by Francis Worsley.
Originally published in Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine (Punch) vol.3 #13 (Jan 1846).
Reflections on coming in sight of "New Portland Town," on the Finchley Road, Nov. 9th, 1845.
I.
The throbbings of the City's plethoric heart
Strengthen and quicken, and export its blood
In human streams more wide and far apart
From its dense centre: man in social brood
Subjects the fields to cities: where the wood
Harboured the wild bird thro' Time's silent years,
And cattle on the still lea had their food,
Usurping man's warm home of joy and tears,
Filled with his life and death, its awful walls uprears.
II.
So on the Indian wild the Banian tree
Spreads vast its bowery branches; which bend down
And root in primal earth far o'er her free
Domain:—a forest from one trunk alone.
And from Convention's law which is outgrown
From Nature's, into Nature's man should seek
Duly for Truth's pure nurture when the tone
Of civil life is jarred; its laws too weak
To balance wills, and unity 'mong units make.
III.
Man shall be social ever: civil states,
Shall they for ever rise and fall? can Time
Perfect a social mould for human fates
Infrangible?—must national suns climb
To noon-tide greatness but to slope thro' crime
To sun-set?—it is matter's law of change:
But of man's moral will 'tis the sublime
The laws of Truth to poise, decay estrange;
As Askalon's orb stood in its meridian range.
IV.
Creation's scheme is progress: citied states
Are agents in their rise;—what in their fall?
"We rose for ruin"—read upon their gates:
"Ye fell to make us safe from Ruin's call"
Wise modern states should answer: "in your fall
Wisdom we learn your grandeur never taught."
Rome's, Athens', genius survives o'er all:—
Truth's phœnix soaring from their ashes caught,
Poised on her moveless wings,—oh, England! fear for nought.