What makes the Pleader twist and tear Statutes to wrong the rightful heir, And bring the widow sorrow? A fee! What makes him change his tack, Eat his own words, and swear white's black? Another fee to-morrow. A Curate?-chain'd to some dull spot, Even at church he mourns his lot, Repining while thanksgiving. 'Mid stupid clodpoles and their wives, The Scholar's buried while he lives, And dies without a living. And what are Bishops?-hypocrites Who preach against the world's delights In purple and fine linen; Who brand as crime, in humbler elves, All vanities, while they themselves Have palaces to sin in.— A Soldier?-What! a bravo paid To make man-butchery a trade A Jack-a-dandy varlet, Who sells his liberty,-perchance His very soul's inheritance For feathers, lace, and scarlet! A Sailor?-worse! he 's doomed to trace With treadmill drudgery the space From foremast to the mizen; A slave to the tyrannic main, Till some kind bullet comes to brain The brainless in his prison. Physic?-a freak of times and modes, Which yearly old mistakes explodes For new ones still absurder: All slay their victims-disappear, And only leave this doctrine clear, That "killing is no murder." A Poet? To describe aright His lofty hopes and abject plight, The quickest tongue would lack words! Still like a ropemaker, he twines From morn to even lines on lines, And still keeps going backwards. Older and wiser grown, my strain Was changed, and thus did I arraign Railer!-like most satiric scribes, Your world-condemning diatribes, Smack less of truth than malice. Abuse condemns not use all good Perverted or misunderstood, May generate all badness, Reason itself that gift divine, To folly may be turn'd by wine, By long excess to madness. From the professions thus portray'd, As prone to stain, corrupt, degrade, Have sprung, for many ages, All that the world with pride regards, Our statesmen, patriots, heroes, bards, Philanthropists and sages. Not from our callings do we take Our characters:-men's actions make Or mar their reputations. The good, the bad, the false, the true, Would still be such, tho' all their crew Should interchange vocations. Whate'er the compass-box's hue, Substance, or form-the needle's true, Alike in calms or surges: E'en thus the virtuous heart, whate'er Its owner's plight or calling-ne'er From honour's pole diverges. DEATH. FATE! fortune! chance! whose blindness, Hostility or kindness, Play such strange freaks with human destinies, Contrasting poor and wealthy, The life-diseased and healthy, The bless'd, the curs'd, the witless, and the wise, Ye have a master-one Who mars what ye have done, Levelling all that move beneath the sun, Death! Take courage ye that languish Beneath the withering anguish |