THE PHILANTHROPIST.
Nay, little should I love mankind,
If their dark Past my praise could find,
It is because—
THE MISANTHROPE.
A moment hold!
Enough gone times: our own behold!
What lessons doth a past of woe
And crime upon our age bestow?
How few amongst the tribes of earth
Are rescued from the primal wild;
What countless lands the ocean's girth,
By savage rites and gore defil'd!
Afric—a mart of human flesh;
Asia—a satrapy of slaves!
And yonder tracts from Nature fresh,
Worn empires fill with knaves?
Are men at home more good and wise?
My friend, thou read'st the daily papers;
Perchance, thou seest but laughing skies,
Where I but mists and vapours.
But much the same seems each disease.
What most improved? The doctor's fees!
The Law can still oppress the Weak,
The Proud still march before the Meek.
Still crabbed Age and heedless Youth;
Still Power perplex'd, asks "What is Truth?"
To no result our squabbles come:
To some what's best is worst to some.
The few the cake amongst them carve,
And labourers sweat and poets starve;
And Envy still on Genius feeds,
And not one modest man succeeds.
All much the same for prince and peasant—
I've done.—How dost thou love the Present?
THE PHILANTHROPIST.
'Tis not man's Present or man's Past;
Beyond, man's friend his eye must cast.
Must see him break each galling fetter;
To gain the best, desire the better—
From Discontent itself we borrow
The glorious yearnings for the morrow;
Science and Truth like waves advance
Upon the antique Ignorance.
THE MISANTHROPE.
Like waves—the image not amiss!
They gain on that side—lose on this;
Pleased, after fifty ages, if
They gulp at last an inch of cliff.
THE PHILANTHROPIST.
You really cannot think by satire,
To mine the truths you cannot batter;
Man's destinies are brightening slowly,
With them entwined each thought most holy.
What though the Past my horror moves,
No Eden though the Present seems,
Who loves Mankind, their Future loves,
And trusts, and lives—