Rev. C. Hoyle
Ode to Humanity
「1798」 Rev. C. Hoyle, “Ode to Humanity,” preface to An Essay on Humanity to Animals, by Thomas Young 「Google Books」 (London, 1798).
O come, Humanity! to this fell race
Thy soul-subduing gifts impart,
That every love and every grace,
On their unclouded brow may smile,
And triumph in their heart.
So shall their hand from carnage cease,
And high upon thine altar pile
The fruits of charity and peace.
The regal bull, ignobly now confin’d,
Torn by the dogs, and madden’d by the chain;
ODE TO HUMANITY
I.
O THAT the voice of magic might unsphere
Him, beneath whose saintly feet,
Every bud and blossom sweet
Of peace and joy in lavish beauty Spring,
Fit offering to th’ Eternal King!
O for a strain to soothe th’ immortal ear
Of him, in whom the host above,
View the fair image of Almighty Love;
Of him whose smile, tho’ distant, cheers
Above all radiance, the dark vale of tears !
Friend of the human race is he,
And high and holy is his throne;
His heav’nly name unheard, unknown,
His name on earth HUMANITY.
II.
Haste thee, fair Cherub ! snatch the living fire
From thine hallow’d shrine,
And with a sev’nfold heat refine
Ev’ry heart, that it may glow
With pity, such as angels know,
When for a fallen world their prayers aspire:
Or in ambrosial dews
Descending, all thyself infuse
Through the pensive soul;
Till, by the genial moisture fed,
The social virtues shoot and spread,
Guided by the most controul
Of Charity, whose gifts are giv’n
Free as the breeze and liberal light of heaven;
Whose word can smooth the brow of care,
And turn to day the midnight of despair.
Before her face afflictions cease;
For swift her might, her succour sure,
The wounds of human woe to cure,
And bid confusion, sink to peace.
III.
When from the Stygian womb
Of Chaos and eternal Night,
The dawn of new-created light
Sprung up, and scattering wide the gloom,
Kindled the starry host of heav’n,
When the vast orb with gladness rung,
And earth, sea, skies, the Maker’s glory sung;
Then was the charter giv’n
To man’s imperial hand;
Then was the benediction heard on high,
“Increase and multiply,
And with supreme command
O’er all that live, dominion bear,
Of all that live protectors be,
Beasts of the field, and fowls of air,
And fishes of the sea.”
IV.
But O for some benignant charm,
That might, in happy hour,
Subdue the tyrant pride of power,
The torturing hand of rage disarm,
And on each heart the precept bind
Of mercy to the Brutal kind !
E’er yet, in linked thunderbolts and fire,
The wrath retributive descend;
While heaven, the universal friend,
Fills high the cup of woe,
Of fear, and shame, and vengeance dire,
For man the universal foe.
V.
Lovely is the verdant pride
Of the river’s fringed side;
Lovely the winding chrystal flows,
Where heav’n’s reflected azure glows:
But what avail these beauties rare,
Th’ aerial hues, the sylvan grace,
If man the smiling scene deface,
And spread pollution there ?
There the faithless trimmer see,
Where fix’d by hands of blood
To tempt the monarchs of the flood:
The finny victim trembling lies,
And struggles, gasps, and dies,
Through hours of lengthen’d agony.
Meanwhile the breezes as they blow,
Bear on their wings the plaints of woe,
From many a rock, and many a glade,
The tangling brake, the hawthorn shade,
Where wont far other notes to ring
Of love, and peace, and thrilling pleasure
Had bless’d the feather’d songsters of the spring.
But mid the peaceful groves
Man, the cruel spoiler, roves;
Where’er he turns, desire is fled,
The carols cease, and hope is dead:
Sore-wounded some in cureless anguish pine,
While others in the wiry dungeon groan,
Or, of their young berest by hand malign,
Make night and silence echo to their moan.
Nor less the flow’ry meads around
Attest the dreaded name
Of Man, while many a mournful sound
Bears witness to his shame.
The patient ass, inur’d to pain;
The regal bull, ignobly now confin’d,
Torn by the dogs, and madden’d by the chain;
The steed of noblest kind,
Whose strength was thunder, and his swiftness wind,
Now with toil and suffering worn,
Fainting, dying, all forlorn;
These miseries of the mildew’d year
Prove too well that Man is near,
Memorials of his presence here,
Trophies of his frantic mood,
Whose infancy was nurs’d in blood.
The wreaths of love with baleful yew to twine,
Each plant of pleasure to destroy,
Cut short frail nature’s span,
And poison hope, and murther joy,
These are thy sportive deeds, O Man !
These tender mercies thine !
VI.
O come, Humanity ! to this fell race
Thy soul-subduing gifts impart,
That every love and every grace,
On their unclouded brow may smile,
And triumph in their heart.
So shall their hand from carnage cease,
And high upon thine altar pile
The fruits of charity and peace.
Before thine universal sway,
Thy torrent of celestial day,
How would peril, toil, and trouble,
Vanish as a bursting bubble !
For in the circle of thy spell
No griefs unholy dare to dwell;
Far from thee thy spread their flight,
Sorrow is joy, and darkness light.
When the stormy winds rejoice
To rouse the slumb’ring spectres of the main,
When, with woe-denouncing voice,
Death and Discord call from far
The grim Cerberean dogs of war,
And Desolation sweeps the plain;
Then in the dark and dreadful hour,
Humanity, we own thy guardian power;
Then dost thou walk the dang’rous steep,
To snatch the seaman from the deep:
And where devoted myriads strive,
Thy still small voice, with sacred charm,
Benumbs the warrior’s lifted arm,
The fall’n are rais’d, the captives live.
Taught by thee the tyrant’s ear
Bends the subject’s cry to hear,
Rapine and her children sleep,
And crimson conquest learns to weep.
By thee inspir’d the statesman old,
The much-revolving sage, and patriot bold,
With gen’rous search, heroic toil,
Bid plenty crown the barren soil,
And Truth and Freedom burst Oppression’s chain:
The forge resounds, the vessel flies,
The city fills, the temples rise,
And order, laws, and virtue reign.
VII
Tutor’d by thee the wayward soul
Shall bend to virtue’s soft controul;
Mount from self-love to social, to divine,
And to the law of God Supreme, her ev’ry
thought incline.
So when the heavens above, and earth below
Shall sink in oceans of devouring fire,
When the perpetual hills do bow,
When Time and Death expire,
When with the Sire and Mystic Dove;
The Saviour shines confest to view,
While Seraph-choirs, in speechless love,
His sapphire-blazing skirts pursue;
The cleansed sinner shall be found
Gracious and just, with glory crown’d
Shall in the face of heaven salvation’s plumes
display,
Soar to the mount of God, and bask in endless
day.
