[THE TASK, A POEM, IN SIX BOOKS.]

ARGUMENT of the FIFTH BOOK.

A frosty morning. — The foddering of cattle. — the woodman and his dog. — The poultry. — Whimsical effects of frost at a waterfall. — The Empress of Russia's palace of ice. — Amusements of monarchs. — War one of them. Wars, whence. — And whence monarchy. — The evils of it. — English and French loyalty contrasted. — The Bastile and a prisoner there. — Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. — Modern patriotism questionable, and why. — The perishable nature of the best human institutions. — Spiritual liberty not perishable. — The slavish state of man by nature. — Deliver him Deist if you can. — Grace must do it. — The respective merits of patriots aud martyrs stated. — Their different treatment. — Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free. — His relish of the works of God. — Address to the Creator.

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BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

'TIS morning; and the sun with ruddy orb
Ascending fires the horizon. While the clouds
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. 
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
[Page 182]12  In spite of gravity and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair
As they designed to mock me, at my side
Take step for step, and as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaister'd wall
Prepost'rous sight! the legs without the man. 
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge, and the bents
And coarser grass upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad
And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. 
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder, not like hungr'ing man
Fretfull if unsupplied, but silent, meek,
[Page 183]32  And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. 
He from the stack carves out th' accustomed load,
Deep-plunging and again deep plunging oft
His broad keen knife into the solid mass. 
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away. No needless care,
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. 
Forth goes the woodman leaving unconcerned
The cheerfull haunts of man, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task. 
Shaggy and lean and shrew'd, with pointed ears
And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk
Wide-scampering snatches up the drifted snow
With iv'ry teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;
Then shakes his powder'd coat and barks for joy. 
[Page 184]52 Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark. Nor stops for aught. 
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
T' adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube
That fumes beneath his nose. The trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. 
Now from the roost or from the neighb'ring pale,
Where diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they gossipp'd side by side,
Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call
The feather'd tribes domestic. Half on wing
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood
Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge. 
The sparrows peep, and quit the shelt'ring eaves
To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye
The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolved
T' escape th' impending famine, often scared
As oft return, a pert voracious kind. 
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,
[Page 185]72  Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign'd
To sad necessity the cock foregoes
His wonted strut, and wading at their head
With well-considered steps, seems to resent
His alter'd gait and stateliness retrenched. 
How find the myriads that in summer cheer
The hills and vallies with their ceaseless songs
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now? 
Earth yields them nought: the imprison'd worm is safe
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
Lie covered close, and berry-bearing thorns
That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose)
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. 
The long protracted rigor of the year
Thins all their num'rous flocks. In chinks and holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end
As instinct prompts, self buried 'ere they die. 
The very rooks and daws forsake the fields,
Where neither grub nor root nor earth-nut now
Repays their labor more; and perch'd aloft
[Page 186]92  By the way-side, or stalking in the path,
Lean pensioners upon the trav'llers track,
Pick up their nauscous dole, though sweet to them,
Of voided pulse or half digested grain. 
The streams are lost amid the splendid blank
O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood
Indurated and fixt the snowy weight
Lies undissolved, while silently beneath
And unperceived the current steals away. 
Not so, where scornful of a check it leaps
The mill-dam, dashes on the wrestless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulph below. 
No frost can bind it there. Its utmost force
Can but arrest the light and smokey mist
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. 
And see where it has hung th' embroidered banks
With forms so various, that no pow'rs of art,
The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene! 
Here glitt'ring turrets rise, upbearing high
(Fantastic misarrangement) on the roof
[Page 187]112  Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairy land. The chrystal drops
That trickle down the branches, fast congeal'd
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorned before. 
Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sun-beam. There imboss'd and fretted wild
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
The likeness of some object seen before. 
Thus nature works as if to mock at art,
And in defiance of her rival pow'rs;
By these fortuitous and random strokes
Performing such inimitable feats
As she with all her rules can never reach. 
Less worthy of applause though more admired,
Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ! 
Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,
The wonder of the North. No forest fell
[Page 188]132  When thou would'st build: no quarry sent its stores
T' enrich thy walls. But thou didst hew the floods,
And make thy marble of the glassy wave. 
In such a palace Aristaeus found
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear. 
In such a palace poetry might place
The armoury of winter, where his troops
The gloomy clouds find weapons, arro'wy sleet
Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,
And snow that often blinds the trav'ller's course,
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb. 
Silently as a dream the fabric rose. 
No sound of hammer or of saw was there. 
Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts
Were soon conjoined, nor other cement ask'd
Than water interfused to make them one. 
Lamps gracefully disposed and of all hues
Illumined ev'ry side. A wat'ry light
Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed
[Page 189]152  Another moon new-risen, or meteor fall'n
From heav'n to earth, of lambent flame serene. 
So stood the brittle prodigy, though smooth
And slipp'ry the materials, yet frost-bound
Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within
That royal residence might well befit,
For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths
Of flow'rs that feared no enemy but warmth,
Blushed on the pannels. Mirrour needed none
Where all was vitreous, but in order due
Convivial table and commodious seat
(What seemed at least commodious seat) were there,
Sofa and couch and high-built throne august. 
The same lubricity was found in all,
And all was moist to the warm touch, a scene
Of evanescent glory, once a stream,
And soon to slide into a stream again. 
Alas! twas but a mortifying stroke
Of undesigned severity, that glanced,
(Made by a monarch) on her own estate,
[Page 190]172  On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 
'Twas transient in its nature, as in show
'Twas durable. As worthless as it seemed
Intrinsically precious. To the foot
Treach'rous and false, it smiled and it was cold. 

Great princes have great play-things. Some have played
At hewing mountains into men, and some
At building human wonders mountain-high. 
Some have amused the dull sad years of life,
Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad,
With schemes of monumental fame, and sought
By pyramids and mausolaean pomp,
Short-lived themselves, t' immortalize their bones. 
Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 
But war's a game, which were their subjects wise,
King's should not play at. Nations would do well
T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
[Page 191]191  Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil
Because men suffer it, their toy the world. 

When Babel was confounded, and the great
Confed'racy of projectors wild and vain
Was split into diversity of tongues,
Then, as a shépherd separates his flock,
These to the upland, to the valley those,
God drave asunder and assigned their lot
To all the nations. Ample was the boon
He gave them, in its distribution fair
And equal, and he bade them dwell in peace. 
Peace was awhile their care. They plough'd and sow'd
And reap'd their plenty without grudge or strife. 
But violence can never longer sleep
Than human passions please. In ev'ry heart
Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war,
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze. 
Cain had already shed a brother's blood;
The deluge wash'd it out; but left unquenched
[Page 192]210  The seeds of murther in the breast of man. 
Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line
Of his descending progeny was found
The first artificer of death; the shrew'd
Contriver who first sweated at the forge,
And forced the blunt and yet unblooded steel
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. 
Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times,
The sword and faulchion their inventor claim,
And the first smith was the first murd'rer's son. 
His art survived the waters; and 'ere long
When man was multiplied and spread abroad
In tribes and clans, and had begun to call
These meadows and that range of hills his own,
The tasted sweets of property begat
Desire of more; and industry in some
To improve and cultivate their just demesne,
Made others covet what they saw so fair. 
Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil,
And those in self-defence. Savage at first
[Page 193]230  The onset, and irregular. At length
One eminent above the rest, for strength,
For stratagem or courage, or for all,
Was chosen leader. Him they served in war,
And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds
Rev'renced no less. Who could with him compare? 
Or who so worthy to controul themselves
As he whose prowess had subdued their foes? 
Thus war affording field for the display
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace,
Which have their exigencies too, and call
For skill in government, at length made king. 
King was a name too proud for man to wear
With modesty and meekness, and the crown,
So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,
Was sure t' intoxicate the brows it bound. 
It is the abject property of most,
That being parcel of the common mass,
And destitute of means to raise themselves,
They sink and settle lower than they need. 
[Page 194]250 They know not what it is to feel within
A comprehensive faculty that grasps
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields
Almost without an effort, plans too vast
For their conception, which they cannot move. 
Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunk
With gazing, when they see an able man
Step forth to notice; and besotted thus
Build him a pedestal and say, stand there,
And be our admiration and our praise. 
They roll themselves before him in the dust,
Then most deserving in their own account
When most extravagant in his applause,
As if exalting him they raised themselves. 
Thus by degrees self-cheated of their found
And sober judgment that he is but man,
They demi-deify and fume him so
That in due season he forgets it too. 
Inflated and astrut with self-conceit
He gulps the windy diet, and 'ere long
[Page 195]270  Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks
The world was made in vain if not for him. 
Thenceforth they are his cattle. Drudges born
To bear his burthens, drawing in his gears
And sweating in his service. His caprice
Becomes the soul that animates them all. 
He deems a thousand or ten thousand lives
Spent in the purchase of renown for him
An easy reck'ning, and they think the same. 
Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings
Were burnished into heroes, and became
The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp,
Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died. 
Strange that such folly as lifts bloated man
To eminence fit only for a God,
Should ever drivel out of human lips
Ev'n in the cradled weakness of the world! 
Still stranger much, that when at length mankind
Had reached the sinewy firmness of their youth,
And could discriminate and argue well
[Page 196]290  On subjects more mysterious, they were yet
Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear
And quake before the Gods themselves had made. 
But above measure strange, that neither proof
Of sad experience, nor examples set
By some whose patriot virtue has prevailed,
Can even now, when they are grown matute
In wisdom, and with philosophic deeps
Familiar, serve t' emancipate the rest! 
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev'rence what is ancient and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. 
But is it fit, or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man
Compounded and made up like other men
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet
[Page 197]310  As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freeman of his land? 
Should when he pleases, and on whom he will
Wage war, with any or with no pretence
Of provocation giv'n or wrong sustained,
And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That his own humour dictates, from the clutch
Of poverty, that thus he may procure
His thousands weary of penurious life
A splendid opportunity to die? 
Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old
Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees
In politic convention) put your trust
I' th' shadow of a bramble, and reclined
In fancied peace beneath his dang'rous branch,
Rejoice in him and celebrate his sway,
Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs
Your self-denying zeal that holds it good
To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang
[Page 198]330  His thorns with streamers of continual praise? 
We too are friends to loyalty. We love
The king who loves the law; respects his bounds
And reigns content within them. Him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free. 
But recollecting still that he is man,
We trust him not too far. King, though he be,
And king in England too, he may be weak
And vain enough to be ambitious still,
May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs,
Or covet more than freemen chuse to grant:
Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours,
T' administer, to guard, t' adorn the state,
But not to warp or change it. We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause
True to the death, but not to be his slaves. 
Mark now the diff'rence, ye that boast your love
Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. 
We love the man. The paultry pageant you. 
We the chief patron of the Commonwealth;
[Page 199]350  You the regardless author of its woes. 
We for the sake of liberty, a king;
You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake. 
Our love is principle, and has its root
In reason, is judicious, manly, free. 
Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod,
And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. 
Were king-ship as true treasure as it seems,
Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish,
I would not be a king to be beloved
Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise,
Where love is mere attachment to the throne,
Not to the man who fills it as he ought. 

Whose freedom is by suff'rance, and at will
Of a superior, he is never free. 
Who lives and is not weary of a life. 
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well. 
The state that strives for liberty, though foiled
And forced t' abandon what she bravely sought,
[Page 200]369  Deserves at least applause for her attempt,
And pity for her loss. But that's a cause
Not often unsuccessful; pow'r usurp'd
Is weakness when oppos'd; conscious of wrong
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. 
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts
Thesurestpresageofthegoodtheyseek.** The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unnecessary warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware that it is become almost fashionable to stigmatize such sentiments as no better than empty declamation. But it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern times.

Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
To France, than all her losses and defeats
Old or of later date, by sea or land,
[Page 201]382  Her house of bondage worse than that of old
Which God avenged on Pharaoh — the Bastile. 
Ye horrid tow'rs, th' abode of broken hearts,
Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,
That monarchs have supplied from age to age
With music such as suits their sov'reign ears,
The sighs and groans of miserable men! 
There's not an English heart that would not leap
To hear that ye were fall'n at last, to know
That ev'n our enemies, so oft employed
In forging chains for us, themselves were free. 
For he that values liberty, confines
His zeal for her predominance within
No narrow bounds; her cause engages him
Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man. 
There dwell the most forlorn of human kind
Immured though unaccused, condemn'd untried,
Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. 
There like the visionary emblem seen
By him of Babylon, life stands a stump,
[Page 202]402  And filletted about with hoops of brass,
Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone,
To count the hour-bell and expect no change;
And ever as the sullen sound is heard,
Still to reflect that though a joyless note
To him whose moments all have one dull pace,
Ten thousand rovers in the world at large
Account it music; that it summons some
To theatre or jocund feast or ball;
The wearied hireling finds it a release
From labor, and the lover that has chid
Its long delay, feels ev'ry welcome stroke
Upon his heart-strings trembliug with delight —
To fly for refuge from distracting thought
To such amusements as ingenious woe
Contrives, hard-shifting and without her tools —
To read engraven on the mouldy walls
In stagg'ring types, his predecessors tale,
A sad memorial, and subjoin his own —
To turn purveyor to an overgorged
[Page 203]422  And bloated spider, till the pamper'd pest
Is made familiar, watches his approach,
Comes at his call and serves him for a friend —
To wear out time in numb'ring to and fro
The studs that thick emboss his iron door,
Then downward and then upward, then aflant
And then alternate, with a sickly hope
By dint of change to give his tasteless task
Some relish, till the sum exactly found
In all directions, he begins again —
Oh comfortless existence! hemm'd around
With woes, which who that suffers, would not kneel
And beg for exile, or the pangs of death? 
That man should thus encroach on fellow man,
Abridge him of his just and native rights,
Eradicate him, tear him from his hold
Upon th' endearments of domestic life
And social, nip his fruitfulness and use,
And doom him for perhaps an heedless word
To barrenness and solitude and tears,
[Page 204]442  Moves indignation. Makes the name of king,
(Of king whom such prerogative can please)
As dreadful as the Manichean God,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy. 

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flow'r
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it. All constraint,
Except what wisdom lays on evil men,
Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes
Their progress in the road of science; blinds
The eye sight of discov'ry, and begets
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit
To to be the tenant of man's noble form. 
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy lose of empire, and though squeezed
By public exigence 'till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
[Page 205]461  Among the nations, seeing thou art free! 
My native nook of earth! thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine;
Thine unadult'rate manners are less soft
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art
To give thee what politer France receives
From Nature's bounty — that humane address
And sweetness, without which no pleasure is
In converse, either starved by cold reserve,
Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl;
Yet being free, I love thee. For the sake
Of that one feature, can be well content,
Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside. 
But once enslaved, farewell! I could endure
Chains no where patiently, and chains at home
Where I am free by birthright, not at all. 
Then what were left of roughness in the grain
[Page 206]481  Of British natures, wanting its excuse
That it belongs to freemen, would disgust
And shock me. I should then with double pain
Feel all the rigor of thy fickle clime,
And if I must bewail the blessing lost
For which our Hampdens and our Sidney's bled,
I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people less austere,
In scenes which having never known me free
Would not reproach me with the loss I felt. 
Do I forebode impossible events,
And tremble at vain dreams? Heav'n grant I may! 
But th' age of virtuous politics is past,
And we are deep in that of cold pretence. 
Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,
And we too wise to trust them. He that takes
Deep in his soft credulity the stamp
Designed by loud declaimers on the part
Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,
Incurs derision for his easy faith
[Page 207]501  And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough. 
For when was public virtue to be found
Where private was not? can he love the whole
Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend
Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there? 
Can he be strenuous in his country's cause,
Who slights the charities for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be beloved? 
'Tis therefore, sober and good men are sad
For England's glory, seeing it wax pale
And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts
So loose to private duty, that no brain
Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes,
Can dream them trusty to the gen'ral weal. 
Such were not they of old, whose temper'd blades
Dispersed the shackles of usurp'd controul,
And hew'd them link from link. Then Albion's sons
Were sons indeed. They felt a filial heart
Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs,
And shining each in his domestic sphere,
[Page 208]521  Shone brighter still once call'd to public view. 
'Tis therefore, many whose sequester'd lot
Forbids their interference, looking on
Anticipate perforce some dire event;
And seeing the old castle of the state
That promised once more firmness, so assail'd
That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake,
Stand motionless expectants of its fall. 
All has its date below. The fatal hour
Was register'd in heaven 'ere time began. 
We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works
Die too. The deep foundations that we lay,
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains,
We build with what we deem eternal rock,
A distant age asks where the fabric stood,
And in the dust sifted and search'd in vain,
The undiscoverable secret sleeps. 

But there is yet a liberty unsung
By poets, and by senators unpraised,
[Page 209]540  Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers
Of earth and hell confed'rate take away. 
A liberty, which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind,
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 
'Tis liberty of heart, derived from heav'n,
Bought with HIS blood who gave it to mankind,
And seal'd with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure
By th' unimpeachable and awful oath
And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,
And are august, but this transcends them all,
His other works, this visible display
Of all-creating energy and might,
Are grand no doubt, and worthy of the word
That finding an interminable space
Unoccupied, has filled the void so well,
And made so sparkling what was dark before. 
But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true,
[Page 210]560  Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene,
Might well suppose th' artificer divine
Meant it eternal, had he not himself
Pronounced it transient glorious as it is,
And still designing a more glorious far,
Doom'd it, as insufficient for his praise. 
These therefore are occasional and pass. 
Form'd for the confutation of the fool
Whose lying heart disputes against a God,
That office served, they must be swept away. 
Not so the labours of his love. They shine
In other heav'ns than these that we behold,
And fade not. There is paradise that fears
No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends
Large prelibation oft to saints below. 
Of these the first in order, and the pledge
And confident assurance of the rest
Is liberty. A flight into his arms
'Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way,
[Page 211]579  A clear escape from tyrannizing lust,
And full immunity from penal woe. 

Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes and a dungeon; and his body serves
The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,
Opprobrious residence, he finds them all. 
Propense his heart to idols, he is held
In silly dotage on created things
Careless of their Creator. And that low
And sordid gravitation of his pow'rs
To a vile clod, so draws him, with such force
Resistless from the center he should seek,
That he at last forgets it. All his hopes
Tend downward, his ambition is to sink,
To reach a depth profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. 
But 'ere he gain the comfortless repose
He seeks, an acquiescence of his soul
[Page 212]598  In heav'n-renouncing exile, he endures —
What does he not? from lusts oppos'd in vain,
And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees
The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace,
Fortune and dignity; the loss of all
That can enoble man, and make frail life
Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,
Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins
Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes
Ages of hopeless misery. Future death,
And death still future. Not an hasty stroke
Like that which sends him to the dusty grave,
But unrepealable enduring death. 
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears;
What none can prove a forg'ry, may be true,
What none but bad men wish exploded, must. 
That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud
Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst
Of laughter his compunctions are sincere,
And he abhors the jest by which he shines. 
[Page 213]618 Remorse begets reform. His master-lust
Falls first before his resolute rebuke,
And seems dethroned and vanquish'd. Peace ensues,
But spurious and short-liv'd, the puny child
Of self-congratulating pride, begot
On fancied Innocence. Again he falls,
And fights again; but finds his best essay
A presage ominous, portending still
Its own dishonor by a worse relapse. 
Till Nature, unavailing Nature foiled
So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt,
Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now
Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause,
Perversely, which of late she so condemn'd;
With shallow shifts and old devices, worn
And tatter'd in the service of debauch,
Cov'ring his shame from his offended sight. 

"Hath God indeed giv'n appetites to man,
"And stored the earth so plenteously with means
[Page 214]637  "To gratify the hunger of his wish,
"And doth he reprobate and will he damn
"The use of his own bounty? making first
"So frail a kind, and then enacting laws
"So strict, that less than perfect must despair? 
"Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth,
"Dishonors God, and makes a slave of man. 
"Do they themselves, who undertake for hire
"The teacher's office, and dispense at large
"Their weekly dole of edifying strains,
"Attend to their own music? have they faith
"In what with such solemnity of tone
"And gesture they propound to our belief? 
"Nay — conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice
"Is but an instrument on which the priest
"May play what tune he pleases. In the deed,
"The unequivocal authentic deed
"We find sound argument, we read the heart. 

Such reas'nings (if that name must needs belong
T' excuses in which reason has no part)
[Page 215]657  Serve to compose a spirit well inclined
To live on terms of amity with vice,
And sin without disturbance. Often urged
(As often as libidinous discourse
Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes
Of theological and grave import)
They gain at last his unreserved assent. 
Till harden'd his heart's temper in the forge
Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,
He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves,
Or nothing much, his constancy in ill,
Vain tamp'ring has but foster'd his disease,
'Tis desp'rate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. 
Haste now, philosopher, and set him free. 
Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear
Of rectitude and fitness; moral truth
How lovely, and the moral-sense how sure
Consulted and obey'd, to guide his steps
Directly to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR. 
Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the pow'rs
[Page 216]677  Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise,
Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,
And with poetic trappings grace thy prose
Till it out-mantle all the pride of verse. —
Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass
Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm
Th' eclipse that intercepts truth's heav'nly beam,
And chills and darkens a wide-wand'ring soul. 
The still small voice is wanted. He must speak
Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect,
Who calls for things that are not, and they come. 

Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change
That turns to ridicule the turgid speech
And stately tone of moralists, who boast,
As if like him of fabulous renown
They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each
An Orpheus and omnipotent in song. 
But transformation of apostate man
[Page 217]696  From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,
Is work for Him that made him. He alone,
And he by means in philosophic eyes
Trivial and worthy of disdain, atchieves
The wonder; humanizing what is brute
In the lost kind, extracting from the lips
Of asps their venom, overpow'ring strength
By weakness, and hostility by love. 

Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause
Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve,
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre. Th' historic muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times; and sculpture in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass,
To guard them, and t' immortalize her trust. 
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,
To those who posted at the shrine of truth,
Have fall'n in her defence. A patriot's blood
Well spent in such a strife may earn indeed
[Page 218]716  And for a time insure to his loved land
The sweets of liberty and equal laws;
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,
And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed
In confirmation of the noblest claim,
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar, and to anticipate the skies. 
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown
Till persecution dragg'd them into fame
And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew
— No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song,
And History, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates indeed
The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire,
Butgivestheglorioussuff'rerslittlepraise.** See Hume.

[Page 219]

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes confed'rate for his harm
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green wyths. 
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of Nature, and though poor perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scen'ry all his own. 
His are the mountains, and the vallies his,
And the resplendent rivers. His t' enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who with filial confidence inspired
Can lift to heav'n an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say — my father made them all. 
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of int'rest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
[Page 220]753  That plann'd, and built, and still upholds a world
So cloathed with beauty, for rebellious man? 
Yes — ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast or in the chace, in song or dance
A liberty like his, who unimpeach'd
Of usurpation and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his father's work,
And has a richer use of yours, than you. 
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth
Of no mean city, plann'd or 'ere the hills
Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea,
With all his roaring multitude of waves. 
His freedom is the same in ev'ry state,
And no condition of this changeful life
So manifold in cares, whose ev'ry day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less. 
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury, can cripple or confine. 
[Page 221]773 No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. Th' oppressor holds
His body bound, but knows not what a range
His spirit takes unconscious of a chain,
And that to bind him is a vain attempt
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells. 

Acquaint thyself with God if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before;
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight
'Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. 
Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them, or recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away
From inland regions to the distant main. 
Man views it and admires, but rests content
[Page 222]792  With what he views. The landscape has his praise,
But not its author. Unconcern'd who form'd
The paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And such well-pleased to find it, asks no more. 
Not so the mind that has been touch'd from heav'n,
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught
To read his wonders, in whose thought the world,
Fair as it is, existed 'ere it was. 
Not for its own sake merely, but for his
Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise;
Praise that from earth resulting as it ought
To earth's acknowledg'd sov'reign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in Him. 
The soul that sees him, or receives sublimed
New faculties, or learns at least t' employ
More worthily the pow'rs she own'd before;
Discerns in all things, what with stupid gaze
Of ignorance till then she overlook'd,
A ray of heav'nly light gilding all forms
Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute
[Page 223]812  The unambiguous sootsteps of the God
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. 
Much conversant with heav'n, she often holds
With those fair ministers of light to man
That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp,
Sweet conference. Enquires what strains were they
With which heav'n rang, when ev'ry star, in haste
To gratulate the new-created earth,
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God
Shouted for joy. — "Tell me, ye shining hosts
"That navigate a sea that knows no storms
"Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,
"If from your elevation, whence ye view
"Distinctly scenes invisible to man,
"And systems of whose birth no tidings yet
"Have reach'd this nether world, ye spy a race
"Favor'd as our's, transgressors from the womb
"And hasting to a grave, yet doom'd to rise,
"And to possefs a brighter heav'n than yours? 
[Page 224]832  "As one who long detain'd on foreign shores
"Pants to return, and when he sees afar
"His country's weather-bleach'd and batter'd rocks
"From the green wave emerging, darts an eye
"Radiant with joy towards the happy land;
"So I with animated hopes behold
"And many an aching wish, your beamy fires,
"That shew like beacons in the blue abyss
"Ordain'd to guide th' embodied spirit home
"From toilsome life to never-ending rest. 
"Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires
"That give assurance of their own success,
"And that infused from heav'n, must thither tend."

So reads he nature whom the lamp of truth
Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious word! 
Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost
With intellects bemazed in endless doubt,
But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built
With means that were not till by thee employ'd,
[Page 225]851  World's that had never been had'st thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong. 
They are thy witnesses, who speak thy pow'r
And goodness infinite, but speak in ears
That hear not, or receive not their report. 
In vain thy creatures testify of thee
'Till thou proclaim thyself. Their's is indeed
A teaching voice; but 'tis the praise of thine
That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn,
And with the boon gives talents for its use. 
'Till thou art heard, imaginations vain
Possess the heart, and fables false as hell
Yet deemed oracular, lure down to death
The uninform'd and heedless souls of men. 
We give to chance, blind chance, ourselves as blind,
The glory of thy work, which yet appears
Perfect and unimpeachable of blame,
Challenging human scrutiny, and proved
Then skilful most when most severely judged. 
But chance is not; or is not where thou reign'st:
[Page 226]871  Thy providence forbids that fickle pow'r
(If pow'r she be that works but to confound)
To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws. 
Yet thus we doat, refusing while we can
Instruction, and inventing to ourselves
Gods such as guilt makes welcome, Gods that sleep,
Or disregard our follies, or that sit
Amused spectators of this bustling stage. 
Thee we reject, unable to abide
Thy purity, 'till pure as thou art pure,
Made such by thee, we love thee for that cause
For which we shunn'd and hated thee before. 
Then we are free. Then liberty like day
Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heav'n
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. 
A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not
'Till thou hast touch'd them; 'tis the voice of song,
A loud Hosanna sent from all thy works,
Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,
And adds his rapture to the gen'ral praise. 
[Page 227]891 In that blest moment, nature throwing wide
Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile
The author of her beauties, who retired
Behind his own creation, works unseen
By the impure, and hears his pow'r denied. 
Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, eternal word! 
From thee departing, they are lost and rove
At random, without honor, hope, or peace. 
From thee is all that sooths the life of man,
His high endeavour, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer and his will to serve. 
But oh thou bounteous giver of all good,
Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown! 
Give what thou can'st, without thee we are poor,
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away. 

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Title (in Source Edition): [THE TASK, A POEM, IN SIX BOOKS.] BOOK V.

Author: William Cowper

Themes: domestic life; family; rural life; patriotism

Genres: blank verse; narrative verse; georgic; philosophic poetry

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Source edition

Cowper, William, 1731-1800. The task: a poem, in six books. By William Cowper, ... To which are added, by the same author, An epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq. ... To which are added, ... an epistle ... and the history of John Gilpin. London: printed for J. Johnson, 1785, pp. [179]-227. [8],359,[1]p. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T14896; OTA K027776.000)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Secondary literature

Griffin, Dustin. Redefining Georgic: Cowper's Task. ELH 57 (1990): 565-79. Print.
Matheson, Ann. The Influence of Cowper's The Task on Coleridge's Conversational Poems. Sultana, Donald, ed. New Approaches to Coleridge. London: Vision, 1981. 137-50. Print.
Priestman, Martin. Cowper's Task: Structure and Influence. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.

[THE TASK, A POEM, IN SIX BOOKS.]

ARGUMENT of the FIFTH BOOK.

BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

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[THE TASK, A POEM, IN SIX BOOKS.]

ARGUMENT of the FIFTH BOOK.

BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

Text

About this text

Source edition

Editorial principles

Secondary literature

Related works

Other works by William Cowper

Phonological layer

Morphological layer

Syntactic layer

Semantic layer

Pragmatic layer