Analysis of The Duellist - Book III

Charles Churchill 1731 (Westminster) – 1764 (Boulogne-sur-Mer)



Ah me! what mighty perils wait
The man who meddles with a state,
Whether to strengthen, or oppose!
False are his friends, and firm his foes:
How must his soul, once ventured in,
Plunge blindly on from sin to sin!
What toils he suffers, what disgrace,
To get, and then to keep, a place!
How often, whether wrong or right,
Must he in jest or earnest fight,
Risking for those both life and limb
Who would not risk one groat for him!
Under the Temple lay a Cave,
Made by some guilty, coward slave,
Whose actions fear'd rebuke: a maze
Of intricate and winding ways,
Not to be found without a clue;
One passage only, known to few,
In paths direct led to a cell,
Where Fraud in secret loved to dwell,
With all her tools and slaves about her,
Nor fear'd lest Honesty should rout her.
In a dark corner, shunning sight
Of man, and shrinking from the light,
One dull, dim taper through the cell
Glimmering, to make more horrible
The face of darkness, she prepares,
Working unseen, all kinds of snares,
With curious, but destructive art:
Here, through the eye to catch the heart,
Gay stars their tinsel beams afford,
Neat artifice to trap a lord;
There, fit for all whom Folly bred,
Wave plumes of feathers for the head;
Garters the hag contrives to make,
Which, as it seems, a babe might break,
But which ambitious madmen feel
More firm and sure than chains of steel;
Which, slipp'd just underneath the knee,
Forbid a freeman to be free.
Purses she knew, (did ever curse
Travel more sure than in a purse?)
Which, by some strange and magic bands,
Enslave the soul, and tie the hands.
Here Flattery, eldest-born of Guile,
Weaves with rare skill the silken smile,
The courtly cringe, the supple bow,
The private squeeze, the levee vow,
With which--no strange or recent case--
Fools in, deceive fools out of place.
Corruption, (who, in former times,
Through fear or shame conceal'd her crimes,
And what she did, contrived to do it
So that the public might not view it)
Presumptuous grown, unfit was held
For their dark councils, and expell'd,
Since in the day her business might
Be done as safe as in the night.
Her eye down-bending to the ground,
Planning some dark and deadly wound,
Holding a dagger, on which stood,
All fresh and reeking, drops of blood,
Bearing a lantern, which of yore,
By Treason borrow'd, Guy Fawkes bore,
By which, since they improved in trade,
Excisemen have their lanterns made,
Assassination, her whole mind
Blood-thirsting, on her arm reclined;
Death, grinning, at her elbow stood,
And held forth instruments of blood,--
Vile instruments, which cowards choose,
But men of honour dare not use;
Around, his Lordship and his Grace,
Both qualified for such a place,
With many a Forbes, and many a Dun,
Each a resolved, and pious son,
Wait her high bidding; each prepared,
As she around her orders shared,
Proof 'gainst remorse, to run, to fly,
And bid the destined victim die,
Posting on Villany's black wing,
Whether he patriot is, or king.
Oppression,--willing to appear
An object of our love, not fear,
Or, at the most, a reverend awe
To breed, usurp'd the garb of Law.
A book she held, on which her eyes
Were deeply fix'd, whence seem'd to rise
Joy in her breast; a book, of might
Most wonderful, which black to white
Could turn, and without help of laws,
Could make the worse the better cause.
She read, by flattering hopes deceived;
She wish'd, and what she wish'd, believed,
To make that book for ever stand
The rule of wrong through all the land;
On the back, fair and worthy note,
At large was Magna Charta wrote;
But turn your eye within, and read,
A bitter lesson, Norton's Creed.
Ready, e'en with a look, to run,
Fast as the coursers of the sun,
To worry Virtue, at her hand
Two half-starved greyhounds took their stand.
A curious model, cut in wood,
Of a most ancient castle stood
Full in her view; the gates were barr'd,
And soldiers on the watch kept guard;
In the front, openly, in black
Was wrote, The Tower: but on the back,
Mark'd with a secretary's seal,
In bloody letters, The Bastile.
Around a table, fully bent
On mischief of most black intent,
Deeply determined that their reign
Might longer last, to work the bane
Of one firm patriot, whose heart, tied
To Honour, all their power defied,
And brought those actions into light
They wish'd to have conceal'd in night,
Begot, born, bred to infamy,
A privy-council sat of three:
Great were their na


Scheme Text too long
Poetic Form
Metre 11110101 0111101 10110101 11110111 11111100 11011111 11110101 11011101 11010111 11011101 10111101 11111111 10010101 11110101 11010101 11000101 11110101 11010111 01011101 11010111 110101010 111100110 00110101 11010101 11110101 100111100 01110101 10011111 110010101 11011101 11110101 11001101 11111101 11110101 1001111 11110111 11010101 11011111 1110101 01010111 10111101 10111001 11110101 01010101 110010111 11110101 01010101 01010101 11111101 10011111 01010101 11110101 011101111 110101111 010010111 11110001 10010101 11111001 01110101 10110101 10010111 11010111 10010111 1101111 11110101 111101 0010011 1110101 1101011 01110011 11001101 1111111 0111011 1101101 1100101001 10010101 10110101 11010101 11011111 01010101 101111 101100111 01010101 110110111 110101001 1110111 01111101 01011111 10010111 11001111 11001111 11010101 111100101 11011101 11111101 01111101 10110101 1111011 11110101 01010101 101110111 1101101 11010101 1111111 010010101 10110101 10010101 01010111 00110001 110101101 1101001 0101001 01010101 11011101 10010111 11011101 111100111 11111001 01110011 11110101 01111100 01010111 1011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 4,268
Words 787
Sentences 18
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 123
Lines Amount 123
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 3,379
Words per stanza (avg) 784
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

4:02 min read
119

Charles Churchill

Lieutenant General Charles Churchill was a British Army General and a Member of Parliament. more…

All Charles Churchill poems | Charles Churchill Books

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