Classic Poem

ON POLITICS .

From moments so precious to life,
All politics, Laura, remove;
Ruby lips must not animate strife,
But breathe the sweet language of love.

What is party? — a zeal without science,
A bubble of popular fame;
In Nature and Virtue's defiance,
'Tis Reason enslav'd to a name.

'Tis the language of madness, or fashion,
Where knaves only guess what they mean;
'Tis a cloak to conceal private passion,
To indulge, with applause, private spleen.

Can I, plac'd by my Laura, inquire,
If poison or claret put out
Our Churchill's satirical fire,
If Wilkes lives with ears or without?

When you vary your charms with your patches,
To me 'tis a weightier affair
Than who writes the northern dispatches,
Or sits in the President's chair.

When, by Nature and Art form'd to please,
You sing, and you talk, and you laugh;
Can I forfeit such raptures as these,
To dream of the Chamberlain's staff?

Secure under Brunswick and Heaven,
I trust the state-vessel shall ride;
To Bute let the rudder be given,
Or Pitt be permitted to guide.

At Almack's when the turtle's well dress'd,
Must I know the cook's country, or starve?
And when George gives us Liberty's feast,
Not taste, till Newcastle shall carve?

Yet think not that wildly I range,
With no sober system in view;
My notions are fix'd, though they change,
Applied to Great Britain and you.

There, I reverence our bright constitution,
Not heeding what Calumny raves;
Yet wish for a new Revolution,
Should rulers treat subjects as slaves.

Here, the doctrine of boundless dominion,
Of boundless obedience is mine;
Ah! my fair, to cure schism in opinion,
Confess non-resistance is thine.