To Burke

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Title:     To Burke
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [More Titles by Coleridge]

As late I lay in Slumber's shadowy vale,
With wetted cheek and in a mourner's guise,
I saw the sainted form of FREEDOM rise:
She spake! not sadder moans the autumnal gale--

'Great Son of Genius! sweet to me thy name,
Ere in an evil hour with alter'd voice
Thou bad'st Oppression's hireling crew rejoice
Blasting with wizard spell my laurell'd fame.

'Yet never, BURKE! thou drank'st Corruption's bowl! [1]
Thee stormy Pity and the cherish'd lure
Of Pomp, and proud Precipitance of soul
Wilder'd with meteor fires. Ah Spirit pure!

'That Error's mist had left thy purgéd eye:
So might I clasp thee with a Mother's joy!'

December 9, 1794.

FOOTNOTE:

[1]

_Yet never_, BURKE! thou dran'kst Corruption's bowl!

When I composed this line, I had not read the following paragraph in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_ (of Saturday, November 21, 1795):--

'_When Mr. Burke first crossed over the House of Commons from the Opposition to the Ministry, he received a pension of £1200 a year charged on the Kings Privy Purse._ When he had completed his labours, it was then a question what recompense his service deserved. Mr. Burke wanting a present supply of money, it was thought that a pension of £2000 _per annum_ for _forty years certain_, would sell for eighteen years' purchase, and bring him of course £36,000. But this pension must, by the very unfortunate act, of which Mr. Burke was himself the author, have come before Parliament. Instead of this Mr. Pitt suggested the idea of a pension of £2000 a year for _three lives_, to be charged on the King's Revenue of the West India 4-1/2 per cents. This was tried at the market, but it was found that it would not produce the £36,000 which were wanted. In consequence of this a pension of £2500 per annum, _for three lives_ on the 4-1/2 West India Fund, the lives to be nominated by Mr. Burke, that he may accommodate the purchasers is _finally_ granted to this disinterested patriot. He has thus retir'd from the trade of politics, with pensions to the amount of £3700 a year.' 1796, Note, pp. 177-9.

[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: Burke

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