Lines, &c: By Thomas Paine, [sic]

Table of contents

- Passages for Insertion in the Hiatuses.

LINES, &c.

By THOMAS PAINE,

THE Rain pours down, the City looks forlorn,

And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn,

Close by my sire, with door and window fast,

And safely shelter'd from the driving blast,

To gayer thoughts, I bid a days adieu,

To spend a scene of solitude with you.

So oft has black Revenge engros'd the care,

Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare;

So oft has guilt in all her thousand dens,

Call'd for the vengeance of chastising Pens;

That while, I fain would ease my heart on you,

No thought is left untold, no passion new.

From flight to flight the mental path appears,

Worn with the steps of near six thousand years,

And fill•d througout with every scene of pain.

From CAIN to G*****, and back from G***** to CAIN.

Alike in cruelty, alike in hate,

In guilt alike, but more alike in fate,

Both curs'd supremely for the blood they drew,

Each from the rising world, while each was new.

Go second CAIN, true likeness of the first,

And strew thy blasted head with homely dust

In ashes sit—in wretched sack-cloth weep

And with unpitied sorrows cease to slee•,

Go haunt the tombs, and single out the place

Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace.

Go spell the letters on some mouldring urn,

And ask if he who sleeps there can return.

Go count the numbers that in sile••• lie,

And learn by study what it is to die,

For sure that heart—if any heart you own

Conceits that man expires without a Groan:

That he who lives receives from you a grace,

Or death is nothing but a change of place:

That peace is dull, that joy from sorrow springs,

And War the Royal raree shew of things,

Else why these s•enes that wound the feeling mind

This sport of death—this Cockpit of Mankind.

Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain?

Why cries the Orphan?—"Oh my Father's slain"

Why hangs the Sire his paralytic head?

And nods with manly grief—"My Son is dead."

Why drops the tears from off the sisters cheek?

And sweetly tells the sorrows she would speak,

Or why in lonely steps does pensive John?

To all the neighbours tell, "Poor masters gone."

Oh could I paint the passion, I can feel,

Or point a horror that would wound like steel

To thy unfeeling, unrelenting mind

I'd send a torture and relieve mankind.

Thou that art husband, father, brother, all

The tender names which kindred learn to call.

Yet like an image carv'd in massey stone,

Thou bear'st the shape, but sentiment has't none,

Allied by dust and figure, not by mind,

Thou only herd'st, but liv'st not with mankind.

And prone to love, like some outrageous ape,

Thou know'st each class of beings by their shape.

Since then no hopes to civilize remain

And all petitions have gone forth in vain,

One prayer is left which dreads no proud reply,

That he who made thee breath will make thee die.

COMMON SENSE.

Passages for Insertion in the Hiatuses.

In the INTRODUCTION.

- No. 1. "by the King and Parliament they have" Page 2

- No. 2. "reject the oppressions o• either" —

- No. 3. "nor a General as in England a man" Page 11

- No. 4. "In England the king hath little" —

- No. 5. "by the king and h•s" page 13

- No. 6. "made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-temper'd Pha•aoh of England for ever; and disdained the wretch that with the pretended title of "FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE▪" can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul! —Bu•• Page 17

- No. 7. —"And as he hath shewn h•mself such an inveterate enemy to Liberty▪ and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power —Is he? or is he not a proper man"

- No. 8. "petitioning.— We are already greater than the king wishes us to be: and will he not endeavour hereafter to make us less?—To bring the" —

- No. 9. "l•ws, or whether the King, the greatest enemy we have, or can have, shall tell us, "There shall be no laws but such as I like?—But" —

- No. 10. "dangerous and fatal than it" Page 18

- No. 11. "policy in the king at this" —

- No. 12. "reinstating himself in the government of the Provinces in order that he may accomplish by fraud and subtity in the long run, what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one: Reconciliation and Ruin are nearly related. Secondly."

- No. 13. havock of mankind, like the royal brute of Great-Britain. —Yet that" Page 20

- No. 14. "eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of Government. —There are" —

- No. 15. the tyranny but the TYRANT—Stand forth!" Page 21

- No. 16. it cam• •ut, the King's Speech made" Page 28

- No. 17. "revenge. And the king's speech, instead of terrify." —

- No. 18. naturally follows, that the king's speech, as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved"

- No. 19. "that the king's speech hath not before" —

- No. 20. "The speech, if it may be" —

- No. 21. "of kings; for a• Nature" —

- No. 22. "The speech hath one" —

- No. 23. "savage than the King of Great-Britain. — Sir" Page 28

- No. 24. "like a worm. However it matters very little now, what the king either says or does. He has w•cke••• broken through every moral and human obligation; 〈◊〉 Nature and Conscience underfoot; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an universal hatred!—It it now" Page 29

- No. 25. "the King and his worthless" Page 30

- No. 26. "authority under him whom ye

- No. 27. "tell the wretch his •••s, and warn"

- No. 28. "a proof that the man whom ye are so"

Information about this book

Title statement

Lines, &c: By Thomas Paine, [sic]

Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.

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University of Oxford Text Archive
Oxford University Computing Services
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ota@oucs.ox.ac.uk

ID [ota]

http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/5484

ID [isbn10]

1106024834

ID [isbn13]

9781106024831

ID [TCP]

K129212.000

ID [BIBNO]

cw3316671185

ID [ECLL]

1175001600

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Source

— Lines, &c: By Thomas Paine, [sic], Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.. [2]p. ; 1/8⁰. [London,. 1790?]. ["The rain pours down, the city looks forlorn,".] [Reproduction of original from the Bodleian Library (Oxford).] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT213594.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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