ON FALSE SYSTEMS

Does there exist, or will there come

An age with wisdom to assume,

The Rights by heaven designed;

The Rights which man was born to claim,

From Nature's God which freely came,

To aid and bless mankind.—

No monarch lives, nor do I deem

There will exist one crown supreme

The world in peace to sway;

Whose first great view will be to place

On their true scale the human race,

And discord's rage allay.

Republics! must the task be your's

To frame the code which life secures,

And Right from man to man —

Are you, in Time's declining age,

Found only fit to tread the stage

Where tyranny began?

How can we call those systems just

Which bid the few, the proud, the first

Possess all earthly good;

While millions robbed of all that's dear

In silence shed the ceaseless tear,

And leeches suck their blood.

Great orb, that on our planet shines,

Whose power both light and heat combines,

You should the model be;

To man, the pattern how to reign

With equal sway, and how maintain

True human dignity.

Impartially to all below

The solar beams unstinted flow,

On all is poured the Ray,

Which cheers, which warms, which clothes the ground

In robes of green, or breathes around

Life;— to enjoy the day.

But crowns not so;— with selfish views

They partially their bliss diffuse

Their minions feel them kind;—

And, still opposed to human right,

Their plans, their views in this unite,

To embroil and curse mankind.

Ye tyrants, false to Him, who gave

Life, and the virtues of the brave,

All worth we own, or know:—

Who made you great, the lords of man,

To waste with wars, with blood to stain

The Maker's works below?

You have no iron race to sway —

Illume them well with Reason's ray;

Inform our active race;

True honour, to the mind impart,

With virtue's precepts tame the heart,

Not urge it to be base;

Let laws revive, by heaven designed,

To tame the tiger in the mind

And drive from human hearts

That love of wealth, that love of sway

Which leads the world too much astray,

Which points envenomed darts:

And men will rise from what they are;

Sublimer, and superior, far,

Than Solon guessed, or Plato saw;

All will be just, all will be good —

That harmony, “not understood,”

Will reign the general law.

For, in our race, deranged, bereft,

The parting god some vestige left

Of worth before possessed;

Which full, which fair, which perfect shone

When love and peace, in concord sown,

Ruled, and inspired each breast.

Hence, the small Good which yet we find,

Is shades of that prevailing mind

Which sways the worlds around:—

Let these depart, once disappear,

And earth would all the horrors wear

In hell's dominions found.

Just, as yon’ tree, which, bending, grows

To chance, not fate, its fortune owes;

So man from some rude shock,

Some slighted power, some hostile hand,

Has missed the state by Nature planned,

Has split on passion's rock.

Yet shall that tree, when hewed away

( As human woes have had their day )

A new creation find:

The infant shoot in time will swell,

( Sublime and great from that which fell,)

To all that heaven designed.

What is this earth, that sun, these skies;

If all we see, on man must rise,

Forsaken and oppressed —

Why blazes round the eternal beam,

Why, Reason, art thou called supreme,

Where nations find no rest.—

What are the splendours of this ball —

When life is closed, what are they all?

When dust to dust returns

Does power, or wealth, attend the dead;

Are captives from the contest led —

Is homage paid to urns?

What are the ends of Nature's laws;

What folly prompts, what madness draws

Mankind in chains, too strong:—

Nature, to us, confused appears,

On little things she wastes her cares,

The great seem sometimes wrong.