Loose and undisciplined the soldier lay,
Or lost in drink and game the solid day;
Porches and schools, designed for public good,
Uncovered, and with scaffolds cumbered stood,
Or nodded, threatening ruin:
Half pillars wanted their expected height;
And roofs imperfect prejudiced the sight.
The artists grieve; the labouring people droop;
My father's legacy, my country's hope,
God's temple, lies unfinished:
The wise and great deplored their monarch's fate, And future mischiefs of a sinking state.
Is this, the serious said, is this the man
Whose active soul through every science ran?
Who, by just rule and elevated skill,
Prescribed the dubious bounds of good and ill?
Whose golden sayings, and immortal wit,
On large phylacteries expressive writ,
Were to the forehead of the rabbins tied,
Our youth's instruction, and our age's pride!
Could not the wise his wild desires restrain;
Then was our hearing, and his preaching vain,
What from his life and letters were we taught,
But that his knowledge aggravates his fault!
In lighter mood the humorous and the gay
(As crowned with roses at their feasts they lay)
Sent the full goblet, charged with Abra's name,
And charms superior to their master's fame;
Laughing, some praise the king, who let them see,
How aptly luxe' and empire might agree;
Some glossed, how love and wisdom were at strife;
And brought my proverbs to confront my life.
However, friend, here's to the king, one cries:
To him who was the king, the friend replies.
The king, for Judah's, and for wisdom's curse,
To Abra yields; could I, or thou do worse?
Our looser lives let chance or folly steer,
If thus the prudent and determined err.
Let Dinah bind with flowers her flowing hair,
And touch the lute, and sound the wanton air;
Let us the bliss without the sting receive,
Free, as we will, or to enjoy, or leave.
Pleasures on levity's smooth surface flow;
Thought brings the weight, that sinks the soul to woe. Now be this maxim to the king conveyed,
And added to the thousand he has made.
Sadly, O reason, is thy power expressed,
Thou gloomy tyrant of the frighted breast;
And harsh the rules, which we from thee receive,
If for our wisdom we our pleasure give;
And more to think be only more to grieve.
If Judah's king at thy tribunal tried,
Forsakes his joy, to vindicate his pride;
And changing sorrows, I am only found
Loosed from the chains of love, in thine more strictly bound!
But do I call thee tyrant, or complain,
How hard thy laws, how absolute thy reign,
While thou, alas, art but an empty name,
To no two men, who e'er discoursed, the same;
The idle product of a troubled thought,
In borrowed shapes, and airy colours wrought;
A fancied line, and a reflected shade;
A chain which man to fetter man has made;
By artifice imposed, by fear obeyed.
Yet, wretched name, or arbitrary thing,
Whence ever I thy cruel essence bring,
I own thy influence; for I feel thy sting.
Reluctant I perceive thee in my soul,
Formed to command, and destined to control.
Yes; thy insulting dictates shall be heard;
Virtue for once shall be her own reward.
Yes, rebel Israel, this unhappy maid
Shall be dismissed: the crowd shall be obeyed:
The king his passion, and his rule shall leave,
No longer Abra's, but the people's slave.
My coward soul shall bear its wayward fate;
I will, alas! be wretched, to be great,
And sigh in royalty, and grieve in state.
I said; resolved to plunge into my grief
At once so far, as to expect relief
From my despair alone:
I chose to write the thing I durst not speak,
To her I loved, to her I must forsake.
The harsh epistle laboured much to prove,
How inconsistent majesty, and love.
I always should, it said, esteem her well,
But never see her more; it bid her feel
No future pain for me; but instant wed
A lover more proportioned to her bed;
And quiet dedicate her remnant life
To the just duties of an humble wife.
She read, and forth to me she wildly ran,
To me, the ease of all her former pain;
She kneeled, entreated, struggled, threatened,
And with alternate passion lived, and died;
Till now, denied the liberty to mourn,
And by rude fury from my presence torn,
This only object of my real care,
Cut off from hope, abandoned to despair,
In some few posting fatal hours is hurled
From wealth, from power, from love, and from the world.
Here tell me, if thou dar'st, my conscious soul, What different sorrows did within thee roll;
What pangs, what fires, what racks didst thou sustain? What sad vicissitudes of smarting pain?
How oft from pomp and state did I remove,
To feed despair, and cherish hopeless love;
How oft, all day, recalled I Abra's charms,
Her beauties pressed, and panting in my arms;
How oft, with sighs, viewed every female face,
Where mimic fancy might her likeness trace;
How oft desired to fly from Israel's throne,
And live in shades with her and love alone?
How oft, all night, pursued her in my dreams,
O'er flowery valleys, and through crystal streams;
And waking, viewed with grief the rising sun,
And fondly mourned the dear delusion gone?
When thus the gathered storms of wretched love,
In my swoln bosom, with long war had strove;
At length they broke their bounds; at length their force
Bore down whatever met its stronger course:
Laid all the civil bonds of manhood waste;
And scattered ruin as the torrent passed.
So from the hills, whose hollow caves contain
The congregated snow, and swelling rain,
Till the full stores their ancient bounds disdain,
Precipitate the furious torrent flows;
In vain would speed avoid, or strength oppose;
Towns, forests, herds, and men promiscuous drowned,
With one great death deform the dreary ground;
The echoed woes from distant rocks resound.
And now, what impious ways my wishes took,
How they the monarch, and the man forsook;
And how I followed an abandoned will,
Through crooked paths, and sad retreats of ill;
How Judah's daughters now, now foreign slaves,
By turns my prostituted bed receives;
Through tribes of women how I loosely ranged
Impatient; liked to-night, to-morrow changed;
And, by the instinct of capricious lust,
Enjoyed, disdained, was grateful, or unjust.
O, be these scenes from human eyes concealed,
In clouds of decent silence justly veiled!
O, be the wanton images conveyed
To black oblivion, and eternal shade!
Or let their sad epitome alone,
And outward lines, to future age be known,
Enough to propagate the sure belief,
That vice engenders shame; and folly broods o'er grief.
Buried in sloth, and lost in ease I lay,
The night I revelled, and I slept the day.
New heaps of fuel damped my kindling fires;
And daily change extinguished young desires.
By its own force destroyed, fruition ceased;
And, always wearied, I was never pleased.
No longer now does my neglected mind
Its wonted stores, and old ideas find.
Fixed judgment there no longer does abide,
To take the true, or set the false aside.
No longer does swift memory trace the cells,
Where springing wit, or young invention dwells.
Frequent debauch to habitude prevails;
Patience of toil, and love of virtue fails;
By sad degrees impaired my vigour dies,
Till I command no longer e'en in vice.
The women on my dotage build their sway;
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