth,
Devoted to a son's and subject's truth;
Resolved to bear that prize of duty home
So bravely sought (while sought) by Absalom.
Ah Prince! th' illustrious planet of thy birth
And thy more powerful virtue guard thy worth,
That no Achitophel thy ruin boast:
Israel too much in one such wreck has lost.
Ev'n envy must consent to Helon's worth,
Whose soul, though Egypt glories in his birth,
Could for our captive ark its zeal retain,
And Pharaoh's altars in their pomp disdain:
To slight his gods was small; with nobler pride
He all th' allurements of his court defied,
Whom profit nor example could betray,
But Israel's friend and true to David's sway.
What acts of favour in his province fall
On merit he confers, and freely all.
Our list of nobles next let Amri grace,
Whose merits claimed the Abbethdin's high place;
Who with a loyalty that did excel
Brought all th' endowments of Achitophel.
Sincere was Amri, and not only knew
But Israel's sanctions into practice drew;
Our laws, that did a boundless ocean seem,
Were coasted all, and fathomed all by him:
No Rabbin speaks like him their mystic sense,
So just, and with such charms of eloquence;
To whom the double blessing does belong,
With Moses' inspiration Aaron's tongue.
Than Sheva none more loyal zeal have shown,
Wakeful as Judah's lion for the crown,
Who for that cause still combats in his age
For which his youth with danger did engage.
In vain our factious priests the cant revive,
In vain seditious scribes with libels strive
T' enflame the crowd, while he with watchful eye
Observes, and shoots their treasons as they fly.
Their weekly frauds his keen replies detect,
He undeceives more fast than they infect.
So Moses when the pest on legions preyed
Advanced his signal and the plague was stayed.
Once more, my fainting Muse, thy pinions try,
And strength's exhausted store let love supply.
What tribute, Asaph, shall we render thee?
We'll crown thee with a wreath from thy own tree!
Thy laurel grove no envy's flash can blast,
The song of Asaph shall for ever last!
With wonder late posterity shall dwell
On Absalom and false Achitophel;
Thy strains shall be our slumb'ring prophets' dream,
And when our Zion virgins sing, their theme.
Our jubilees shall with thy verse be graced,
The song of Asaph shall for ever last!
How fierce his satire loosed, restrained how tame,
How tender of th' offending young man's fame!
How well his worth and brave adventures styled,
Just to his virtues, to his error mild.
No page of thine that fears the strictest view,
But teems with just reproof, or praise as due.
Not Eden could a fairer prospect yield,
All paradise without one barren field;
Whose wit the censure of his foes has passed,
The song of Asaph shall for ever last!
What praise for such rich strains shall we allow?
What just rewards the grateful crown bestow?
While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew,
While stars and fountains to their course are true,
While Judah's throne and Zion's rock stand fast,
The song of Asaph and the fame shall last.
Still Hebron's honoured, happy soil retains
Our royal hero's beauteous dear remains;
Who now sails off with winds nor wishes slack
To bring his suff'rings' bright companion back:
But ere such transport can our sense employ,
A bitter grief must poison half our joy;
Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see
Without a bribe to envious destiny!
Cursed Sodom's doom for ever fix the tide
Where by inglorious chance the valiant died.
Give not insulting Askelon to know,
Nor let Gath's daughters triumph in our woe!
No sailor with the news swell Egypt's pride,
By what inglorious fate our valiant died!
Weep Arnon! Jordan, weep thy fountains dry,
While Zion's rock dissolves for a supply.
Calm were the elements, night's silence deep,
The waves scarce murm'ring, and the winds asleep;
Yet fate for ruin takes so still an hour,
And treacherous sands the princely bark devour.
Then death unworthy seized a gen'rous race,
To virtue's scandal, and the stars' disgrace.
O had th' indulgent powers vouchsafed to yield
Instead of faithless shelves a listed field,
A listed field of heaven's and David's foes,
Fierce as the troops that did his youth oppose,
Each life had on his slaughtered heap retired,
Not tamely and unconqu'ring thus expired;
But destiny is now their only foe,
And dying ev'n o'er that they triumph too;
With loud last breaths their master's scape applaud,
Of whom kind force could scarce the fates defraud;
Who for such followers lost, O matchless mind,
At his own safety now almost repined!
Say, royal sir, by all your fame in arms,
Your praise in peace, and by Urania's charms,
If all your suff'rings past so nearly pressed
Or pierced with half so painful grief your breast?
Thus some diviner Muse her hero forms,
Not soothed with soft delights, but tossed in storms.
Not stretched on roses in the myrtle grove,
Nor crowns his days with mirth, his nights with love,
But far removed in thund'ring camps is found,
His slumbers short, his bed the herbless ground.
In tasks of danger always seen the first,
Feeds from the hedge, and slakes with ice his thirst.
Long must his patience strive with Fortune's rage,
And long opposing gods themselves engage,
Must see his country flame, his friends destroyed,
Before the promised empire be enjoyed;
Such toil of fate must build a man of fame,
And such to Israel's crown the godlike David came.
What sudden beams dispel the clouds so fast,
Whose drenching rains laid all our vineyards waste?
The spring so far behind her course delayed
On th' instant is in all her bloom arrayed;
The winds breathe low, the element serene,
Yet mark what motion in the waves is seen!
Thronging and busy as Hyblaean swarms,
Or straggled soldiers summoned to their arms.
See where the princely bark in loosest pride
With all her guardian fleet adorns the tide!
High on her deck the royal lovers stand,
Our crimes to pardon ere they touched our land.
Welcome to Israel and to David's breast!
Here all your toils, here all your suff'rings rest.
This year did Ziloah rule Jerusalem,
And boldly all sedition's surges stem,
Howe'er encumbered with a viler pair
Than Ziph or Shimei to assist the chair;
Yet Ziloah's royal labours so prevailed
That faction at the next election failed,
When ev'n the common cry did " justice" sound,
And merit by the multitude was crowned.
With David then was Israel's peace restored,
Crowds mourned their error, and obeyed their lord.