Томас Бабингтон Маколей
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 3

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S TRIP TO CAMBRIDGE.—AN ELECTION BALLAD. (1827.)

      As I sate down to breakfast in state,
      At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring,
      With Betty beside me to wait,
      Came a rap that almost beat the door in.
      I laid down my basin of tea,
      And Betty ceased spreading the toast,
      "As sure as a gun, sir," said she,
      "That must be the knock of the post."

      A letter—and free—bring it here—
      I have no correspondent who franks.
      No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear,
      'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes.
      "Dear sir, as I know you desire
      That the Church should receive due protection,
      I humbly presume to require
      Your aid at the Cambridge election.

      "It has lately been brought to my knowledge,
      That the Ministers fully design
      To suppress each cathedral and college,
      And eject every learned divine.
      To assist this detestable scheme
      Three nuncios from Rome are come over;
      They left Calais on Monday by steam,
      And landed to dinner at Dover.

      "An army of grim Cordeliers,
      Well furnished with relics and vermin,
      Will follow, Lord Westmoreland fears,
      To effect what their chiefs may determine.
      Lollard's bower, good authorities say,
      Is again fitting up for a prison;
      And a wood-merchant told me to-day
      'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen.

      "The finance scheme of Canning contains
      A new Easter-offering tax;
      And he means to devote all the gains
      To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks.
      Your living, so neat and compact—
      Pray, don't let the news give you pain!—
      Is promised, I know for a fact,
      To an olive-faced Padre from Spain."

      I read, and I felt my heart bleed,
      Sore wounded with horror and pity;
      So I flew, with all possible speed,
      To our Protestant champion's committee.
      True gentlemen, kind and well-bred!
      No fleering! no distance! no scorn!
      They asked after my wife who is dead,
      And my children who never were born.

      They then, like high-principled Tories,
      Called our Sovereign unjust and unsteady,
      And assailed him with scandalous stories,
      Till the coach for the voters was ready.
      That coach might be well called a casket
      Of learning and brotherly love:
      There were parsons in boot and in basket;
      There were parsons below and above.

      There were Sneaker and Griper, a pair
      Who stick to Lord Mulesby like leeches;
      A smug chaplain of plausible air,
      Who writes my Lord Goslingham's speeches.
      Dr Buzz, who alone is a host,
      Who, with arguments weighty as lead,
      Proves six times a week in the Post
      That flesh somehow differs from bread.

      Dr Nimrod, whose orthodox toes
      Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup;
      Dr Humdrum, whose eloquence flows,
      Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup;
      Dr Rosygill puffing and fanning,
      And wiping away perspiration;
      Dr Humbug who proved Mr Canning
      The beast in St John's Revelation.

      A layman can scarce form a notion
      Of our wonderful talk on the road;
      Of the learning, the wit, and devotion,
      Which almost each syllable showed:
      Why divided allegiance agrees
      So ill with our free constitution;
      How Catholics swear as they please,
      In hope of the priest's absolution;

      How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered
      His faith for a legate's commission;
      How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd,
      Had stooped to a base coalition;
      How Papists are cased from compassion
      By bigotry, stronger than steel;
      How burning would soon come in fashion,
      And how very bad it must feel.

      We were all so much touched and excited
      By a subject so direly sublime,
      That the rules of politeness were slighted,
      And we all of us talked at a time;
      And in tones, which each moment grew louder,
      Told how we should dress for the show,
      And where we should fasten the powder,
      And if we should bellow or no.

      Thus from subject to subject we ran,
      And the journey passed pleasantly o'er,
      Till at last Dr Humdrum began;
      From that time I remember no more.
      At Ware he commenced his prelection,
      In the dullest of clerical drones;
      And when next I regained recollection
      We were rambling o'er Trumpington stones.

SONG. (1827.)

     O stay, Madonna! stay;
     'Tis not the dawn of day
     That marks the skies with yonder opal streak:
     The stars in silence shine;
     Then press thy lips to mine,
     And rest upon my neck thy fervid cheek.

     O sleep, Madonna! sleep;
     Leave me to watch and weep
     O'er the sad memory of departed joys,
     O'er hope's extinguished beam,
     O'er fancy's vanished dream;
     O'er all that nature gives and man destroys.

     O wake, Madonna! wake;
     Even now the purple lake
     Is dappled o'er with amber flakes of light;
     A glow is on the hill;
     And every trickling rill
     In golden threads leaps down from yonder height.

     O fly, Madonna! fly,
     Lest day and envy spy
     What only love and night may safely know:
     Fly, and tread softly, dear!
     Lest those who hate us hear
     The sounds of thy light footsteps as they go.

POLITICAL GEORGICS. (MARCH 1828.)

"Quid faciat laetas segetes," etc.

     How cabinets are formed, and how destroy'd,
     How Tories are confirmed, and Whigs decoy'd,
     How in nice times a prudent man should vote,
     At what conjuncture he should turn his coat,
     The truths fallacious, and the candid lies,
     And all the lore of sleek majorities,
     I sing, great Premier. Oh, mysterious two,
     Lords of our fate, the Doctor and the Jew,
     If, by your care enriched, the aspiring clerk
     Quits the close alley for the breezy park,
     And Dolly's chops and Reid's entire resigns
     For odorous fricassees and costly wines;
     And you, great pair, through Windsor's shades who rove,
     The Faun and Dryad of the conscious grove;
     All, all inspire me, for of all I sing,
     Doctor and Jew, and M—s and K—g.
     Thou, to the maudlin muse of Rydal dear;
     Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear.
     At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane
     And pawing hoof, sprung from the obedient plain;
     But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright,
     Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight.
     Haste from thy woods, mine Arbuthnot, with speed,
     Rich woods, where lean Scotch cattle love to feed:
     Let Gaffer Gooch and Boodle's patriot band,
     Fat from the leanness of a plundered land,
     True Cincinnati, quit their patent ploughs,
     Their new steam-harrows, and their premium sows;
     Let all in bulky majesty appear,
     Roll the dull eye, and yawn th' unmeaning cheer.
     Ye veteran Swiss, of senatorial wars,
     Who glory in your well-earned sticks and stars;
     Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons;
     Ye smug defaulters; ye obscene buffoons;
     Come all, of every race and size and form,
     Corruption's children, brethren of the worm;
     From those gigantic monsters who devour
     The pay of half a squadron in an hour,
     To those foul reptiles, doomed to night and scorn,
     Of filth and stench equivocally born;
     From royal tigers down to toads and lice;
     From Bathursts, Clintons, Fanes, to H— and P—;
     Thou last, by habit and by nature blest
     With every gift which serves a courtier best,
     The lap-dog spittle, the hyaena bile,
     The maw of shark, the tear of crocodile,
     Whate'er high station, undetermined yet,
     Awaits thee in the longing Cabinet,—
     Whether thou seat thee in the room of Peel,
     Or from Lord Prig extort the Privy Seal,
     Or our Field-marshal-Treasurer fix on thee,
     A legal admiral, to rule the sea,
     Or Chancery-suits, beneath thy well known reign,
     Turn to their nap of fifty years again;
     (Already L—, prescient of his fate,
     Yields half his woolsack to thy mightier weight;)
     Oh! Eldon, in whatever sphere thou shine,
     For opposition sure will ne'er be thine,
     Though scowls apart the lonely pride of Grey,
     Though Devonshire proudly flings his staff away,
     Though Lansdowne, trampling on his broken chain,
     Shine forth the Lansdowne of our hearts again,
     Assist me thou; for well I deem, I see
     An abstract of my ample theme in thee.
     Thou, as thy glorious self hath justly said,
     From earliest youth, wast pettifogger bred,
     And, raised to power by fortune's fickle will,
     Art head and heart a pettifogger still.
     So, where once Fleet-ditch ran confessed, we vie
     A crowded mart and stately avenue;
     But the black stream beneath runs on the same,
     Still brawls in W—'s key,—still stinks like H—'s name.

THE DELIVERANCE OF VIENNA.
TRANSLATED FROM VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA.
(Published in the "Winter's Wreath," Liverpool, 1828.)

"Le corde d'oro elette," etc.

     The chords, the sacred chords of gold,
     Strike, O Muse, in measure bold;
     And frame a sparkling wreath of joyous songs
     For that great God to whom revenge belongs.
     Who shall resist his might,
     Who marshals for the fight
     Earthquake and thunder, hurricane and flame?
     He smote the haughty race
     Of unbelieving Thrace,
     And turned their rage to fear, their pride to shame.
     He looked in wrath from high,
     Upon their vast array;
     And, in the twinkling of an eye,
     Tambour, and trump, and battle-cry,
     And steeds, and turbaned infantry,
     Passed like a dream away.
     Such power defends the mansions of the just:
     But, like a city without walls,
     The grandeur of the mortal falls
     Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust.
     The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own;
     They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire
     Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire,
     The Christian altars and the Augustan throne.
     And soon, they cried, shall Austria bow
     To the dust her lofty brow.
     The princedoms of Almayne
     Shall wear the Phrygian chain;
     In humbler waves shall vassal Tiber roll;
     And Rome a slave forlorn,
     Her laurelled tresses shorn,
     Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul.
     Who shall bid the torrent stay?
     Who shall bar the lightning's way?
     Who arrest the advancing van
     Of the fiery Ottoman?

     As the curling smoke-wreaths fly
     When fresh breezes clear the sky,
     Passed away each swelling boast
     Of the misbelieving host.
     From the Hebrus rolling far
     Came the murky cloud of war,
     And in shower and tempest dread
     Burst on Austria's fenceless head.
     But not for vaunt or threat
     Didst Thou, O Lord, forget
     The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well.

     Even in the very hour
     Of guilty pride and power
     Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell.
     Then the fields were heaped with dead,
     Then the streams with gore were red,
     And every bird of prey, and every beast,
     From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast.

     What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile!
     How wildly, in his place of doom beneath,
     Arabia's lying prophet gnashed his teeth,
     And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile!
     When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might,
     Flew on their destined path
     Thy messages of wrath,
     Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night.
     The Phthian mountains saw,
     And quaked with mystic awe:
     The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down
     Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown.
     The miscreants, as they raised their eyes
     Glaring defiance on Thy skies,
     Saw adverse winds and clouds display
     The terrors of their black array;—
     Saw each portentous star
     Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight
     The iron chariots of the Canaanite
     Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war.

     Beneath Thy withering look
     Their limbs with palsy shook;
     Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay;
     Trembled with panic fear
     Sabre and targe and spear,
     Through the proud armies of the rising day.
     Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand;
     And, if they strove to charge or stand
     Their efforts were as vain
     As his who, scared in feverish sleep
     By evil dreams, essays to leap,
     Then backward falls again.
     With a crash of wild dismay,
     Their ten thousand ranks gave way;
     Fast they broke, and fast they fled;
     Trampled, mangled, dying, dead,
     Horse and horsemen mingled lay;
     Till the mountains of the slain
     Raised the valleys to the plain.
     Be all the glory to Thy name divine!
     The swords were our's; the arm, O Lord, was Thine.
     Therefore to Thee, beneath whose footstool wait
     The powers which erring man calls Chance and Fate,
     To Thee who hast laid low
     The pride of Europe's foe,
     And taught Byzantium's sullen lords to fear,
     I pour my spirit out
     In a triumphant shout,
     And call all ages and all lands to hear.
     Thou who evermore endurest,
     Loftiest, mightiest, wisest, purest,
     Thou whose will destroys or saves,
     Dread of tyrants, hope of slaves,
     The wreath of glory is from Thee,
     And the red sword of victory.

     There where exulting Danube's flood
     Runs stained with Islam's noblest blood
     From that tremendous field,
     There where in mosque the tyrants met,
     And from the crier's minaret
     Unholy summons pealed,
     Pure shrines and temples now shall be
     Decked for a worship worthy Thee.
     To Thee thy whole creation pays
     With mystic sympathy its praise,
     The air, the earth, the seas:
     The day shines forth with livelier beam;
     There is a smile upon the stream,
     An anthem on the breeze.
     Glory, they cry, to Him whose might
     Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight,
     Whose arm protects with power divine
     The city of his favoured line.
     The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound;
     The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round.

     But, if Thy rescued church may dare
     Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer,
     Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord,
     Sheathe not Thy victorious sword.
     Still Panonia pines away,
     Vassal of a double sway:
     Still Thy servants groan in chains,
     Still the race which hates Thee reigns:
     Part the living from the dead:
     Join the members to the head:
     Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold;
     Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold.

     He is the victor, only he
     Who reaps the fruits of victory.
     We conquered once in vain,
     When foamed the Ionian waves with gore,
     And heaped Lepanto's stormy shore
     With wrecks and Moslem slain.
     Yet wretched Cyprus never broke
     The Syrian tyrant's iron yoke.
     Shall the twice vanquished foe
     Again repeat his blow?
     Shall Europe's sword be hung to rust in peace?
     No—let the red-cross ranks
     Of the triumphant Franks
     Bear swift deliverance to the shrines of Greece
     And in her inmost heart let Asia feel
     The avenging plagues of Western fire and steel.

     Oh God! for one short moment raise
     The veil which hides those glorious days.
     The flying foes I see Thee urge
     Even to the river's headlong verge.

     Close on their rear the loud uproar
     Of fierce pursuit from Ister's shore
     Comes pealing on the wind;
     The Rab's wild waters are before,
     The Christian sword behind.
     Sons of perdition, speed your flight,
     No earthly spear is in the rest;
     No earthly champion leads to fight
     The warriors of the West.
     The Lord of Host asserts His old renown,
     Scatters, and smites, and slays, and tramples down.
     Fast, fast beyond what mortal tongue can say,
     Or mortal fancy dream,
     He rushes on his prey:
     Till, with the terrors of the wondrous theme
     Bewildered, and appalled, I cease to sing,
     And close my dazzled eye, and rest my wearied wing.