Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-07-10

II
And checks with Pride the fires Of the soul.
Whether from habit, instinct, design,
To siBtuldte all more or less Incline
No maxim is more general than this
Each objects 10 Just ,radt he IS.
He, often, that's devout and good at heart,
Plays TO the world fiPPant, careless part;
Ashamed, it seems, to practice or to own
What's not the fashion with the sneerng town
While they, that evil 10 their aid invoke,
Borrow of Piety her sable cloak.
Young SAPoR, when he's travelling abroad,
Denies his counter and affects the lord:
In garb and vices all that's foreign apes,
His tongue forgotten, and hirsute his chaps.
By painful show, and otentatious glare,
All strive TO seem more PROSPEROUS than they are.
Ashamed 10 own sirnple, honest state,
And be in mind and manly action great,
Before all else a name for wealth they hold,
And must be gilded, if they can't be gold.
In great house PARvEyIo meanly dwells,
With seeming wealth and mock profusion swelis.
To outward view, his state a Nabob's seems,
In fact beggar's-full of shifts and schemes.
The rich. the rich alone, he entertains,
And puts among them with fictitious gains
The whites Madame and he, behind the scene,
For very life the bones and platter CLEAN;
Content, IL milliOnaires their bounty taste,
To live on rotten remnants of the feast.
Thus, with enough for comfort TO provide,
Their life itselfs beggar 10 their pride
Miss, by long study and the tolctte's aid,
Appears another thing than Nature made.
BY false contour, and heels, and paints device,
She seems a blooming, well-sized, healthy piece.
SIMPLEX, when wearied Of a single life,
Pleased with tn effect, selects her for his wife,
The parson, now, has said that they are one,
The feast is over, and the friends gone
Lot when he flies to claim her buXOm charms,
A manikinl falls, signing in his arms
Young PETER PIDGEoS. too, desires a bride,
One in whose innocence he may cOnhde.
d" No CIR, )" he cries, ''for me, who's ever known
% The love OF any creature but mine own.
" Give me some being to the word nun,
" Fresh as the dew, yet ardent as the sun.
" heart, dye see, with once its virgin crop Off,
Is like champagne with all the sparkling pop of -
Thus Peter-and TO carry out his views,
With vows and signs sweet PUIsATILLE pursues.
So shy reserved and delicate her air,
Poor Peter fears his passion 10 declare;
Lest he should shock the gentle, timid thing,
Ana roughly strike some tender female spring.
And yet, il all is but mask TO cozen,
For lovers she has harbored by the dozen;
And, when her victims in the nuptial moose,
VIII keep dozen dangling round the house.
See SABADIIIA in her weli-stufied pew,
A saint and vestal to the outward view,
Perform with ready zeal each sacred rite
How sweetly good how gracefully contrite
10 when she opes her mouth, and rolls her eyes,
Sweet incense seems ascending to the skies;
She needs her book and never looks around,
And when at prayer, quiet grovels on the ground.
Who'd ever think, her saint like face to scan.
She came 10 church To meet a fav rite manI
That, all the ''fOrms" with decency observed,
She thinks her soul is safe, and Heaven servedS
That being good at stated time and place,
Will bring, for every deierction, gTacer
In church and converse, she seems passing good,
The devil vanquished, and the world wthstood;
Pride, worldly thought and vanity above,
And all her soul confirmed to heavenly love.
Who'd think her picty selfish pride,
Herself Pexalt, and favorte faults to hidef
Pervading not each daily thought aud deed,
And nothing deeper than standard greedy
me assumption Of superior good
minds pretence, and not its habitudel
OF holiness she loves TO preach the beauty,
Yet violates, in turn, each social duty;
wondrOus license TO herself extends,
Yet looks with horror on her erring friends
Her faults, she thinks, are means sweet heav'n to
win,
And Scripture finds plea for ev'ry sin.
Polteness, if it was has ceased to be
BcnevOience and Christian courtesy,
And is at best, genteel hypocrisy
Its highest mission now seems To conceal,
Tn antipathies that each for each may feel;
To varnish over every social lie,
TO give a cheap and hollow sympathy;
To vap'ring words the force of deeds impart,
To give in flourish what we lack i'll heart
To make US babblc when we've naught to say
When gay be stold and in grief be gay;
To bear with creatures that we should despise,
Look grave with fools, and trifie with the wise.
The social shipper has usurped the place
or frank, open, natural face;
And least society for truth prescribe,
We grin and chatter, like the Simian tribe !
Yes las the various ranks of life we scan,
deception marks the character of man:
And Truth-an outcast-ridculed, suppressed,
Our life, travestied, is by art expressed.
The sly coquette seems simple Natures child,
The termagant a creature soft ana mild
My loving mistress will her faith uphold,
BY jltng to marry aged gold
This honest man, so high in name and place,
Betrays my trust, and cheats me to my face;
Making his garing virtue a device
To keep from view profitable vice.
My friend, with kindly protestatiOns rife,
Will shoot me cold, or steal away my wife
This sleek, kind mans devil in disguise,
That one fool, though ranking with the wise
This wretch, that looks SO poor, and begs hard,
Is but a mser, adding to his hoard.
By stealing brains, the Grub street man exists,
And ounces walk with owls on their fists;
The demagogue, to gain his proper ends,
A patriots lire and interest pretends.
Retormers always have an end in view,
Quite other than the good OF me and you.
Corrupted justice 10 the world seems blind,
But Keeps eye for subsidies behind.
Vain upstairs, taught their blunders To conceal
Usurp a dignity they do not feel.
In skin of lion figures many an ass,
And wolves, as lambs, among the lambkins pass
mid such DISCUSSES and decetful show,
In such world what can plaindeaers do?
In vain, would they gainst all the world protest,
In vain would seek the current TO arrest,
So--!earn apart, and juggle with the rest
Hypocrisy, essential TO our lives,
Fen after life triumphantly survives.
Her services sought for dying bed,
Her eulogies delivered DER the dead
Lo where MEPIiIsroS, gaspiug for breath,
Reluctant yields his battered hulk To death;
heightened life Of wickedness achieves,
To offer Heaven what the devil leaves:
Assumes the saint, and says, In trs in this,
MY friends you'll find the only happiness
His friends around admire his happy state,
His life so gay, his death so fortunate.
Yet should grim death, like tiger at his play,
Seem for n moment To have crept away;
Let hope but put her PRISM to his eyes,
To trick his soul with ColOTed fantasies;
No more he calls on bounteOus Heavn TO save,
But stops TO sport with bubbles DER his grave,
And all forgot the joys Of Paradise,
Between his spasms lays new plans for vice.
At length, when cheating Hope no longer lies,
He sails away triumphant, To the skies
'Hc dies they say by all respected (Which
In palmer language, means he died rich
Though worldly goods he cannot take along,
They're still Of use the humbug to prolong:
They're useful still to geta spurious name,
And cheat his kin tn buy pos,humous fame.
His charity now for the first time shown,
Embalms his name, and awcs the gaping town;
Pale Elegy is hired To give its signs,
And DER him marble tells its standard lies.
Though be arts by others not believed,
How often by ourselves we deceived.
No easy task is 1t for Wisdoms ray
Light 10 the selfdereiving 20 convey:
To pierce the clouds Of vanity that roll,
Ia sluggish volume, round the cheated SOUL
To drive rank error from its ancient seat,
And battle Pride within its dark retreat.
Seldom does Truth, save by divine command
Dispe the mists and show the barren land