Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

The Progress of Refinement. A Poem. In Three Parts [from Poems on Various Subjects]

London

Printed for John Stockdale

1787

"What force can free the mind that Vice has chain'd, / Or clear the current if the fountain's stain'd?"

But short the light of Pleasure's transient gleam!
Soon Nature starting from the illusive dream
Shrinks back affrighted as her eyes survey
The horrid form of arbitrary sway.--
Monsters who built on vice their dreadful joy,
Proud of their crimes and happy to destroy,
Seiz'd the vast power that Freedom's sons resign'd,
And shook the rod of vengeance o'er mankind;
Life hung alone upon a tyrant's breath,
And each capricious frown awarded death.
Amid the waste of years though haply shine
A TITUS, TRAJAN, or an ANTONINE,
The short-liv'd interval more strongly shews
The striking contrast of despotic woes.
What force can free the mind that Vice has chain'd,
Or clear the current if the fountain's stain'd?--
No distant regions happier hopes afford
Beneath the empire of a milder lord;
Fear still beholds where'er her eye she flings,
Subjected states, and tributary kings;
And Power o'ertakes the exile as he goes
O'er LIBYAN deserts, or through SCYTHIAN snows.
(vol. ii, pp. 114-5)

Fetters::Chains

Searching "mind" and "chain" in HDIS (Poetry)

Only 1 entry in the ESTC (1787).

See Poems on Various Subjects. By Henry James Pye, 2 vols. (London: John Stockdale, 1787). <Link to ECCO> <Link to vol. ii in Google Books>

07/19/2011