To the vast multitude; whose doom it is
To run the giddy round of vain delight,
Or fret and labour on the Plain below.

But, if to such sublime ascent the hopes Of Man may rise, as to a welcome close And termination of his mortal course, Them only can such hope inspire whose minds Have not been starved by absolute neglect; Nor bodies crushed by unremitting toil; To whom kind Nature, therefore, may afford Proof of the sacred love she bears for all; Whose birth-right Reason, therefore, may ensure. For me, consulting what I feel within

In times when most existence with herself

Is satisfied, I cannot but believe,

That, far as kindly Nature hath free scope
And Reason's sway predominates, even so far,
Country, society, and time itself,

That saps the Individual's bodily frame,

And lays the generations low in dust,

Do, by the Almighty Ruler's grace, partake
Of one maternal spirit, bringing forth

And cherishing with ever-constant love,

That tires not, nor betrays. Our Life is turned

Out of her course, wherever Man is made
An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool

Or implement, a passive Thing employed
As a brute mean, without acknowledgment
Of common right or interest in the end;
Used or abused, as selfishness may prompt.
Say, what can follow for a rational Soul
Perverted thus, but weakness in all good,
And strength in evil? Hence an after-call
For chastisement, and custody, and bonds,
And oft-times Death, avenger of the past,
And the sole guardian in whose hands we dare
Entrust the future. Not for these sad issues

Was Man created; but to obey the law

Of life, and hope, and action. And 'tis known
That when we stand upon our native soil,
Unelbowed by such objects as oppress

Our active powers, those powers themselves become
Strong to subvert our noxious qualities:
They sweep distemper from the busy day,
And make the Vessel of the big round Year
Run o'er with gladness; whence the Being moves
In beauty through the world; and all who see
Bless him, rejoicing in his neighbourhood."

"Then," said the Solitary, "by what force Of language shall a feeling Heart express

Her sorrow for that multitude in whom

We look for health from seeds that have been sown
In sickness, and for increase in a power

That works but by extinction. On themselves
They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts
To know what they must do; their wisdom is
To look into the eyes of others, thence
To be instructed what they must avoid :
Or rather let us say, how least observed,
How with most quiet and most silent death,
With the least taint and injury to the air

The Oppressor breathes, their human Form divine,
And their immortal Soul, may waste away."

The Sage rejoined, "I thank you-you have spared My voice the utterance of a keen regret,

A wide compassion which with you I share.
When, heretofore, I placed before your sight
A Little-one, subjected to the Arts

Of modern ingenuity, and made

The senseless member of a vast machine,
Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel;

Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget
The rustic Boy, who walks the fields, untaught;
The Slave of ignorance, and oft of want,
And miserable hunger. Much, too much
Of this unhappy lot, in early youth

We both have witnessed, lot which I myself
Shared, though in mild and merciful degree :
Yet was the mind to hinderances exposed,
Through which I struggled, not without distress
And sometimes injury, like a lamb enthralled
'Mid thorns and brambles; or a Bird that breaks
Through a strong net, and mounts upon the wind,
Though with her plumes impaired. If they, whose souls
Should open while they range the richer fields
Of merry England, are obstructed less

By indigence, their ignorance is not less,
Nor less to be deplored. For who can doubt
That tens of thousands at this day exist
Such as the Boy you painted, lineal Heirs
Of those who once were Vassals of her soil,
Following its fortunes like the beasts or trees
Which it sustained. But no one takes delight
In this oppression; none are proud of it;
It bears no sounding name, nor ever bore;
A standing grievance, an indigenous vice

Of every country under heaven. My thoughts
Were turned to evils that are new and chosen,
A Bondage lurking under shape of good, -
Arts, in themselves beneficent and kind,
But all too fondly followed and too far;
To Victims, which the merciful can see
Nor think that they are Victims; turned to wrongs
By Women who have Children of their own
Beheld without compassion, yea with praise!
I spake of mischief by the wise diffused
With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads
The healthier, the securer, we become;
Delusion which a moment may destroy!
Lastly, I mourned for those whom I had seen
Corrupted and cast down, on favoured ground,
Where circumstance and nature had combined
To shelter innocence, and cherish love;

Who, but for this intrusion, would have lived,
Possessed of health, and strength, and peace of mind;
Thus would have lived, or never have been born.

Alas! what differs more than man from man!

And whence that difference? whence but from himself? For see the universal Race endowed

With the same upright form!

The sun is fixed,