But faster far and more than all the rest A noble cause, which none who bears a spark Of public virtue ever wished removed, Works the deplored and mischievous effect. ’Tis universal soldiership has stabbed The heart of merit in the meaner class. Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage Of those that bear them, in whatever cause, Seem most at variance with all moral good, And incompatible with serious thought. The clown, the child of nature, without guile, Blest with an infant’s ignorance of all But his own simple pleasures, now and then A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair, Is balloted, and trembles at the news. Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears A Bible-oath to be whate’er they please, To do he knows not what. The task performed, That instant he becomes the serjeant’s care, His pupil, and his torment, and his jest; His awkward gait, his introverted toes, Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks, Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees, Unapt to learn and formed of stubborn stuff, He yet by slow degrees puts off himself, Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well. He stands erect, his slouch becomes a walk, He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement; is as smart above As meal and larded locks can make him: wears His hat or his plumed helmet with a grace, And, his three years of heroship expired, Returns indignant to the slighted plough. He hates the field in which no fife or drum Attends him, drives his cattle to a march, And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. ’Twere well if his exterior change were all— But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost His ignorance and harmless manners too. To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach, The great proficiency he made abroad, To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends, To break some maiden’s and his mother’s heart, To be a pest where he was useful once, Are his sole aim, and all his glory now! Man in society is like a flower Blown in its native bed. ’Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use. But man associated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond For interest sake, or swarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and by compression marred Contracts defilement not to be endured. Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues, And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathsome body, only fit For dissolution, hurtful to the main. Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin Against the charities of domestic life, Incorporated, seem at once to lose