O happy people, where good princes reign,
Who tender public more than private gain;
Who, virtue's patrons and the plagues of vice,
Hate parasites, and hearken to the wise;
Who, self-commanders, rather sin suppress
By self-examples than by rigorousness;
Whose inward-humble, outward majesty
With subjects' love is guarded loyally;
Who idol not their pearly sceptres' glory
But know themselves set on a lofty storey
For all the world to see, and censure too:
So, not their lust, but what is just, they do.
But 'tis a hell, in hateful vassalage
Under a tyrant to consume one's age:
A self-shav'n Dennis, or a Nero fell,
Whose cursed courts with blood and incest swell;
An owl, that flies the light of parliaments
And state assemblies; jealous of th'intents
Of private tongues; who, for a pastime, sets
His peers at odds, and on their fury whets;
Who neither faith, honour, nor right respects;
Who every day new offices erects;
Who brooks no learned, wise, nor valiant subjects,
But daily crops such vice-upbraiding objects;
Who, worse than beasts or savage monsters been,
Spares neither mother, brother, kiff nor kin;
Who, though round-fenced with guard of armed knights,
A many moe he fears than he affrights;
Who taxes strange extorts; and cannibal
Gnaws to the bones his wretched subjects all.
Print (O heaven's King) in our Kings' hearts a zeal,
First of thy laws, then of their public weal.
And if our courtiers' now-Po-poisoned phrase
Or now-contagion of corrupted days
Leave any tract of Nimrodising there,
O cancel it, that they may everywhere
Instead of Babel build Jerusalem,
That loud my Muse may echo under them.
Ere Nimrod had attained to twice six years,
He tyrannised among his stripling peers,
Outstripped his equals, and in happy hour
Laid the foundations of his after-power;
And bearing reeds for sceptres, first he reigns
In prentice-princedom over shepherd swains.
Then knowing well that whoso aims illustre
At fancied bliss of empire's awful lustre
In valiant acts must pass the vulgar sort,
Or mask (at least) in lovely virtue's port,
He spends not night on beds of down or feathers,
Nor day in tents, but hardens to all weathers
His youthful limbs, and takes ambitiously
A rock for pillow, heaven for canopy.
Instead of softlings' jests and jollities,
He joys in jousts and manly exercise;
His dainty cates a fat kid's trembling flesh,
Scarce fully slain, luke-warm, and bleeding fresh.
Then, with one breath, he striveth to attain
A mountain's top, that overpeers the plain;
Against the stream to cleave the rolling ridges
Of nymph-strong floods, that have borne down their bridges,
Running unreined with swift rebounding sallies
Across the rocks within the narrow valleys,
To overtake the dart himself did throw
And in plain course to catch the hind or roe.
But, when five lustres of his age expired,
Feeling his stomach and his strength aspired
To worthier wars, perceived he anywhere
Boar, leopard, lion, tiger, ounce or bear,
Him dreadless combats; and in combat foils,
And rears high trophies of his bloody spoils.
The people, seeing by his warlike deed
From thieves and robbers every passage freed,
From hideous yells the deserts round about,
From fear their flocks; this monster-master stout,
This Hercules, this hammer-ill, they tender,
And call him all their father and defender.
Then Nimrod snatching fortune by the tresses
Strikes the hot steel; sues, soothes, importunes, presses
Now these, now those; and hast'ning his good hap
Leaves hunting beasts and hunteth men to trap.
For like as he in former quests did use
Calls, pit-falls, toils, springes, and baits, and glues,
And in the end against the wilder game
Clubs, darts, and shafts, and swords, their rage to tame,
So, some he wins with promise-full entreats,
With presents some, and some with rougher threats,
And boldly breaking bounds of equity,
Usurps the child-world's maiden monarchy;
Whereas before, each kindred had for guide
Their proper chief, ere that the youthful pride
Of upstart state, ambitious, boiling, fickle,
Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.
Enthronised thus, this tyrant gan devise
To perpetrate a thousand cruelties,
Pell-mell subverting for his appetite
God's, Man's, and Nature's triple-sacred right.
He braves th'Almighty, lifting to his nose
His flowering sceptre; and for fear he lose
The people's awe, who, idle, in the end
Might slip their yoke, he subtly makes them spend,
Draws dry their wealth, and busies them to build
A lofty tower, or rather Atlas wild.
‘W'have lived’, quoth he, ‘too long like pilgrim grooms.
Leave we these rolling tents and wand'ring rooms.
Let's raise a palace, whose proud front and feet
With heaven and hell may in an instant meet;
A sure asylum and a safe retreat,
If th'ireful storm of yet more floods should threat.
Let's found a city, and united there
Under a king let's lead our lives, for fear
Lest severed thus in princes and in tents
We be dispersed o'er all the regiments
That in his course the day's bright champion eyes,
Mightless ourselves to succour or advise.
But if the fire of some intestine war
Or other mischief should divide us far,
Brethren, at least let's leave memorials
Of our great names on these cloud-neighbouring walls.’
Now, as a spark that shepherds unespied
Have fallen by chance upon a forest-side
Among dry leaves, a while in secret shrouds,
Lifting aloft small, smoky-waving clouds,
Till fanned by the fawning winds it blushes
With angry rage; and rising through the bushes,
Climbs fragrant hawthorns, thence the oak, and than
The pine and fir, that bridge the ocean,
It still gets ground; and running doth augment,
And never leaves till all near woods be brent;
So this sweet speech, first broached by certain minions,
Is soon applauded mong the light opinions,
And by degrees from hand to hand renewed,
To all the base confused multitude,
Who longing now to see this castle reared
Them night and day in differing crafts bestirred.
Some fall to felling with a thousand strokes
Adventurous alders, ashes, long-lived oaks,
Degrading forests, that the sun might view
Fields that before his bright rays never knew.
Ha'ye seen a town exposed to spoil and slaughter,
At victor's pleasure, where laments and laughter
Mixedly resound; some carry, some convey,
Some lug, some load; gainst soldiers seeking prey
No place is sure; and ere a day be done
Out at her gate the ransacked town doth run:
So in a trice, these carpenters disrobe
Th'Assyrian hills of all their leafy robe,
Strip the steep mountains of their ghastly shades,
And poll the broad plains of their branchy glades:
Carts, sleds, and mules, thick-justling meet abroad,
And bending axles groan beneath their load.
Here, for hard cement, heap they night and day
The gummy slime of chalky waters grey;
There, busy kil-men ply their occupations
For brick and tile; there, for their firm foundations
They dig to hell; and damned ghosts again
(Past hope) behold the sun's bright glorious wain.
Their hammers' noise, through heaven's rebounding brim,
Affrights the fish that in fair Tigris swim.
These ruddy walls in height and compass grow,
They cast long shadow, and far-off do show.
All swarms with workmen, that (poor sots) surmise
Even the first day to touch the very skies.
Which God perceiving, bending wrathful frowns,
And with a noise that roaring thunder drowns,
Mid cloudy fields hills by the roots he rakes,
And th'unmoved hinges of the heavens he shakes.
‘See, see’, quoth He, ‘these dust-spawn, feeble dwarfs!
See their huge castles, walls, and counter-scarfs!
O strength-full piece, impregnable and sure,
All my just anger's batteries to endure!
I swore to them, the fruitful earth no more
Henceforth should fear the raging ocean's roar,
Yet build they towers. I willed that, scattered wide,
They should go man the world, and lo they bide
Self-prisoned here. I meant to be their master
Myself alone, their law, their prince, and pastor:
And they for lord a tyrant fell have ta'en them,
Who, to their cost, will roughly curb and rein them,
Who scorns mine arm, and with these braving towers
Attempts to scale this crystal throne of ours.
Come, come, let's dash their drift; and sith, combined
As well in voice, as blood, and law, and mind,
In ill they harden, and with language bold
Encourage-on themselves their works to hold,
Let's cast a let gainst their quick diligence,
Let's strike them straight with spirit of difference,
Let's all-confound their speech, let's make the brother,
The sire, and son, not understand each other.’
This said, as soon confusedly did bound
Through all the work I wot not what strange sound,
A jangling noise not much unlike the rumours
Of Bacchus' swains amid their drunken humours.
Some speak between the teeth, some in the nose,
Some in the throat their words do ill dispose,
Some howl, some hallow, some do stut and strain;
Each hath his gibberish, and all strive in vain
To find again their known beloved tongue
That with their milk they sucked in cradle young.
Arise betimes, while th'opal-coloured morn
In golden pomp doth May-day's door adorn,
And patient hear th'all-differing voices sweet
Of painted singers, that in groves do greet
Their love-Bon-jours, each in his phrase and fashion
From trembling perch utt'ring his earnest passion;
And so thou may'st conceit what mingle-mangle
Among this people everywhere did jangle.
‘Bring me’, quoth one, ‘a trowel, quickly, quick’:
One brings him up a hammer. ‘Hew this brick’,
Another bids, and then they cleave a tree.
‘Make fast this rope’, and then they let it flee.
One calls for planks, another mortar lacks:
They bear the first a stone, the last an axe.
One would have spikes, and him a spade they give.
Another asks a saw, and gets a sieve.
Thus crossly-crossed, they prate and point in vain;
What one hath made, another mars again.
Nigh breathless all with their confused yawling,
In bootless labour, now begins appalling.
In brief, as those that in some channel deep
Begin to build a bridge with arches steep,
Perceiving once in thousand streams extending
The course-changed river from the hills descending
With watery mountains bearing down their bay
As if it scorned such bondage to obey,
Abandon quickly all their work begun,
And here and there for swifter safety run,
These masons so, seeing the storm arrived
Of God's just wrath, all weak and heart-deprived,
Forsake their purpose, and like frantic fools
Scatter their stuff and tumble down their tools.
O proud revolt! O traitorous felony!
See in what sort the Lord hath punished thee
By this confusion! Ah that language sweet,
Sure bond of cities, friendship's mastic meet,
Strong curb of anger, erst united, now
In thousand dry brooks strays; I wot not how
That rare-rich gold, that charm-grief fancy mover,
That calm-rage heart's-thief, quell-pride conjure-lover,
That purest coin, then current in each coast,
Now mingled, hath sound, weight and colour lost:
'Tis counterfeit, and over every shore
The confused fall of Babel yet doth roar.
Then Finland-folk might visit Africa,
The Spaniard Inde, and ours America
Without a truchman; now, the banks that bound
Our towns about our tongues do also mound.
For, who from home but half a furlong goes,
As dumb (alas) his reason's tool doth lose;
Or if we talk but with our near confines,
We borrow mouths, or else we work by signs.
Untoiled, untutored, sucking tender food,
We learned a language all men understood;
And seven-years-old, in glass-dust did commence
To draw the round earth's fair circumference.
To cipher well, and climbing art by art,
We reached betimes that castle's highest part,
Where th'encyclopedy her darlings crowns,
In sign of conquest, with eterne renowns.
Now, ever boys, we wax old while we seek
The Hebrew tongue, the Latin, and the Greek.
We can but babble, and for knowledge whole
Of nature's secrets and of th'Essence sole,
Which essence gives to all, we tire our mind
To vary verbs, and finest words to find,
Our letters and our syllables to weigh.
At tutors' lips we hang with heads all grey,
Who teach us yet to read, and give us raw
An A.B.C. for great Justinian's law,
Hippocrates, or that diviner lore
Where God appears to whom Him right adore.
What shall I more say? Then, all spake the speech
Of God Himself, th'old sacred Idiom rich,
Rich perfect language where's no point, nor sign,
But hides some rare deep mystery divine.
But since that pride, each people hath apart
A bastard gibberish, harsh and overthwart,
Which, daily changed and losing light, well-near
Nothing retains of that first language clear.