And many a one, deemed wondrous wise,—
Hath little, but the owlish eyes,
And others, whom the rich deem fools,
Despise their tinsel and their tools,
And those, who are free thinkers, thought,
In secret, act, what Jesus taught,
Who choose to live upon the plan,
Which deems the Mind, the wealth of Man.
Yet, all are made to play their part,
With wealth of brain, or shrivelled heart,
And many a Smile, so fair and free,
Is but to hide a Misery,-
That laughing face,-so full of Fun,
May have its hidden skeleton,
A faithless Friend,-a broken Hope,-
A fallen Bank,—a palsied stroke,—
A simple Speculation wrong,
Might break the worldly, fancied strong,-
But, Goodness, never smiles in vain,
When trying to relieve a pain ;
Nor true Religion, ever fail
To weather out Life's roughest gale!
Poor Charles the Fifth,-the Great, was he? Who died in cowl'd Insanity!
Elizabeth-she, too, became
A weak and poor mind-broken dame,—
The only Crown, true Greatness wears,
Is that, which Truth and Wisdom bears,
A healthy frame,-a Mind at peace,
Is worth an Empire's cankered lease,
The power of will, to go, or stay,
Is greater than a monarch's sway,
Her follower, strong Decision, stands
With Peace, and Plenty, in his hands,
While trembling Indecision prays,
And, in a Poorhouse, ends his days :—
Who made the heart, can read it well,
And raises oft who sinful fell;
While pride is checked, the humble's raised,
The very sinful, sometimes praised,
Yon pious Hebrews and the wife
Who fell, and lived a shameless life,
Reveals a tale of wondrous kind,—
And proves the Saviour's saving mind,-
The wanton Maid of Jericho,
Was fittest to be saved from woe,-
Not that by these, is Sin upheld,
But Pride and Self-religion's felled,
To show, that all are weak and mean,
And none whose hands are over clean,
And plainly shows, that all might die,
Or all be saved from Infamy.
Presumption dare not sin, in vain,
Nor vice indulged, without a stain,-
A mental stain, which rusts its way,
And eats on equal good alway-
One false step down that steep incline,
Which leads the mind to peace, Divine,—
Nor yet can Nature's laws be broke,
Without a corresponding stroke
Of pain, or mental penury-
Disease's watch-dog Misery:
Just point him out, the knave who dares,
Who, from his inmost thought, declares
That this great Globe was made by chance,—
Without the hand of Providence,
And that it does,—and must still roll
Without Omnipotent control,-
His lips may mouth the hackneyed phrase,
And fools be found, his words to praise,
But ah! to think it,-we defy,
They might as well refuse to die!-
As well expect a tree to speak,
As Man, his mental gift to break,-
The most debased of human kind
Must still admit Eternal Mind
Though all were hushed in midnight gloom,
This star is left, to light their doom,—
They may extinguish all, but this,-
It is their curse,-as well as bliss!
Too well they feel, a greater, lives,
And daily use the gift He gives,
They cannot alter Nature's laws,
For nought is made without a cause,
But, simplest pleasures are the best-
As Labour gives the sweetest rest,
Contentment, sings the noblest theme-
The healthiest drink's the mountain stream,
The grandest robe, Humility,
Was made by dire Necessity,
Ev'n Virtue prunes the wings of Wealth,
And Temperance is the Soul of Health,-
These precepts keep,-so fare you well,
Discard them and you'll find a Hell,-
Man's Acts of Parliament-are good,
When God's, are humbly understood,
But ah!-we see, the more they make,
Ties Freedom closer to a stake,
And make Mankind, the nearer slaves,
As Canute's courtiers tried the waves,
But, God's are plain,-too plain, we fear,-
Four simple seasons rule the year,
And two, the Tides,-with simple Might,
With twin, Eternal Day, and Night,
A lesson take, vain Man, from these,
If Reason's soul, itself, you'd please,-
And give it hope,-for all its strife,
That there's another,-better life,-
At least for those, who've nobly striven
To fit it for a future Heaven!
But not for that self-righteous brood,
Whose Virtue's only frozen good!
Scotch Presbyterianism, entire,
Near drowned Man's intellectual fire,
And, for a time, even Genius, could
Not break her cold and solemn mood,
'Till Burns, and Crabbe,-and many more, Were forced, to ridicule the bore,
They saw, and laughed at long-faced prayers,
Which were but common sense betrayers,
They uncaged Freedom,-set her free
From Priestcraft's Mental Upas tree,
Like stranger Mastiffs in the street,
The curs ran, yelping, at their feet,
But, pawky now, and wily, grown,
The Priest claims Freedom as his own,
Would cage again,—but knows full well,
She broke the calcined wires of Hell!
They know not where to place her now,
Since Truth and Science bind her brow,—
Proud priesthood soon shall lose its sting,
For Education's on the wing,-
Unless, wise teachers, they become,
And see the folly of the Pope of Rome.
What is Fame, and What was Byron?
"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."-Second Commandment.
"The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers, every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”—Deut. xxiv. 16.
But seeming contradiction in the Scriptures is not singular. Horace, in one of his Lyrics, adheres to the first. He says,
"The brave and the good, from like sires are descended,
In oxen and horses, we constantly prove
How the traits of the old stock for ever are blended;
Fierce eagles beget not the peaceable doves."
Byron, himself, also believed in this doctrine; he remarked one day to Captain Medwin, "It is ridiculous to say that we do not inherit our passions, as well as the gout or any other disorder." And Walter Scott, too, says, "There is such a thing as a hawk o' a guid nest."
F we believe that vicious hound, or horse,
Or rakish father, which is ten times worse,
Transmit the likeness of their mind and nose-
Which all stock breeders confident suppose,
And, if 'tis true,-as Bible lore holds forth,
That generations, e'en to third and fourth,
Shall bear the curses of their father's sin,
From secret vice, to open Libertine,—
Then, on poor Byron, Prudes, for Mercy's sake
Have pity, for his father was a cursed rake,—
The greatest rake that London e'en could find,
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