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Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin: Comprising the Celebrated Political and Satirical Poems, of the Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, the Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, the Earl of Carlisle, and Others.

History

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin: Comprising the Celebrated Political and Satirical Poems, of the Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, the Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, the Earl of Carlisle, and Others.

English poetry; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Poetry; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1789-1820

Next comes a gentler Virtue.—Ah! beware
 Lest the harsh verse her shrinking softness scare.
 Visit her not too roughly;—the warm sigh
 Breathes on her lips;—the tear-drop gems her eye.
 Sweet SENSIBILITY, who dwells enshrined
 In the fine foldings of the feeling mind;                            120
 With delicate _Mimosa’s_ sense endued,
 Who shrinks instinctive from a hand too rude;
 Or, like the _Anagallis_, prescient flower,
 Shuts her soft petals at the approaching shower.

   Sweet child of sickly FANCY!—her of yore
 From her loved _France_ ROUSSEAU to exile bore;
 And, while ’midst lakes and mountains wild he ran,
 Full of himself, and shunn’d the haunts of man,
 Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep
 To lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep;                           130
 Taught her to cherish still in either eye,
 Of tender tears a plentiful supply,
 And pour them in the brooks that babbled by;
 Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings strong,
 False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong;
 For the crush’d beetle, _first_,—the widow’d dove,
 And all the warbled sorrows of the grove;
 _Next_ for poor suff’ring _Guilt_; and _last_ of all,
 For parents, friends, a king and country’s fall.

   Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief,                         140
 With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief,
 Droop in soft sorrow o’er a faded flower;
 O’er a dead Jack-Ass pour the pearly shower;
 But hear, unmoved, of _Loire’s_ ensanguined flood,
 Choked up with slain; of _Lyons_ drenched in blood;
 Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with shame,
 Foul crimes, but sicklied o’er with Freedom’s name;
 Altars and thrones subverted; social life
 Trampled to earth,—the husband from the wife,
 Parent from child, with ruthless fury torn,—                         150
 Of talents, honour, virtue, wit, forlorn,
 In friendless exile,—of the wise and good
 Staining the daily scaffold with their blood,—
 Of savage cruelties, that scare the mind,
 The rage of madness with hell’s lusts combined,—
 Of hearts torn reeking from the mangled breast,—
 They hear,—and hope that ALL IS FOR THE BEST.

   Fond hope! but JUSTICE sanctifies the prayer—
 JUSTICE! here, Satire, strike! ’twere sin to spare!
 Not she in British Courts that takes her stand,                      160
 The dawdling balance dangling in her hand,
 Adjusting punishments to fraud and vice,
 With scrupulous quirks, and disquisition nice:
 But firm, erect, with keen reverted glance,
 Th’ avenging angel of regenerate _France_,
 Who visits ancient sins on modern times,
 And punishes the POPE for CÆSAR’S crimes.[312]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin: Comprising the Celebrated Political and Satirical Poems, of the Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, the Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, the Earl of Carlisle, and Others.

English poetry; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Poetry; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1789-1820

Next comes a gentler Virtue.—Ah! beware
 Lest the harsh verse her shrinking softness scare.
 Visit her not too roughly;—the warm sigh
 Breathes on her lips;—the tear-drop gems her eye.
 Sweet SENSIBILITY, who dwells enshrined
 In the fine foldings of the feeling mind;                            120
 With delicate _Mimosa’s_ sense endued,
 Who shrinks instinctive from a hand too rude;
 Or, like the _Anagallis_, prescient flower,
 Shuts her soft petals at the approaching shower.

   Sweet child of sickly FANCY!—her of yore
 From her loved _France_ ROUSSEAU to exile bore;
 And, while ’midst lakes and mountains wild he ran,
 Full of himself, and shunn’d the haunts of man,
 Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep
 To lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep;                           130
 Taught her to cherish still in either eye,
 Of tender tears a plentiful supply,
 And pour them in the brooks that babbled by;
 Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings strong,
 False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong;
 For the crush’d beetle, _first_,—the widow’d dove,
 And all the warbled sorrows of the grove;
 _Next_ for poor suff’ring _Guilt_; and _last_ of all,
 For parents, friends, a king and country’s fall.

   Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief,                         140
 With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief,
 Droop in soft sorrow o’er a faded flower;
 O’er a dead Jack-Ass pour the pearly shower;
 But hear, unmoved, of _Loire’s_ ensanguined flood,
 Choked up with slain; of _Lyons_ drenched in blood;
 Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with shame,
 Foul crimes, but sicklied o’er with Freedom’s name;
 Altars and thrones subverted; social life
 Trampled to earth,—the husband from the wife,
 Parent from child, with ruthless fury torn,—                         150
 Of talents, honour, virtue, wit, forlorn,
 In friendless exile,—of the wise and good
 Staining the daily scaffold with their blood,—
 Of savage cruelties, that scare the mind,
 The rage of madness with hell’s lusts combined,—
 Of hearts torn reeking from the mangled breast,—
 They hear,—and hope that ALL IS FOR THE BEST.

   Fond hope! but JUSTICE sanctifies the prayer—
 JUSTICE! here, Satire, strike! ’twere sin to spare!
 Not she in British Courts that takes her stand,                      160
 The dawdling balance dangling in her hand,
 Adjusting punishments to fraud and vice,
 With scrupulous quirks, and disquisition nice:
 But firm, erect, with keen reverted glance,
 Th’ avenging angel of regenerate _France_,
 Who visits ancient sins on modern times,
 And punishes the POPE for CÆSAR’S crimes.[312]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin: Comprising the Celebrated Political and Satirical Poems, of the Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, the Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, the Earl of Carlisle, and Others.

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin: Comprising the Celebrated Political and Satirical Poems, of the Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, the Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, the Earl of Carlisle, and Others.

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