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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
*  ♦  •
FOUNDED  1836
WASHINGTON, D. C.
B19574
Ps—t 
 
 
J.\sVHrLjPt
POEMS
ESTABLISHED  REPUTATION,
1st. THE ART of PRESERVING HEALTH,
                       by J. Armstrong, M. D.

2d. THE MINSTREL, or PROGRESS of GENIUS,
                       by James Seattle, LL.  D.

3d. THE PLEASURES of IMAGINATION,
                       by Dr. Akenside.
4th. THE TASK,         by Wm. Confer, Esq..
       Baltimore x
   Printed and Sold by
WARNER & HANNA.
1803. 
 
THE
    ART


OF PRESERVING
HEALTH.
BY  JOHN ARMSTRQNG, M.  D.
" Armstrong's Art of preserving health is a Poem which ear.
  never be sufficiently praised, read and recommended."

      Pursuits of Literature, note on line 100, Dial, third. 
 
THE
Art  of  preserving  Health.
book   i.
                     A   I  R.


\_J AUGHTER of Paean,  queen of every joy,
Hygeia*; whose indulgent smile sustains
The various race luxuriant nature pours,
And on th' immortal essences bestows
Immortal youth ; auspicious,  O descend !               &
Thou cheerful guardian of the rolling year,
Wh£ther thou wanton'st on the western gale,
Orshak'st the rigid pinions of the north,
Diffusestlife and vigour through the trails
Of air, thro' earth, and ocean's deep domain.          10

  * Hygeia, the goddess of health,  was, according  to the
genealog of the heathen deities, the daughter of  .ffscula-
pius :  who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name
of Paean.
                        a 2 
4                THE ART- OF           Book I.

When through the blue serenity of heaven
Thy power approaches,  all the wasteful host
Of pain and sickness, squalid and deform'd,
Confounded sink into the loathsome gloom,
Where  in deep Erebus involv'd the fiends               15
Grow more profane.  Whatever shapes of death,
Shook from the hedious chambers of the globe,
Swarm thro' the shudd'ring air :  whatever plagues
Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings
Rise from the putrid watery element,                   20
The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,
That smothers earth and all the breathless winds,
Or the vile carnage of the inhuman field ;
Whatever baneful breaths the rotten South ;
Whatever ills th' the extremes or sudden change         25
Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce ;
They fly thy pure effulgence  : they, and all
The secret poisons  of avenging heaven,
And all the pale tribes halting in the train
Of Vice and he,#iless Pleasure :  or if aught            30
The comet's glare amid the  burning sky,
Mournful eclipse, or planets ill combin'd,
Portend disasterous to the vital world ;
Thy salutary power averts their rage,
Averts the general bane :  and but  for thee              35
Nature would sicken, nature soon  would die.

   Without thy cneerful a&ive energy
 No rapture swells the breast,  no poet sings,
No more the maids of Helicon delight.
Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly gay '.
Begin the song ; and let it sweetly flow,                41
And let it sweetly teach thy wholesome laws :
 " How best the fickle fabric to support
 " Of mortal man ; in healthful body how
 " A healthful mind the longest to  maintain."            4<D
 'Tishard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse
 The best,  and those of most extensive use j
 Harder in clear and animated song.
 Dry philosophic precepts to convey.
 Yet with thy aid the secret, wilds  I trace                50
 Of nature, and with daring steps proceed
 Through paths the muses never trod before.

   Nor shall I wander doubtful of my way,
 Had 1  the lights of that sagacious  mind 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.           7

Which taught to check the pestilential fire,              55
And quell the deadly Python of the Nile.
O thou belov'd by all the graceful arts,
Thou long the fav'rite of the healing powers,
Indulge, O Mead! a well-design'd essay,
Howe'er imperfecft:  and permit that I                  60
My little knowledge with my country share,
Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,
And with new graces dignify the theme.

   YE who amid the feverish world would wear
A body free of pain,  of cares a mind ;                  65
Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air ;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, sick'ning, and the living world
Exhal'd, to sully heaven's transparent dome              7<5
With dim mortality.  It is not air
That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,
The spoils of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature, when from sh?pe and textuie she              75
Relapses into fighting elements ;
It is not air,  but floats a nauseous mass'
Of all obscene,  corrupt, offensive things.
Much moisture hurts : but here a sordid bath,
With oily rancour fraught, relaxes more,                80
The solid frame than simple moisture can.
Besides, immur'd in many a sullen bay
That never felt the freshness of the breeze,
This slumbering Deep remains, and ranker grows
With sickly  rest:  and (tho' the lungs abhor              85
To drink the dun fuliginous abyss)
Did not the acid vigour of the mine,
Roll'd from so many thund'ring chimneys, tame
The putrid streams that overswarm the sky ;
This caustic  venom would perhaps corrode               90
Those tender cells that draw the vital air,
In vain with all their unftuous rills bedewed ;
Or by the drunken venous tubes,  that yawn
In countless  pores o'er all the previous skin,
Imbib'd would poison the Balsamic blood,
 And rouse the heart to every fever's rage.
 While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds
 Invite ;  the  mountains call you,  and the vales ;
 The woods the streams, and each ambrosial breeze 
 8                THE  ART OF           Book  I.

 That fans the ever undulating sky;                    100
 A kindly sky ! whose fost'ringpow'r regales
 Man, beast,  and all the vegetable reign.
 Find ;hen some woodland scene where nature s-miles
 Benign,  where all  her honest children thrive.
 To us therfcwants  not many a happy seat ;              105
 Look round the smiling land, such numbers rise
 We hardly fix, bewildered in our choice.
 See where eathron'd in adamantine state,
 Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits;
 There chu.e thy  seat in some aspiring grove            110
 Fast by the slowly-winding Thames  ; or where
 Broader she leaves  fair Richmond's green retreats,
 (Richmond that sees an . hundred villa's rise
 Rural or gay.)  O  ! from the summer's rage
 O ! wrap me  in the friendly gloom that hides           115
 Umbrageous Ham  ! But if the busy town
 Attraft thee still to toil for power or  gold,
 Sweetly thou mayest thy vacant hours possess
 In Hamstead, courted by the western wind ;
 Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood ;         120
 Or loose  the world  among the sylvan wilds
 Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd.
 Green rise the Kemish hills in cheerful air ;
But on the marshy  plains that Essex  spreads
Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.         155
For on a  rustic throne of dewy turf,
With banefulfogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there presides :  a meagre hend
Begot by Eurus,  when his brutal force
Compress'd the slothful Naiad of the Fens.            130
From such a mixture, sprung this fitful pest
 Wiih fev'rish blasts subdues the sick'ning land :
Cold tremours come,  with mighty love of rest,
 Convulsive yawnings, lassitude and pains
That sting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,
 And rack the joints and every torpid limb ;             136
Then parching heat succeeds, till copidus sweats
O'erflow  : a short relief from former His.
Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine ;
The vigour sinks, the habit mel's away ;               140
The cheerful pure and animated bloom
Di-s from the face, with squalid atrophy
Devour'd, in  sallow melancholy clad.
And oft the Sorceress, in her sated wrath,
Resigns them to  the furies of her train ;               145 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.

The blAted Hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

   In quest of sites, avoid the jnournful plain
Where osiers thirve, and trees that love the lake
Where many lazy muddy rivers flow :
Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll
Fix near the marshy margin of the main.
For from the humid soil and watry reign
Eternal vapours rise ; the spungy air
Forever weeps ; or turgid with the weight
Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down.
Skies such as these let ev'ry mortal  shun
Who dreads  the dropsy,  palsy,  or the gout,
Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or the moist catarrh ;
Or any other injury that grows
From raw- spun fibres idle and unstrung,
Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple flood
In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

   Yet not alone from humid skies we pine ;
For air may be too dry.  The subtle heaven,
That winnows into dust the blasted downs,
Bare and extended wide without a stream,
Too fast  imbibes th' attenuated lymph
Which,  by the surface, from the blood exhales.
The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay
Their flexible vibrations ; or inflam'd,
Their tender ever-moving stru&ure  thaws.
Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood
A mass of lees remains, a drossy tide
That slow as  Lethe wanders thro' the veins ;
Una£tive in the services of life,
Unfit to lead its pitchy current through
The secret mazy channels of the brain.
The melancolic Fiend (That worst despair
Of physic,) hence the rust complexion'd  man
Pursues,  whose blood is dry, whose fibres gain
Too stretc'h a tone : and hence in climes adust
So sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,
And burning fevers glow with double rage.

   Fly, if you can, these violent extremes
Of Air ; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.
But as the power of chusing is deny'd
To half mankind, a farther task ensues ; 
10
THE ART OF
Book I.
How best to mitigate these fell extremes,
How breath unhun, the withering element,
Or hazy atmosphere . though Custom moulds
To ev'ry clime the soft PromjJFiiean clay ;
And he who first the fogs of Essex breath'd
(So kind is native air) may in the fens
Of Essex frcm the inveterate ills revive
At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.
But if the raw and oozy heaven offend ;
Ccireft the soil, and dry the sources up
Of watery exhalations ; wide and deep
Condudt your trenches through the quaking bog j
Solicitous,  with all your winding arts.                 201
Betray th' unwilling lake into the stream ;
And weed  the forest, and invoke the winds
To break the toils where strangled vapours lie ;
Or through the thickets send the crackling flames.
Mean time at home with cheerful fire dispel            20€
The humid air :  and let your table smoke
With solid roast or bak'd ; or what the herds
Of tamer breed supply ; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilsome pleasures of the chace.            210
Generous your wine, the boast of ripening years,
Bu frugal be your cups ;  the languid frame,
Vapid and sunk from yesterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of watery heaven.
But neither these nor all Apollo's arts,                 215
Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,
Unless with exercise and manly toil
You brace  your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.
The fat'ning clime let all the sons of ease
 Avoid ; if indolence would wish to live.               220
 Go, yawn  and loiter Gut the long slow year
In fairer skies.  If droughty regions parch
The skin and lungs, and break the thickening blood ;
Deep in the waving forests chuse your seat
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air ;           225
 And wake the fountains from their secret beds,
 And into lakes dilate the rapid stream .
 Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
 The m< ist relaxing vegetable store,
 Prevail in  each repast: Your food supplied             230
 By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,
 By sof t decodion and a mellowing heat,
 To liquid balm ; or, if the solid mass
 You chuse, tormented in  the boiling wave*;
19©
195 
PRESERVING HEALTH.
11
 That thro' the thirsty channels of the blood            235
 A smooth dilued chyle may flow,
 The fragrant dairy frv.m its cool recess
 It j neiftar acid or benign will pour
 To drown your thirst ; or let the mantling bowl
 Of keen Sherbert the fickle 'asLe relieve.               240
 For with the viscous blood the simple stream
 Will hardly mi'igle ; and fermented cups
 Oft dissipate m^re moisture than they give.
 Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rolls
 His horrors o'er the world, thou may'st indulge         245
 In feasts more genial, bud impa' ient broach
 The mellow cask.  Then too the scourging air
 Provokes to keener toils than sultry droughts
 Allow.   Bu* rarely we such skies blaspheme.
 Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs           250
 Bedew'd, our seasons droop :  incumbent still
 A ponderous heaven o'erw helms the sinking soul.
 Lab'riug with storms in heapy mountains rise
 Th' imbattled clouds, as if  the Stygian shades
 Had left the dungeon of eternal night,                255
 Till black with thunder all the south descends.
 Scarce is a showerless day the heavens indulge
 Our melting clime ; except the baleful East
 Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks
 The fancy of the year.  Our fathers talk              260
 Of  summers, balmy airs, and skies serene.
 Good heaven!  for what unexpiated crimes
 This dismal change !  The brooding elements,
 Do  they, your powerful ministers of wrath,
 Prepare some fierce exterminating plague I             265
Or is it fix'd in the Decrees above
That lofty Albion melt into the main ?
 Indulgent nature ! O dissolve this gloom !
 Bind in eternal adamant the winds
 That drown or wither : Give the genial West         270
 To breathe,  and in its turn the sprightly North :
And may once more the circling seasons rule
The year ; not mix in every monstrous day,

  Meantime the moist malignity to shun
 Of burthen'd skies;  mark where the dry champain
 Swells into cheerful hills ; where Marjoram            275
 And Thyme, the love of  bees prefume the air ;
 And where the * Cynorrhodon with the rose

  *  The wild rose, or that which grows on the common briar. 
12
THE ART  OF           Book I.
For fragrance vies ; for in the thirsty soil
Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.              260
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep
Ascend,  there light thy hospitable fires.
And let them see the winter morn arise,
The summer evening blushing  in the west;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind         585
O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish east.
O ! when th-j growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates  in the storm ;
To sink  in warm repose,  and hear the din              290
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights                »
Above the luxury of common sleep.
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain
Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.                 295
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is studied ;  for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the just
And natural movements of the harmonious frame.
Besides, the sportive brook forever shakes              300
The trembling air ; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to  mountain, with incessant change
Of purest element, refreshing still
Your airy seat, and uninfected Gods.
Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds             SOS
High on the breezy ridge, whose 1'ifty sides
Th' etherial deep with endless billows chafes.
His purer rnansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy-.

   But may no fogs, from lake or  fenny plain,          310
Involve my hill ! And wheresoe'er y< u build ;
Whether on  sun-burr.t Epsom, or the plains  ,
Wash'd by the silent Lee ; in  Chelsea low,
Or highBlackheath with wintry winds assail'd ;
Dry be your house : but airy more than warm.          315
Else every breath of ruder wind  will strike
Your tender body thro' with' rapid pains ;
Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarsness bind your voice,
Or moist Gravado load your aching  brows.
These to defy, and all the fates that dwell              320
In cloister'd  air, tainted with streaming life,
Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms -,
And still at azure noontide may youTdome
At every window drink the liquid sky. 
          PRESERVING HEALTH.          13

  Need we the sunny situation here,                  325
And theatres open to the south, commend ?
Here, where the morning's misty brca*h infests
More than the torrid noon ? How sickly grow,
How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales,
That, circled round with the gigantic heap            330
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigor of the sun !
While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames
The  verdant spring -, in virgin beauty blows
The  tender lily, languishingly sweet ;                 $35
O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,
And autumn ripens  in the summer's ray.
Nor  less the warmer living tribes demand
The  fost'ring sun : whose energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire ; whose gen'rous heat        340
Glows thro'the mass of grosser elements,
And kindles into life the ponderous spheres.
Cheer'd by thy kind, invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majesty of day 1
If not the soul,  the regent of this world,               345
First-born of heaven, and only less than God !
B 
BOOK  II.
DIET.
XlfNOUGH of Air.  A desart subject now,
licugher and wilder, rises to my sight ;
A barren waste,  whereynot a garland grows
To bind the Muse's brow ;  not ev'n a proud,
Stupendous solitftude frowns o*er the heath,
To rouse a noble horror in the soul :
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads
Through endless labyrinths the devious feet.
Farewell, ethereal fields !  the humbler arts
Of life ; the table of the homely Gods
Demand my song.  Elysian gales adieu |

  The blood, the fountain whence the spirits fl
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every particle that moves or lives,
This vital fluid, throughunnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded ;  scourg'd for ever round and round ;
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at last forgets
Its balmy nature ;  virulent and thin
It grows ;  and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherish'd and repair'd before.
Besides, the flexible and tender  tubes
Melt in the mildest, most nedlareous tide
That ripening nature rolls ; as in the stream
Its  crumbling banks ;  but what the vital force
Of plastic fluids  hourly batters down, 
THE ART  OF  8cC.
15
That very force, those plastic particles
Rebuild :  so mutable the state of man.                  30
For this the watchful appetite was giv'n,
Daily, with fresh materials, to repair
This unavoidable expence of life,
This necessary waste of flesh and blood.
Hence the concodtive powers, with various art,          35
Stibdtie the cruder aliments to chyle ;
The chyle to blood ; the foamy purple tide
To liquors,  which, through finer arteries,
To diiferent parts their winding course pursue ;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,             40
Or for the public, or some private use.

   Nothing so foreign but the athletic hind
Can labour into blood.   The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin ;
By violent powers too easily subdu'd,                   45
Too soon expell'd.  His daily labour thaws,
To friendly chyle, the most rebellious mass
That salt can harden, or the smoke of  years ;
Nor does his gorge the rancid bacon rue,
Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste           50
Of solid  milk.  But ye of softer clay,
Infirm and delicate ! and ye who waste,
With pale and bloated  sloth, the tedious day !
Avoid the stubborn alimeat, avoid
The full repast ; and let sagacious age                  55
Grow wiser, lesson'd by the dropping teeth.

   Half subtiliz'd to chyle, the liquid food
 Readiest obeys th' assimilating powers;
And soon the tender veretable mass
Relents ; and soon the young of those that tread
 The steadfast  earth, or cleave  the green abyss,           61
Or pathless sky.   And if the steer must fall,
 In youth and sanguine vigour let him die ;
 Nor stay till rigid age, or heavy ails,
 Absolve him,  ill requi.ed, from the yoke.                 65
 Some with high forage, and luxunent ease,
 Indulge the ve.eran ox ; but wiser thou,
 From the bald maimtain or the barren downs,
 Expe£t the flocks by frugal nature fed;
 A race of purer blood, with exercise                    70
 Refin'd and scanty fare ; For, old or young,
 Th-i stall'd are never healthy -T  nor the csramm'd, 
.10               THE  ART  OF         Book  II.

Not all the culinary arts can tame,
To wholesome food, the abominable growth
Of rest and gluttony;  the prudent taste                 75
Reje&s, like bane, such loathsome  lusciousness.
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat,  and all the race of oil :
For more the oily aliments relax
Its feeble tone ; and with the eager lymph                80
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
Ccily they mix, and shun with slippery wiles
The woo'd embrace.  Th' irresoluble oil,
So gentle late, and blandishing,  in floods
Of rancid bile o'erflows : what tumults hence,           85
What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gummy nutriment imbibes  :
Choose sober meals : and rouse to active life
Your  cumbrous clay ; nor on th'  infeebling down,        90
Irresolute, protradt the morning hours.
But let the man whose bones are thinly clad,
With cheerful ease and succulent repast
Improve his slender habit.  Each extreme
From the blest mean of sanity departs.                   ^5

   I could relate what table this demands,
Or that complexion ;  what the various  powers
Of various foods : but fifty years would roll,
And fifty more, before the tale were done.
Besides, there often lurks some  nameless, strange,
Peculiar thing ; nor on the skin  display'd,
Felt in the pulce,  nor in the habit seen ;
Which finds a poison in the food,that most
The temp'rature affedts,   There are, whose blood
Impetuous rages through the turgid veins,
Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind,
Than the moist Melon,  or pale Cucumber.
Of chilly nature others fly the board
Supply'd with slaughter; and the vernal powers,
For cooler, kinder, sustenance implore.
Some even the generous nutriment detest
Which, in the shell, the sleeping embroyfrears.
Some, more unhappy still,  repent the gifts
Of Pales ; soft, delicious, and benign :
The balmy quintessence of every flower,
And every grateful herb that decks the spring ;
The fost'ring dew of tender sprouting life ;
The best refeclion of declining age ;
101


105




110




116: 
           PRESERVING  HEALTH.          17

 The kind restorative of those that lie
 Half dead, and panting, from the doubtful strife
 Of na.ure struggling in the grasp of  death.              120
 Try all the bounties  of this fertile globe,
 Tnere is not such a salutary food
 As suits  with every stomach.  But  (except,
 Amid the mingled mass of fish and fowl,
 And boil'dand bak'd, you hesitate by which            125
 You sunk oppress'd,  or whether not by all;)
 Taught by experience  soon you may discern
 What pleases, what offends.  Avoid the cates
 That lull the sicken'd appetite too long ;
 Or heave wi-.h fev'rish flushings all the face,           130
 Burn  in the palms, and parch the roughniag tongue ;
 Or much diminish, or too much increase
 Th' expence,  which nature's wise economy,
 Without or waste or avarice, maintains.
 Such cates abjur'd, let prouling hunger loose,           135
 And bid the curious palate roam at  will ;
 They scarce can err amid the various stores
 That  burst the teeming entrails of the world.

   Led by sagacious taste, the ruthless king
 Of beasts on blood and slaughter only lives ;            140
 The tiger, form'd alike to cruel meals,
 Would at the  manger starve : of milder seeds
 The generous horse  to herbage and to grain
 Confines his wish; though fabling  Greece  resound
 The Thracian steeds with human carnage wild.        145
 Prompted by instinct's never-erring power,
 Each creature knows its proper aliment;
 But man, th' inhabitant of every clime,.
 With all the commoners of nature feeds.
 Direfted, bounded,  by this power within,              150
 Their cravings are well aim'd :  voluptuous  man
 Is by superior faculties misled ;
 Misled from pleasure even in quest of joy.
 Sated  with nature's  boons, what thousands seek,
 With dishes tortured from their native taste,           155
Arid mai varie:y to  spur beyond
 Its wiser will the jaded appetite ?           *<
 Is this for  pleasure ? Learn a jnster taste ;
 And know, that temperance is true luxury.
 Or is it pride ? Pursue some nobler aim.               160
 Dismiss  your parasites, v/ho praise for hire ;
 And earn the fair esteem of honest men,
                           b2 
IS               THE ART  OF          Book  II.

Whose praife is fame.   Form'd of such clay as yours,
The r;ick, ihe needy, shiver at your gates.
Even modest want may bless your hand unseen,         165
Though hush'd in patient wretchedness at home.
I . there no virgin, grae'd with everv charm
But what which hinds  the mercenary vow ?
No  youth of ge;iiu., whose negledled bloom,
XJr.i stcr'd, sickens in  ihe barren shade ?               170
No  \voi\hy ma.i, by fortune's random blows,
Or  by a heart too generous ana humane,
Ccnstrain'd to leave his happy natal seat,
A;-.d sigh for wants more bitter than his own ?
There are, while human miseries abound,              ITS
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fo< 1 or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.

  But other ills  th'  ambiguous feast pursue,
Besides provoking rhe  lascivious  taste.                 180
Such vari in foods, though  harmless each alone,
Each other violate; and oft  we see
What strife is brew'd, and what pernicious bane,
From combinations of  innoxious things.
Th' unbounded taste I  mean not to confine             185
To  hermit's cue1", needlessly severe.
But would you long the sweets of health enjoy,
Or  husband pleasure ;  at one impious meal
Exhaust not half the bounties  of the year,
Of  every realm.   It matters not  mean while            190
Hos much to-morrow  differ from to-day;
So  far indulge .-  'vis fit, besides,  that man,
To  change clmoxious,  be to change inur'd.
But stay the curious appetite,  and taste
With caution fruits you never tried before.             195
For want of use the kindest aliment
Sometimes offends ; while custom tames the rage
Of  poison to mild amity with life.

  So heav'n has form'd us to the general taste
Of all its gifts ;  so custom has improv'd               200
This bent of nature ; that few simple foods,
Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield,
Bo*: by excess offend.  Beyond the sense
Of light  refection, at the genial  board
Indulge not often ;  nor protradl the feast              205
To dull satiety ; till soft and slow 
           PRESERVING  HEALTH.          19

A drowzy death creeps on, th' expansive soul
Oppress'd, and smother'd the celesia! fire.
The stomach, urg'd beyond its adlive tone,
Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues                   210
The softest food: unrinish'd and deprav'd,
The chyle, in all its future wanderings,  owns
Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams
So to be  clear'd, but foulness will remain.
To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt             215
The unripen'd grape ? Or what mechanic skill
From the crude ore  can spin the ductile gold ?

  Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund
Of plagues; but more  immedicable ills
Attend the lean extreme.  For physic knows           220
How to disburden the too  tumid veins,
Even how to ripen the half-labour'd blood :
But to unlock the elemental tubes,
Collaps'd and shrunk with long inanity,
And with balsamic nutriment repair                   225
The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid
Old age grow green, and wear a second spring;
Or the tall ash, long ravish'd from the soil,
Through wither'd veins imbibe the vernal dew.
When hunger calls, obey ; nor often wait             230
Till hunger sharpen  to corrosive pain :
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er wrhout danger mee'rs its own reverse.
Too greedily th' exhausted veins absorb               235
The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers
Oft to th' extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by  the firm-set siege,
And famine, humbled, may this verse be borne ;
And hear,  ye hardiest sons that Albion breeds,         240
Long toss'd an 1 famish'd on the wintery main ;
The war shook off,  or hospitable shore
Attain'd, with temperance bear the shock of joy ;
Nor crown with festive rites th' auspicious day:
Such feast  might prove more fa^al than the waves,
Than war or famine.   While the vital fire            246
Burns feebly,  heap  not the green fuel on ;
But nrudently foment the wandering spark
With what the soonest feels its kindred touch  :
Be frugal ey'n of that; a little give                    250
At first; that kindled, add a little more; 
20                THE  ART OF         Book  IL
Till, by deliberate nourishing, the flame
Reviv'd, with all its wonted vigour glows.

  But tho' the two (the full and the jejune)
Extremes have each their vice ; it much avails          255
Ever with gende tide to ebb and flow
From this to that: So nature learns to bear
Whatever chance or headlong appetite
May bring.  Besides,  a meagre day subdues
The cruder clods by sloth or luxury                    160
Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.
Sometimes a coy aversion to the  feast
Comes on, while yet no blacker omen lours ;
Then is a time to shun the tempting board,
Were it your natal or your nupial day.                265
Perhaps a fast so seasonable starves
The latent seeds of woe, which, rooted once,
Might cost you labour.  But the day return'd
Of festal luxury, the wise indulge
Most in the  tender vegetable breed ;                   270'
Then chiefly when the summer beams inflame
The brazen  heavens ; or angry  Sirius sheds
A feverish taint thro' the still gulph of air.
The moist cool viands then,  and flowing cup
Fr-m the fresh dairy-virgin's liberal hand,             275
Will save your head from harm, tho' round the world
The dreaded * Causos roll his wasteful fires.
Pale humid  Winter loves the generous  board,
The meal more copious, and a warmer fare ;
And longs with old wood and old wine to cheer
His quaking heart.   The seasons which divide        281
Th' empires of heat and c Id ; by neither claim'd,
Influenc'd by both; a middle regimen
Impose. Thro' autumn's languishing domain
Descending, nature by degrees invites                 285
To glowing luxury..  But, from the depth
Of winter when th' invigorated year
Emerges; when Favonius flush 'd with  love,
Toyful arid young, in every  breeze descends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride ;        290-
Then, shepherds,  then  begin to spare  your flocks j,
And learn,  with wise humanity,  to check
The lust of blood.   Now pregnant earth commits
A various offspring to th' indulgent sky •
* The burning fever. 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.          2l

Now bounteous nature feeds with lavish hand          295
The prone creation, yields what once sufEc'd
Their dainty sovereign,  when the world was young ;
Ere yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seiz'd
The human breast.   Each rolling month matures
The food that suits it most; so does each clime.        300

  Far in the horrid realms of winter, where
Th' establish'd ocean heaps a monstrous waste
Of shining rocks and mountains to the pole;
There  lives a hardy race, whose plainest wants
Relentless earth,  their cruel step-mother,              305
Regards not.  On the waste of iron fields,
Untam'd,  intractable, no harvests wave :
Pomona hates them,  and the clownish God
Who tends the garden.  In the frozen world
Such cooling gifts were vain : a fitter meal             310
Is earn'd with ease ;  for her the fruitful spawn
Of Ocean swarms, and heaps their genial board
With generous fare and luxury profuse.
These are their bread, the only bread they know ;
These, and their willing slave the deer, that crops
The shrubby herbage on their meagre hills,            316
Or scales, for fattening moss,  the savage rocks.
Girt by the burning Zone, not thus the South
Her swarthy sons, in either Ind, maintains :
Or thirsty Libya;  from whose fervid loins
The lion bursts, and every fiend  that roams            320
Th' affrighted wilderness.   The mountain herd,
Adust and dry, no sweet repast affords ;
Nor does the tepid main such kinds produce,
So perfect, so delicious,  as the shoals
Of icy Zembla.  Rashly where the blood               325
Brews feverish frays ; where scarce the tubes sustain
Its tumid fervour and tempestuous  course;
Kind nature tempos not to such gifts as these.
But here in livid ripeness mel's the Grape:
Here,  finish'd by invigorating suns,                   330
Thro'  the green shade the golden Orange glows;
Spontaneous here  the turgid Melon yields
A generous pulp; the Cocoa swells on high
With  milky riches ;  and in  horrid mail
The crisp Ananas wraps its p n.r.ia it sweets :          335
Earth's vaunted progeny—In ruder air
Too coy to flourish,  even too proud to live;
Or hardly rais'd by artificial fire 
22                THE ART  OF         Book  II.

To vapid life.  Here with a mother's smile
Glad Amalthea pours her copious horn                  340
Here buxom Ceres reigns; Th' autumnal sea
In boundless billows fluctuates o'er their plains.
What suits the climate best, what suits the men,
Nature profuses most,  and most the taste
Demands.  The fountain, edg'd with racy wine       345
Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty souls.
The breeze eternal breathing round their limbs
Supports in else intolerable air :
While the cool Palm, the Plantain, and the grove
That waves on gloomy Lebanon, assuage              350
The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.

  Now come,  ye  Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign,
I burn to view  th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else  untrod.  I hear the din                 355
Of waters thundering o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song.
Here from the desart dcwn the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile ; here bursts the sounding Po
In angry waves ; Euphrates hence devolves              361
A mighty flood to water half the East ;
And there,  in Gothic solitude reclin'd,
The cheerless Tanais pours  his hoary urn.              364
What solemn twilight ! What stupendous shades
Enwrap these infant floods ! Thro' every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear
Glides o'er my fiame.  The forest deepens round ;
And more gigantic still th'  impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms afnwart the gloom.
 Are these the  confines of some fairy world ?             371
A land of Genii ? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations ? If indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies.  And whether leads,
To what  strange regions, or cf bliss or pain,            375
That subterraneous way ? Propitious maids,
Conduct me, while with fearful steps I  tread "*
This trembling ground.  The  task remains to sing.
Your giffs (so Paean, so thepc v trz cf health
Command) to  praise your crystal clement:              380
The chief ingredient in heaven's various works ;
Whose flexible genius sparkles in the gem,
Grows farm in oak, and fugitive in wine ; 
            PRESERVING  HEALTH.          23

  The vehicle, the source of nutriment
  And life, to all that vegetate or live.                   385

    O comfortable streams! with eager lips
  And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
  New life in you ; fresh vigour fills your veins.
  No warmer cups the rural ages knew  ;
  None warmer sought the sires of human kind.          390
  Happy in temperate peace !  Their equal days
  Felt not th' alternative fits of feverish mirth,
  And sick dejecftion,  Still serene and pleas'd,
  They knew no pains but what the tender soul
  With pleasure yields to,  and would ne'er forget.
  Blest with divine immunity from ails,                  .395
  Long centuries they liv'd; their only fate
  was ripe  old age, and rather sleep than death.
 >Oh ! could those worthies from the world of Gods
  Return to visit their degenerate sons,                   400
  How would they scorn the joys of modern time
  With all our art and toil improv'd to pain !
  Too happy they ! But wealth brought luxury,
  And luxury on sloth begot disease.

   Learn temperance, friends ; and hear without disdain
 The choice of  water.  Thus the Coan * sage          406
 Opin'd and thus the learn'd of every school.
 What least of foreign principles partakes
 Is best  : the lightest then  ;  what bears the touch.
 Of fire  the least,  and soonest mounts in air ;            410
 The most  insipid ; the most void of smell.
 Such the rude mountain from his horrid sides
 Pours down ;  such waters in the sawdy vale
 For ever boil, alike of winter frosts
 And summer's heat secure.  The crystal stream,        415
 O'er rocks resounding, or far many a mile
 Hurl'ddown the pebbly channel, wholesome yields
 And mellow draughts ; except when  winter thaws,
 And half the mountains melt into the tide.
 Though thirst we ne'er so resolute, avoid               420
 The sordid lake,  and all such drowsy floods
 As fill from Lethe Belgia's slow canals  ;
 With rest corrupt, with vegetation green ;
Squalid with generation, and the birth
 Of little monsters ;) till the powers of fire             425
* Hippocrates. 
24
THE ART OF          Book II.
Has from profane embraces disengag'd
The violated lymph-  The virgin stream
In boiling wastes its finer soul in air.

   Nothing like simple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow-            430
But where the stomach, indolently given,
Toys with its duty,  animate with wine
Th' insipid stream ; the golden Ceres yields
A more voluptuous, a more sprightly draught ;
Perhaps more active.   Wine unmix'd, and all          435
The gluey floods that from the vex'd abyss
Of fermentation spring; with spirit  fraught,
And furious with intoxicating fire ;
Retard concoction, and preserve unthaw'd
Th' embodied mass..   Y u see what countless years
Embalm'din fiery quintescence of wine,                441
The puny wonders of the reptile world,
The tender rudiments  of life, the slim
Unravellings of minute anatomy,
Maintain their texture, and unchanged remain.         445

   We cur?e not wine :  the vile excess we blame ;
More fruitful than th' accumulated board,
Of pain and misery.  For the subtle draught
Fas-er ar.d surer, swells the vital tide ;
And with mere aclive poison, than the floods           458
Of grosser crudity cenvey, pervades
The far-remote meanders of our frame.
Ah ! sly dece'ver ! Branded o'er and o'er,
Yet still believ'd ! Exulting o'er the wreck
Of sober views !—But the Parnassian maids            455
Another time *, perhaps shall sing the joys,
The fatal charms, the many woes of wine ;
Perhaps its various tribes, and various powers.

   Mean time, I would not always dread the bowl,
Nor every trespass shun.  The feverish strife,          460
Rous'd  by the rare debauch, subdues, expells,
The loitering crudities that burden life ;
And,  like u torrent full and rapid, clears
Th' obstructed tubes.   Besides, this  restless World
Is full of chances, which by habit's power              465
To learn to bear,  is easier than to snun.
* See Book iv. 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.          25

Ah !  when ambition, meagre love of gold,
Or sacred country calls, with mellowing wine
To moisten well the thirsty suffrages :
Say how, unseason'd to the midnight frays             470
Of Comus  and his rout, wilt  thou contend
With Centaurs long to hardy deeds inur'd ?
Then learn to revel; but by slow degrees :
By slow degrees the liberal arts are won 4
And Hercules grew strong. But when you smooth
The brows of care, indulge your festive vein           476
In cups by  well-inform'd experience found
The least your bane ;  and only with your friends.
There are sweet follies : frailties to be seen
By friends alone, and men of generous minds.

  Oh! seldom may the  fated hours return             481
Of drinking deep ! I would not daily taste,
Except when.life declines, even sober cups.
Weak withering age no rigid law forbids,
With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm,
The sapless habit daily to bedew,                     486
And give the hesitating wheels of life
Gliblier to play.  But youth has better joys :
And is it wise, when youth with pleasure flows,
To squander the reliefs of age and pain ?              490

  What dextrous thousands just within the goal
Of wild  debauch direct their nightly course !
Perhaps no sickly qualms bedim their days,
No morning admonitions shock the head.
But, ah ! what woes remain ! life rolls apace          495
And that incurable disease, old age,
In youthful bodies more severely felt,
More sternly active,  shakes their blasted prime :
Except kind nature by some hasty blow
Prevent the lingering fates.   For know whate'er       509
Beyond its natural fervour hurries on
The sanguine tide; whether^thaTfrequent bowl,
High-season'd fare, or exercisTto toil
Protracted  ; spurs to its last stage tir'd life,
And sows  the temples with untimely snow.            505
When life  is new, the ductile fibres feel
The heart's increasing force -,  and, day by day,
The growth advances;  till the larger tubes,
C 
 26             THE  ART. OF             Book 11.

 Acquiring (from their* elemental veins,
 Condens'd to solid chords) a firmer tone,
 Sustain, and just sustain, th'  impetuous blood.
 Here stops the growth.  With overbearing pulse
 And pressure,  still the great destroy the small;
 Still with the ruins of the small grow strong.
 Life glows mean time,  amid the grinding force
 Of viscous fluids and elastic tubes ;
 Its various functions vigorously are plied
 By strong machinery ; and in solid health
 The man confirm'd long triumphs o'er disease.
 But the full ocean ebbs ; there is a point,
 By nature  fix'd, whence life must downward tend.
 For still the  beating tide consolidates
 The stubborn vessels, more reluctant still
 To the weak throbs of th'  ill-supported heart.
 This lauguishing, these strength'ning by degrees
 To hard unyielding unelastic bone,
 Through tedious channels the  congealing flood
 Crawls lazily,  and hardly wanders on;
 It loiters still: >and now it stirs no more.
 This is the period few attain ; the death
 Of nature; thus (so heav'n ordain'd it)  life
 Destroys itself; and could these laws have chang'd
 Nester might now the fates of Troy relate ;
 And Homer  live immortal as his song.

   What does not fade ? The tower that long had stood
 The crush  of thunder and the warring winds,           535
 Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
 Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base.
 And flinty  pyramids,  and walls of brass,
 Descend :  the Babylonian spires are sunk ;
 Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.             540

   * In the  human body, as  well as in those of other animals,
the larger blood vessels are composed of smaller ones ; which,
 by the violent motion and pressure of the fluids in the large
vessels, lose  their cavities by degrees,  and degenarate  into
impervious chords  or fibres.   In  proportion  as  these small
vessels become solid, the larger must of course grow less ex-
tensile, more rigid, and make a stronger resistance  to the
action of the  heart, and force of the blood.  From this  gra-
dual condensation of the smaller vessels,  and consequeni ri-
gidity of the  larger one, the progress  of the human body,
from infancy to old age, is accounted for.
 510




 515





 521



 525




539 
          PRESERVING  HEALTH.          27

Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we trad  grows old;
And all those worlds that roll around the sun,
The Sun himself, shall die, and antient Night         545
Again  involve the desolate abyss :
Till the great Father thro' the lifeless gloom
Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws.
For thro' the regions of unbounded space,              550
Where unconfin'd Omnipotence has room,
Being, in various systems,  fluctuates still
Between creation and abhor'd decay:
It ever did ;  perhaps and ever will.
New worlds  are still emerging from the deep ;          555
The old descending, in their turns to rise. 
BOOK  III.
EXERCISE.
 JL  HRO' various toils th' adventurous Muse has
But half the toil, and more than half, remains.
Rude is her theme, and hardly fit for Song;
Plain and of little ornament ; and I
But little practis'd in th* Aonian arts,
Yet not in vain such labours have we tried,
If aught these lays the fickle health confirm.
To you, ye delicate, I write; for you
I tame my youth to philosophic cares,
And grew still paler by the midnight lamps.
Not to debilitate with  timorous rules
A hardy frame ; nor needlessly to brave
Uuglorious dangers, proud of mortal strength ;
Is all the lesson that in wholesome years
Concerns the strong.  His care were ill bestow'd
Who would with warm effeminacy nurse
The thriving oak which on the mountain's brow
Bears all the blasts that sweep the wintry heav'n.

  Eehold the labourer.of the glebe who toils
In dust, in rain, in coid and sultry skies :
Save but the grain from mildews and the flood,
Nought anxious he what sickly stars ascend.
He knows no taws by Esculapius given ;
He studies none.   Yet him nor midnight fogs
Infest, nor those envenom'd shafts that fly
Whin  rapid Sirius ires the autumnal noon.
His habit pure  with plain and temperate meals.
Robust with labour, and by custom steel'd 
THE ART  OF  &c.
 To every casualty of varied life ;
 Serene he bears the peevish eastern blast
 And uninfected breathes the mortal south.

   Such the reward of rude and sober life ;
 Of labour such.  By health the peasant's toil
 Is well repaid ;  if exercise were pain
 Indeed,  and temperance pain.   By arts like these
 Laconia nurs'd of old her hardy sons ;
 And Rome's unconquer'd legions urg'd their way,
 Unhurt, through every toil in every clime.

   Toil, and be strong.  By toil the flaccid nerves
 Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone ;
 The greener juices are by toil subdu'd,
 Mellow'd, and subtilis'd ; the vapid old
 Expell'd, and all the rancour of the blood'.
 Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms
 Of nature and the year ; come, let us stray
 Where chance or fancy leads our roving walk :
 Come, while the soft voluptuous breezes fan
 The fleecy heavens, enwrap the limbs in balm,
 And  shed a charming langour O'er the soul.
 Nor when bright Winter sows with prickly frost
 The vigorous ether, in unmanly warmth
 Indulge at home ; nor even when Eurus' blasts
 This  way and that convolve the lab'ring  woods.
 My liberal walks, save when the skies in rain.
 Or fogs relent, no season should confine
 Orllo the cloister'd  gallery or arcade.
 Go, climb the mountain ; from  th' ethereal source
 Imbibe the recent gale.  The cheerful morn
 Beams o'er the hills; go, mount th' exulting steed.
 Already, see, the deep-mouth'd beagles catch
 The tainted mazes;  and, on eager sport
 Intent, with emulous impatience try
 Each doubtful trace.  Or, if a nobler prey
 Delight you more, go chase the desperate deer ;
 And through its deepest solitude awake
 The vocal forest with the jovial horn.

  But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale
Exceed your strength ;  a sport of less fatigue)
Not less delightful, the prolific stream
Affords.  The crystal rivulet, that o'er
A  stony channel rolls its rapid maze 
 SO          THE ART  OF             Book III.

 Swarms wi'h the silver fry.   Such, thro'the bounds
 Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent;
 Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains ;  such
 The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the stream
 On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air,             76
 Liddal; till now, except in Doric lays
 Tun'd to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
 Unknown in song:  though not a purer stream,
 Thro'meads more flowery, or more romantic groves,
 RoH's toward the western main.  Hail, sacred flood !
 May still thy hospitable swains be blest
 In rural innocence ; thy mountains still
 Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods
 For ever flourish ;  and thy vales look gay               85
 With painted meadows, and  the golden grain !
 Oft, with thy blooming  sons,  when life was new
 Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys,
 In thy transparent eddies have I lav'd :
 Oft trac'd with patient steps thy fairy banksr            99
 With the  well-imitated fly to  hook
 The eager trout, and with the slender line
 And yielding rod solicit to the shore
 The struggling, panting prey : while vernal clouds
 And tepid gales obscur'd the ruffled pool,                9$
 And from the deeps call'd forth the wanton swarms.

   Form'd on the Samian school, or those of Ind,
 There are who think these pastimes  scarce humane.
 Yet in my mind (and not relentless I)
 His life is pure  that wears no  fouler stains.            iOC'
 But if, thro' genuine tenderness of heart,              T
 Or secret want  of relish  for the game,
 You shun the glories of the chase, nor care
 To haunt  the peopled stream; the garden fields
 A soft amusement,  an humane delight.                105
 To raise th' insipid nature of  the ground ;
Or tame its savage genius to the grace
Of careless sweet rusticity, that seems
The amiable result of happy chance,
Is to create; and gives a god-like joy,                 1H
Which every year improves.   Nor thou disdain
To check the lawless riot of the trees,
To plant the grove,  or turn the barren mould.
O happy he ! whom, when his years decline,
(His fortune and his fame  by worthy means            115
Attain'd, and equal to his moderate Blind; 
            PRESERVING  HEALTH.         31

His life approv'd by all the wise and good,
Even envied by the vain), the peaceful groves
Of Epicurus, from this stormy world,
Receive to rest; of all ungrateful cares                i%(?
Absolv'd, and sacred from the selfish crowd.
Happiest of men ! if the same soil invites
A chosen few,  companions of his youth,
Once fellow-rakes perhaps, now rural friends ;          125
With whom, in easy commerce, to pursue
Nature's free charms, and vie for sylvan fame t-
A fair ambition ; void of strife or guile,
Or jealousy,  or pain to be outdone.
Who plans th' enchanted garden, who directs
The visto best, and best conducts the stream;          130
Whose groves the fastest thicken and ascend;
Who first the welcome spring salutes ;■ who shews
The earliest bloom, the  sweetest proudest charms
Of Flora; who best gives Pomona's juice
To match the sprightly  genius of Champaign.          135
Thrice happy days ! in rural business past;
Blest winter nights !  when, as the genial fire
Cheers the wide hall, his cordial family
With soft domestic arts the hours beguile.
And pleasing talk that starts no timorous fame,        140
With witless wantoness to hunt it down:
Or through the fairy-land of tale or song
Delighted, wander, in fictitious fates,
Engag'd, and all that strikes humanity:
Till lost in fable, they the stealing hour                145
0| timely rest forget.   Sometimes, at eve,
His neighbours lift the latch, and bless unbid
His festal roof; while,  o'er the light repast,
And sprightly cups, they mix in social joy;
And, thro' the maze of conversation trace             ISO
Whate'er amuses or improves the mind.
Sometimes at eve  (for I delight to taste
The native zest and flavour of the fruit,
Where sense grows wild and takes of no manure}
The decent,  honest,  cheerful; husbandma*             155
Should drown his labour in my friendly bowl;
And at my table find himself at home.

  Whate'er you study,  in whaste'er you  sweat.
Indulge your taste.  Some love the manly foils;
The tennis some; and some the graceful dance
Others, more hardy, range the purple heath,           161
Or naked stubble; Where from field to field 
32               THE ART  OF        Book III.

The sounding coveys urge their labouring flight:
Eager amid the vising cloud to pour
The gun's unerring thunder ;  and there are            165
Whom still the meed * of the green archer charms.
He chooses best, whose labour entertains
His vacant fancy most:  the toil you hate
Fatigues you soon, and scarce improves your limbs.

  As beauty still has blemish ; and the mind           170
The most accomplish'd its imperfect side ;
Few bodies are  there of that happy mould
But some one part is weaker than the rest:
The legs, perhaps, or arms refuse their load,
Or the chest labours.  These assidiously,              175
But gently, in their proper arts employ'd,
Acquire a vigour and elastic spring
To which they  were not born.  But weaker parts
Abhor fatigue and violent discipline.

  Begin with gentle toils ; and, as your nerves,        180
Grow firm, to hardier by just  steps aspire.
The prudent, even in every moderate walk,
At first but saunter; and by slow degrees
Increase their pace.  This doctrine of the wise
Well knows the master of the flying steed.             185
First from the goal the mariag'd courseJTplay
On bended reins ;  as yet the skilful youth
Repress their foamy pride ; but every breath
The race grows warmer, and the tempest swells ;
Till all the fiery mettle has its  way,                    190
And the thick thunder hurries o'er the plain.
When all at once from indolence to toil
You spring, the fibres by the hasty shock
Are tir'd and crack'd, before  their unctuous coats,
Compress'd, can pour the lubricating balm.            195
Besides,  collected in the passive veins,  ,
The purple mass a sudden torrent rolls,
O'erpowers the  heart,  and deluges the lungs
With dangerous inundation : oft the source
Of fatal woes ;  a cough that foams with blood,
Asthma, and feller +  Peripneumony,                  201
Or the slow minings of the hectic fire.

  * This word is much- used  by  some of the old English
pcets, and signifies reward or prize.
           t  The inflammation of the lungs, 
PRESERVING HEALTH.           33
  Th' athletic Fool,  to whom what heat'n deny'd
Of soul is well compensated in limbs,
Oft from his rage, or brainless frolic, feels            205
His vegetation and brute force decay.
The men of better clayand finer mould
Know nature,  feel thehuman dignity ;
And scorn to vie with oxen or with apes.
Pursu'd prolixly, even the gentlest toil                210
Is waste  of health: repose by small fatigue
Is earn'd; and (where your habit is not prone
To thaw) by the first moisture of the brows.
The fine and subtle spirits cost too much
To be profus'd, too much the roscid balm.             S15
But when the hard varieties of life
You toil to learn ;  or  try the dusky chase,
Or the warm deeds of some  important day :
Hot from the field, indulge not yet  your limbs
In wish'd repose ; nor court the fanning gale,          220
Nor court the spring.  O ! by the sacred tears
Of widows, orphans, mothers,  sisters, sires,
Forbear' No other pestilence has driven
Such Myriads  o'er thr irremeable deep.
Why this so fatal,  the sagacious Muse               225
Thro' nature's cunning labyrinths could trace:
But there are secrets  which who knows not now,
Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps
Of science ; and devote seven years to toil.
Besides,  I would not stun your patient ears           230
With what it little boots you to attain.
He  knows enough, the mariner, who knows
Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools boil,
What signs portend the storm:  to subtler minds
He  leaves to scan,  from what mysterious cause        235
Charybdis rages in th' Ionian wave;
Whence neither oar  nor sail can stem; and why
The roughening deep expects the storm, as sure
As red Orion mounts the shrouded heaven.            240

In antient times, when Rome with Athens vied
For polish'd luxury and useful arts;
All hot and reeking from the Olympic strife,
And warm Palestra,  in the tepid bath
Th' athletic youth relax'd their weary limbs.          245
Soft oils  bedew'd them, with the grateful  pow'ra
Of Nard and Cassia fraught, to sooth and heal
The cherish'd  nerv«s.  Our less voluptuous clime 
34
THE ART  OF        Book III.
Not much invites us to such arts as these.
'Tis not for those,  whom gelid skies embrace.          258
And chilling fogs; whose perspiration feels
Such frequent bars from Eurus and the North;
'Tis not for those to cultivate a skin
Too soft; or teach the recremental fume
Too fast to crowd through such precarious ways.
For thro' the small arterial mouths, that pierce         25S
In endless millions the close-woven skin,
The baser fluids in a constant stream
Escape, and viewless melt into the winds.
While this eternal, this most copious waste            260
Of blood, degenerate into vapid brine,
Maintains its wonted measure, all the powers
Of health befriend you, all the wheels of life
With ease and  pleasure move ; but this restrained
Or more or less, so more or less you feel               265
The functions labour, from this fatal source
What woes descend is never to be sung.
To take their numbers were to count the sands
That ride in whirlwind the parch'd Libyan air;
Or waves that, when the blustering North embroils
The Baltic, thunder on the German shore.            271
Subje<ft not then by soft emollient arts
This grand expence, on which your fates depend,
To every caprice of the sky ; nor thwart
The genius of  your clime : for from the blood          274
Least fickle rise the recremental steams,
And least obnoxious to the styptic air,
Which breathe thro' straiter and more callous pores.
The temper'd Scythian hence, half naked treads
 His boundless  snows,  nor rues th' inclement heaven;
 And hence our painted ancestors defied                281
 The East:  nor curs'd, like us, their fickle sky.

   The body, moulded by the clime, endures
 Th' Equator heats or Hyperborean frost t
 Except by habits foreign to its turn,                   285
 Unwise you counteract its forming pow'r.
 Rude at the first, the winter shocks you less
 By long acquaintance: study then your sky,
 Form to its  manners your obsequious frame.
 And learn to suffer what you cannot shun.              H99
 Against ihe rigours of a damp cold heav'n
 To fortify their bodies,  some frequent
 The gelid cistern; and, where nought forbids. 
            PRESERVING  HEALTH.          35

I praise their dauntless heart:  A frame so steePd
Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts
That breathe the Tertian or fell  Rheumatism;
The nerves so temper'd, never quit their tone,
No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts.
But all things have their bounds: and he who make3,
By daily use, the kindest regimen
Essential to his health, should never mix
With human kind,  nor art nor trade pursue.
He not the safe vicissitude of life
Without some shock endures ; ill-fitted he
To want the known, or bear unusual things.
Besides, the powerful remedies of pain
(Since pain in spite of all our care will come)
Should never with your prosperous days of health
Grow too familiar:  for by frequent use
The strongest medicines lose their healing power,
And even the surest poisons theirs to kill.

   Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach
Parch'd Mauritania, or the sultry West,
Or the wide flood through  rich Indostan roll'd.
Plunge thrice a day,  and in the tepid wave             315
Untwist their stubborn pores; that full and free
Th' evaporation through the soften'd skin
May bear proportion to the swelling blood.
So shall they 'scape the fever's rapid flames;
So feel untainted the hot breath of hell.                320
With us, the man of no complaint demands
The warm ablution just enough to clear
The sluices of the skin, enough to keep
The body sacred from indecent soil.
Still to be pure, even did it not conduce                325
(As much it does) to health, were greatly worth
Your daily pains.  'Tis this adorns the rich;
The want of this is  Poverty's worst woe;
With this external virtue age maintains
A decent grace ; without it youth and charms          330
Are loathsome.   This the venal Graces know ;
So doubtless do your wives :  for married sires,
As well as lovers, still pretend to taste ;
Nor is it less (all prudent wives can tell)
To lose a husband's than a lover's heart.                335

  But now the hours and seasons  when to toil
F«om foreign themes recall mjr wandering song.
300
ids
311 
36
THE ART OF        Book III.
Some labour fasting, or but slightly fed,
To lull the grinding stomach's hungry rage.
Where nature feeds too corpulent a frame              340
'Tis  wisely done : for while the thirsty veins
Impatient of lean penury, devour
The  treasur'd oil, then  is the happiest time
To shake the lazy balsam from its cells.
Now while the stomach from the full repast            345
Subsides, but ere returning hunger gnaws,
Ye leaner habits, give an hour to toil:
And ye whom no luxuriancy of growth
Oppresses yet, or threatens to oppress.
But from the recent meal no labours please,            350
Of limbs or mind.   For now the cordial poweri
Claim all the wandering spirits to a work
Of strong and subtle toil, and great event:
A work of time :  and you may rue the day
You  hurried, with untimely exercise,                  355
A half-concocted chyle  into the blood.
The  body overcharg'd with unctuous phlegm
Much toil demands: the lean elastic less.
While winter chills the blood,  and binds the veins,
No labours are too hard: by those you 'scape           369
The slow diseases of the torpid year;
Endless to name ; to one of which alone,
To that which tears the nerves, the toil of slaves
Is pleasure ; Oh ! from such inhuman pains
May all be free who merit not  the wheel:              364
But  from the burning Lion when the sun
Pours down his sultry wrath ; now  while the blood
Too  much already maddens in the veins,
And all the finer fluids  through the  skin
Explore their flight; me, near the cool cascade         370
Reclin'd or sauntringin the lofty grove,
No needless slight occasion should engage
To pant and sweat beneath the fiery noon.
Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve
To shady walks and active rural sports                 275
Invite.   But, while the chilling dews descend,
May nothing tempt you to the cold embrace
Of humid skies ; though 'tis no vulgar joy
To trace the horrors of the solemn wood
While the soft evening saddens into night:            380
Though the sweet Poet of the vernal groves
Melts all the night in strains of am'rous woe, 
            PRESERVING  HEALTH.

  The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world
Expands her sable wings.  Great Nature droops
Through all her works.  Now happy he whose toil
Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd           386
A pleasing lassitude : he not in vain
Invokes the gentle Deity of dreams.
His powers the most voluptuously dissolve
In soft repose :  on him the balmy dews               390
Of  Sleep with double nutriment descend.
But would you sweetly waste the blank of night
In deep oblivion ; or on Fancy's wings
Visit  the paradise of happy Dreams,
And waken cheerful as the lively morn;              395
Oppress not Nature sinking down to  rest
With feasts too late, too solid,  or too full:
But be the first concoction half-matur'd
Ere you to mighty indolence resign
Your passive faculties.  He from the  toils             400
And troubles of the day to heavier toil
Retires,  whom trembling from the tower  that rocks
Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height,
The busy daemons hurl; or in the main
O'erwhelm; or bury struggling  under ground.
Not all a monarch's luxury the woes                  406
Can counterpoise of that most wrenched man,
Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits
Of  wild Orestes ; whose delirious brain,
Stung by the Furies, works with poison'd thought:
While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul;
And mangled consciousness bemoans  itself            412
For ever torn ; and chaos floating round.
What dreams presage, what dangers these or those
Portend to sanity, though prudent seers              415
Reveal'd of old,  and men of deathless fame,
We would not to the superstitious mind
Suggest new throbs, new vanities of  fear.
'Tis ours to teach you  from the peaceful night
To  banish omens and  all restless woes.               420

  In study some protract the silent hours,
Which others consecrate to mirth and wine ;
And sleep till noon,  and hardly live till night:
But surely this redeems not from the shades
One hour of life. Nor does it nought avail            42»
What season you to drowsy Morpheus give
Of th'  ever-varying circle of the day;
                          D 
33               THE  ART  OF        Book  III.

Or whether,  through the tedious winter gloom,
You tempt the midnight or the morning damps.
The body, fresh asd vigorous from repose,             430
Defies the early fogs : but, by the toils
Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung,
Weakly resists  the night's unwholesome breath.
The grand discharge, th' effusion of the skin,
Slowly impair'd, the languid maladies                  435
Creep on, and through the sinking functions steal,      A
So, when the chilling East invades the spring,
The delicate Narcissus pines away
In hectic languor:  and a slow disease
Taints all the family of flowers, condemn'd             440
To cruel heav'ns.   But why,  already prone
To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane >
O shame !  O pity ! nipt with pale quadrille,
And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies !

  By toil subdu'd,  the warrior and the hind            445
Sleep fast and deep :  their aclive functions soon
With generous streams the subtle tubes supply ;
And soon the tonic, irritable  nerves
Feel the fresh impulse,  and awake the soul.
The sons of indolence, with long repose,               459
Grow torpid ; and with slowest Lethe drunk,
Feebly and lingringly return to life,
Blunt every sense and pow'rless every limb.
Ye prone to sleep,  (whom sleeping most annoys)
On the hard mattress or elastic couch                   455
Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth ;
Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain
And springy  nerves,  the blandishments of down:
Nor envy, while the  buried bacchanal
Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams.                  460

   He, without riot, in the balmy feast
Of life, the wants of nature has supply'd,
Who rises cool, serene,  and full of soul.
But pliant nature more or less demands,
As custom forms her ; and all sudden change           465
She hates of habit, even from bad to good.
If faults in life, or new emergencies,
From habits urge you by long time confirmed,
Slow may the change arrive,  and stage by stage;
Slow as the shadow o'er the dial moves,                 4f®
Slow as the stealing progress of the year. 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.         39

Her seasons change !  Behold !  by slow degrees,
Stern Winter tam'd into a ruder Spring;
The ripen'd Spring a milder Summer glows ;           475
Departing Summer sheds Pomona's store ;
And aged Autumn brews the winter-storm.
Slow as they come, these changes come not void
Of mortal shocks :  the cold and torrid reigns,
The two great periods of th' important year,           480
Are in their first approaches seldom safe :
Funeral Autumn all the sickly dread,
And the black fates deform the lovely Spring.
He well-advis'd, who taught our wiser sires
Early to borrow Muscovy's warm spoils,               485
Ere the first frost has touch'd the tender blade ;
And late resign them,  though the wanton Spring
Should deck her charms with all her sister's rays.
For while the effluence of the skin maintains
Its native measure, the pleuritic Spring                490
Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death
With sallow Quartans, no contagion breathes.

   I in prophetic numbers could unfold
The omens of the year:  what seasons teem
With what diseases ; what the humid South           4?5
Prepares, and what the Daemon of the East:
But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.
Besides, whatever plagues, in heat, or cold,
Or drought, or moisture, dwell, they hurt not you
Skill'd to correct the vices of the sky,                 500
And taught already how to each extreme
To bend your life.  But should the public bane
Infect you  -, or some tresspass of your own,
Or flaw of nature, hint mortality :
Soon as a not unpleasing horror glides                505
Along the  spine,  thro'  all your torpid limbs ;
When first the head throbs, or the stomach feels
A sickly load, a weary  pain the loins;
Be Celsus call'd;  the Fates come rushing on;
The rapid Fates admit  of no delay.                    510
While wilful you,  and  fatally secure,
Expect to-morrow's more auspicious sun,
The growing pest, whose infancy was weak
And easy vanquish'd,  with triumphant sway
O'erpow'rs your life.  For want of timely care,
Millions have died of medicable wounds.              51$ 
40                THE  ART  OF         Book III.
The hardiest frame! of indolence, of toil,
We die; of want, of superfluity :                      520
The all-surrounding heaven, the vital air,
Is big with death.  And though the putrid South
Be shut; though no convulsive agony
Shake,  from the deep foundations of the world,
Th' imprisoned plagues; a secret venom oft            525
Corrupts the air, the water, and the land.
What living deaths has sad Byzantium seen !
How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe,
Wept o'er her slaughter'd sons and lonely streets !
Even Albion,  girt with less malignant skies,           530
Albion the poison of the Gods has drunk,
And felt the sting of monsters all her own.

  Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their ancient rage, at Bosworth's purple field ;
While,  for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd,              536
And daily horrors;  till the Fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred har.ds profus'd;
Another plague of more gigantic arm
Arose,  a monster never known before,                 540
Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.
This rapid Fury,  not like other pests,
Pursu'd a gradual course, but in a day
Rush'd as a storm o'er half the astonish'd isle,
And strew'd with sudden carcases the land.             545

  First through the shoulders,  or whatever part
Was seiz'd the first,-~a fervid vapour sprung.
With rash combustion  thence,  the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within ;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.        550
Gush'd out in smoky sweats ; but nought assuag'd
The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev'd
The stomach's anguish.   With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease,  impatient of their pain,              555
They toss'd from side to side.  In vain the stream
Ran full and clear,  they burnt and thirsted still.
The restless arteries with rapid blood
Beat strong and frequent.  Thick and pantingly
The breath was fetch'd,  and with huge lab'rings heav'd.
At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head,                561 
            PRESERVING HEALTH.         4 3

A wild delirium came ; their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harass'd with toil on toil, the  sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown ; a ponderous sleep
Wrap all the senses up :  they slept and died.           566

   In some a gentle horror crept at first
O'er all the limbs ;  the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till, by art provok'd,
The sweats o'erflow'd ; but in a clammy tide :          570
Now free and copious,  now  restrain'd and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature
Had mix'd the blood ;  and rank with fetid steams :
As if the pent-up humours, by delay
Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes  (tho' little hope remaind'd)       576
With full effusion of perpetual sweats
To drive the venom out.   And here the fates
Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain.
For, who surviv'd the sun's diurnal race,                580
Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd :
Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.

  Of many thousands few untainted 'scap'd;
Of those infected fewer 'scap'd alive :
Of those who liv'd, some  felt a second  blow;           585
And whom the second spar'd, a third destroy'd.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion.  O'er the mournful land
Th' infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms :
Rous'd by the flames that fir'd her seats around,
Th' infected country rush'd into the town.              591
Some,  sad at home, and in the desert  some,
Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind:
In vain:  where'er they fled,  the Fates pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main,
To seek protection in far-distant skies;                596
But none they found.  It seem'd the general air,
From pole to pole,  from Atlas to the East,
Was then at enmity with English blood.
For, but the race of England,  all were safe
In foreign climes ;  nor did this fury taste               600
The  foreign blood which England then contain'd.
Where should they fly ? The circumambient heaven
Involv'd them still; and every breeze w»s bane.
Where find relief ? The salutary art
                          "2 
42
THE ART OF Sec.      Book III.
Was mute; and, startled at the new disease,           605
In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.
To Heaven with suppliant rites they sent their pray'rs ;
Heav'n heard them not.  Of every hope depriv'd;
Fatigu'd with vain resources ; and subdued
With woes resistless and enfeebling fear ;               619
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair.  'Twas all the business then         615
To tend the sick,  and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell: and oft one bed, they sav,
The  sick'ning, dying, and the dead contain'd.

  Thou guardian God,  on whom the fates depend
Of tottering Albion ! ye eternal Fires                  620
That lead thro' heav'n the wandering year !  ve Powers
That o'er th' incircling elements preside !
May nothing worse than what this age has seen
Arrive ! Enough abroad, enough at home
Has  Albion bled.  Here a distemper'd heav'n          625
Has thin'd her cities ; from those lofty cliffs
That awe proud  Gaul, to Thule's wintry reign ,-
While in the West, *  beyond th' Atlantic foam,
Her bravest sons, keen for the fight, have dv'd
The death of cowards, and of common men :'           630
Sunk void of wounds,  and fall'n without renown.

  But from these views the weeping Muses turn,,
And other themes invite my wandering song.
  • This was written mot long after the memorable mortality
happened amongst the Lritish sailors, under admiral Hosier,
in the West-Indiesf lff<b,lf. 
BOOK  IV.
THE  PASSIONS.
  J_ HE choice of Aliment, the choice of Air,
The use of Toil and all external things,
Already sung ;  it now remains to trace
What good, what evil from ourselves proceeds :
And how the subtle Principle within
Inspires with health, or mines with strange deeay
The passive body.  Ye poetic Shades,
That know the secrets of the world unseen,
Assist my song !  For, in a doubtful  theme
Engag'd, I wander thro'mysterious ways.              10

  There is,  they say, (and I believe there is)
A spark within us of th' immortal fire,
That animates and moulds the grosser frame ;
And, when the body sinks, escapes to heaven,
Its native seat, and mixes with the Gods.              15
Mean while this heavenly particle pervades
The mortal elements: in every nerve
It thrills with pleasure, or grows mad with pain.
And, in its secret conclave,  as it feels
The body's woes and joys,  this ruling power            20
Wields  at its will the dull material world,
And is the body's health or malady.

  By its own toil the gross corporeal frame
Fatigues, extenuates, or destroys itself.
Nor less the labours of the mind corrode                 55
The solid fabric:  for by subtle parts,
And viewless atoms, secret Nature  moyei 
44               THE  ART OF        Book  IV.

The mighty wheels of this stupendous world.
By subtle fluids pour'd thro' subtle tubes
The natural, vital, functions are perform'd.              30
By these the stubborn aliments are tam'd ;
The toiling heart distributes life and strength ;
These the still-crumbling frame rebuild ; and these
Are lost in thinking, and dissolve in air.

  But 'tis not Thought (for still the soul's employ'd)
'Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay.              36
All day the vacant eye without fatigue
Strays o'er the heaven  and earth ; but, long intent
On microscopic arts, its vigour fails.
Just so the mind,  with various thought amus'd,          40
Nor akes itself, nor gives the  body pain.
But anxious Study,  Discontent,  and Care,
Love without hope,  and Hate without revenge,
And Fear, and Jealousy, fatigue the soul,
Engross the subtle ministers of life,                      45
And spoil the lab'ring functions of their share.
Hence the lean gloom that Melancholy wears;
The Lover's paleness ;  and the sallow hue
Of Envy,  Jealousy;  the meagre  stare
Of sore revenge :  the canker'd body hence               50
Betrays each fretful motion of the mind.

  The strong-built pedant, who, both night and day,
Feeds on the coarsest fare the schools bestow,
And crudely fattens at gross Burman's stall;  .
O'erwhelm'd with phlegm, lies in a dropsy drown'd,
Or sinks in lethargy before his time.                    56
With useful studies you, and arts that please,
Employ your mind,  amuse but not fatigue.
Peace to each drowsy metaphysic sage !
And ever may all heavy systems rest!                   60
Yet some there are,  even of elastic parts,
Whom strong and obstinate  ambition leads
Through all the rugged roads of barren lore,
And gives to relish what their generous taste
Would else refuse.   But may nor thirst of fame,         65
Nor love of knowledge, urge you to fatigue
With constant drudgery the liberal soul.
Toy with your books: and as the various fits
Of humour seize  you,  from Philosophy
To Fable  shift;  from serious Antonine                 70
To Rabelais' ravings,  and from prose to song. 
           PRESERVING HEALTH.          ^


Andrea^atoucTresounding Homer's strain,
And wield the thunder of Demosthenes.
The chest so exercis'd improves its strength :           75
And quick vibrations through the bowels drive
The restless blood, which, in unactive days,
Would loiter else through unelastic tubes.
Deem it not trifling while I recommend
What posture suits: to stand and sit by turns,          80
As nature prompts, is best.  But o'er your leaves
To lean for ever, cramps the vital parts,
And robs the fine machinery of its play.

  'Tis the great art of life to manage well
The restless mind.  For ever on pursuit                85
Of knowledge bent, it starves the gosser powers ;
Quite unemploy'd, against its own repose
It turns its fatal edge,  and sharper pangs
Than what the body knows embitter life.
Chiefly where solitude, sad nurse of Care,              90
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind,
There madness  enters; and the dim-ey'd Fiend
Sour Melancholy, night and day provokes
Her own eternal wound.  The sun grows pale ;
A mournful visionary light o'erspreads                 95
The cheerful face of nature :  earth becomes
A dreary desert, and heaven frowns above.
Then various shapes of curs'd illusion rise :
Whate'er the wretched fears, creating Fear
Forms out of nothing;  and with monsters teems
Unknown in hell.  The prostrate  soul beneath          101
A load of huge  imagination heaves;
And all the horrors that the murderer feels
With anxious flutterings wake the guiltless breast,

  Such phantoms Pride in solitary scenes,              105
Or fear, on delicate Self-love creates.
From other cares absolv'd,  the busy mind
Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon ;
It finds you miserable, or makes you so.
For while yourself you anxiously explore,              110
Timorous Self-love, with sicking Fancy's aid,
Presents  the danger that you dread the most,
And ever galls you in your tender part.
Hence some for love,  and some for jealousy,
For grim religion some, and some for pride,           115 
46
THE ART OF        Book  IV.
Have loot tlviU- .------ __„._ *.. .---,- .. .     _
Want all their lives: and others every day
For fear of dying suffer worse than death.
Ah !  from your bosoms banish,  if you can,
Those fatal guests :  and first the Demon Fear;         120
That trembles at impossible events,
Lest aged Atlas should resign his load,
And heaven's eternal battlements rush down.
Is there an evil worse than Fear itself?
And what avails it, that indulgent heaven              125
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own 1
Enjoy the present; nor with needless cares,
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the surest hour that life bestows.                131
Serene, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come ; and leave the rest to Heaven.

   Oft from the Body, by long ails mistun'd,
These evils sprung, the most important health,         135
That  of the mind, destroy :  and when the mind
They first invade,  the conscious body soon
In sympathetic languishment declines.
These chronic passions, while from real woes
They rise,  and yet without the body's fault             140
Infest the soul, admit one only cure ;
Diversion, hurry,  and a restless life.
Vain are the consolations of the wise ;
In vain your friends would reason down your pain.
O ye, whose souls relentless love has tam'd            145
To soft distress, or friends untimely slain!
Court not the luxury of tender thought!
Nor deem it impious to forget those pains
That hurt the living, nought avail  the dead.
Go,  soft enthusiast!  quit the cypress groves,          150
Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune
Your sad complaint.   Go, seek the cheerful haunts
Of men, and mingle with the bustling croud ;
Lay schemes for wealth,  or power, or fame, the wish
Of nobler minds,  and push them night and day.
Or join the caravan in quest of scenes                 156
New to your eyes, and shifting every hour,
Beyond the Alps,  beyond the Apennines.
Or more advent'rous, rush into the field
Where war grows hot; and raging through the sky,' 
           PRESERVING  HEALTH.         47

The lofty trumpet swells the madd'ning soul:           161
And in the hardy camp and toilsome march
Forget all softer and less manly cares.

  But most too passive, when the blood runs low,
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,               165
And bravely by resisting conquer Fate,
Try Circe's arts ; and in the tempting bowl
Of poison'd nectar sweet oblivion swill.
Struck by the pow'rful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air;  Elysium opens round.                   170
A pleasing phrenzy buoys the lighten'd soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care ;
And what was difficult, and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars .-
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,             175
Or are, or shall be,  could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone ; a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head :  and as the thund'ring stream,
Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook;                180
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man ;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone.
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavish'd  more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes ; your cares return
With tenfold rage.  An anxious stomach well
May be endur'd; so may the throbbing head:
But such a dim delirium,  such a dream,
Involves you ; such  a dastardly despair                 190
Unmans your soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt,
When baited round Cithaeron's cruel sides,
He saw two  suns,  and double Thebes ascend.
You curse the sluggish Port; you curse the wretch,
The felon, with unnatural mixture first                195
Who dar'd to violate the viigin Wine.
Or on the fugitive Champaign you pour
A thousand curses ; for to heav'n it rapt
Your soul, to plunge you deeper in despair.
Perhaps you rue even that divinest gift,                200
The gay,  serene, good-natur'd Burgundy,
Or the fresh fragrant vintage  of the Rhine :
And wish that heaven from mortals had with-held
The grape, and all  intoxicating bowls. 
48
THE ART  OF        Book IV.
   Besides it wounds you sore to recollect               205
 What follies in your loose unguarded hour
 Escap'd.   For one irrevocable word,
 Perhaps that meant no harm, you lose a friend.
 Or, in the rage of wine, your hasty hand
 Performs a deed to haunt you to your grave.            210
 Add that your means, your health, your parts decay;
 Your friends avoid you;  or if one remains
 To wish you well, he wishes you  in heaven.
 Despis'd, unwept you fall; who might have left
 A sacred,  cherish'd, sadly-pleasing name ;              216
 A name still  to be utter'd with a sigh.
 Your last ungrateful scene has quite effac'd
 All sense and memory of your former worth.

   How to live happiest;  how avoid the pains,          220
 The disappointments, and disgusts of those
 Who would in pleasure all their hours employ ;
 The precepts here of a divine old  man
 I could recite.  Though old, he still retain'd
 His manly sense,  and energy of mind.
 Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
 He still remember'd that he once was young;
 His easy presence check'd no decent joy.
 Him even the dissolute admir'd ; for he
 A graceful looseness when he pleas'd put on,            230
 And laughing could instruct.   Much bad he read,
 Much more had seen; he studied from the life,
 And in th' original perus'd mankind.

  Vers'd in the woes and vanities of life,
 He pitied Man: and much he pitied  those             235
 Whom falsely-smiling Fate has curs'd with means
 To dissipate their days in quest of joy.
 Our aim is happiness :  'tis yours,  'tis mine,
 He said' 'tis  the pursuit of all that live ;
 Yet few attain it, if 'twas e'er attain'd.               240
But they the widest wander from the  mark,
Who through the  flow'ry  paths of saunt'ring Joy
 Seek this coy Goddess ; that from stage to stage
Invites us still,  but shifts as we pursue.
For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings         245
To counterpoise itself, relentless Fate
Forbids that we through gay voluptuous wilds
Should ever roam; and were the fates more kind,
Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale. 
             PRESERVING HEALTH.         49

  Were these exhaustless, Nature would grow sick,
  And, cloy'd with pleasure, squeamishly complain
  That all was vanity,  and life a dream.                252
  Let nature rest;  be busy for yourself,
  And for your friend ; be busy even in vain
  Rather than teize her sated appetites.                 255
  Who never fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys :
  Who never toils or watches, never sleeps.
  Let nature rest:  and when the taste of joy
  Grows keen, Indulge; but shun satiety.

    'Tis not for mortals always to be blest.              260
  But him the  least the dull or painful hours
  Of life oppress, whom sober Sense conducts,
  And Virtue, through this labyrinth we tread.
  Virtue and Sense I mean not to disjoin;
  Virtue and Sense are one: and,  trust me,  still         265
  A faithless Heart betrays the Head unsound.
  Virtue (for mere  Good-nature is a  fool)
  Is sense and  spirit,  with humanity :
  'Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds;
  'Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just.            270
  Knaves fain would laugh at it;  some great ones dare ;
  But at his heart the most undaunted son
  Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms.
 To noblest uses this determines wealth ;
 This is the solid pomp of prosperous days-;              275
 The peace and shelter of adversity.
 And if you pant for glory, build your fame
 On this foundation,  which the  secret shock
 Defies of Envy and all-sapping Time.
 The gawdy gloss of Fortune only strikes               280
 The vulgar eye : the suffrage of the wise,
 The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd
 By sense alone,  and dignity of mind.

   Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
 Is the best gift of heaven :  a happiness                 285
 That even above the smiles and frowns of fate
 Exalts great Nature's favourites : a wealth
 That ne'er encumbers, nor to baser hands
 Can be transferr'd: it is the only good
 Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.             291
Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
Or dealt by chance, to shield a lucky knave,
 Or throw a cruel sun-shine on a fool.
                          E 
■50
THE ART OF        Book  IV.
But for one end, one much neglected use,
Are riches worth your care :  (for Nature's wants
Are few,  and without opulence supply'd.)              29S
This noble end is to produce the Soul;
To shew the virtues in their fairest light;
To make Humanity the Minister
Of bounteous Providence ; and teach the breast
The generous luxury the Gods enjoy.                  301

  Thus,  in his graver vein,  the friendly Sage
Sometimes declaim'd.  Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as vefin'd as ever Athens heard ;
And (strange to tell!)  he practis'd what he preach'd.
Skill'd in the Passions, how to check their sway
He knew, as far as reason can countroul               307
The lawless pow'rs.  But other cares are mine:
Form'd in the school of Paron, I relate
What Passions hurt the body, what improve :           310
Avoid them, or invite them, as you may.

  Know then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body too.
Hence the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope ;  the balm  and life-blood of the soul.           315
It pleases, and it lasts.  Jndulgent heaven
Sent down the kind delusion, through the paths
Of rugged life to lead us patient on;
And make our happiest state no tedious thing.
Our greatest good,  and what we least can spare,
Is hope; the last of all oui evils, fear.                 321

  But there are Passions grateful to the breast,
And yet no friends to Life :  perhaps they please
Or to excess, and dissipate the soul;
Or while they please, torment.  The stubborn Clown,
The ill-tam'd Ruffian, and pale Usurer,                326
(If Love's omnipotence such hearts can mould)
May safely mellow into love ; and grow
Refin'd, humane, and generous, if they can.
Love in such bosoms never to a fault                   3S0
Or pains or pleases.  But,  ye finer souls,
Form'd to soft luxury, and prompt to thrill
With all the tumults, all the joys and pains,
That beauty gives; with caution and reserve
Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose,                 5<55
Nor court too much the Queen of charming caret. 
PRESERVING HEALTH.
51
For, while the cherish'd poison in your breast
Ferments and maddens,  sick with jealousy,
Absence, distrust,  or even with anxious joy,
The wholesome appetites and powers of life           340
Dissolve in languor.  The coy stomach loaths
The genial board:  your cheerful days are gone :
The generous bloom that flush'd your cheeks is fled.
To sighs devoted and to tender pains,
Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,                     343
And waste your youth in musing.   Musing first
Toy'd into care your unsuspecting heart:
It found a liking there, a sportful fire,
And that fomented into serious love ;
Which musing daily strengthens and improves         35%
Through all the heights of fondness and romance;
And you're undone, the fatal shaft has sped,
If once you doubt whether you love or no.
The body wastes away ; th' infected mind,
Dissolv'd in female tenderness,  forgets                355
Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame.
Sweet heaven, from such intoxica'ing charms
 Defend all worthy breasts ! Not that I deem
Love always dangerous, always to be shunn'd.
 Love well repaid,  and not too weakly  sunk            360
 In wanton and unmanly tenderness,
Adds bloom to health ; o'er ev'ry virtue sheds
 A  gay, humane, and amiable grace,
 And brightens all the ornaments of man.
 But fruitless,  hopeless,  disappointed, rack'd           36a>
 With jealousy, fatigu'd with hope and fear,
 Too serious, or too languishingly fond,
 Unnerves the body and  unmans the soul.
 And some have died for love ; and some run mad ;
 And some with desperate hand themselves have slaia.

    Some to extinguish, others to prevent,
 A mad devotion to one dangerous fair,
 Court all they meet;  in hopes to dissipate
 The cares of Love amongst an hundred Brides.
 Th' event is doubtful:  for there are who find           375
 A cure in this ; there are who find it not.
 ■*Tis no relief; alas!  it rather galls
 The wound,  to those who are sincerely sick.
 For while from feverish and tumultuous joys
 The nerves grow languid and the soul subsides,          380
 The tender fancy smarts with.every sting, 
52                THE ART OF        Book IV.

And what was love before is madness now.
Is health your care, cr luxury your aim ?
Be te'mpera:e still, when nature bids,  obey;
Her wild, impatient sallies, bear no curb :               385
But when the prurient habit of delight,
Or loose imagination, spurs you on
To deeda above your strength, impute it not
To nature : Nature all compulsion hates.
Ah ! let not luxury nor vain  renown                   390
Urge you to feats you well might sleep without;
To make what should be rapture a fatigue,
A tedious task :  nor in the wanton arms
Of twining Lais melt your manhood down.
For from the colliquation of-soft joys                   395
Mow char.g'd you rise ! the ghost of what you were !
Languid, and melancholy, and gaunt, and wan ;
Your veins exhausted,  and your nerves unstrung.
SpoiPd  of its balm and  sprightly zest,  the blood
Grows vapid phlegm ;  along the tender nerves
(To each slight impulse tremblingly awake)             401
A subtle Fiend, that mimics all the plagues,
Rapid and restless springs from part to part.
The blooming honours  of your youth are fallen;
Your vigour pines ; your vital powers decay ;           405
Diseases haunt you ; and untimely Age
Creeps on; unsocial, impotent and lewd.
Infatuate, impious epicure! to waste
The stores of pleasure,  cheerfulness, and health ?
Infatuate all who make delight their trade,             410
And coy perdition every hour pursue.

  Who pines with Love or in lascivious flames
Consumes, is with his own consent undone:
He chuses to be wretched, to be mad;
And warn'd proceeds, and wilful, to his fate.           415
But there's a Passion,  whose tempestuous sway
Tears up each virtue planted in the breast,
And shakes to ruins proud Philosophy.
For pale and trembling, Anger rushes  m,
With falt'ring speech,  and eyes that wildly  stare ;
Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas,             421
Desperate, and arm'd with more than human strength.
How soon the calm, humane, andpolish'd man
Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend '
Who pines in Love, or wastes with silent Cares,
Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief, 
           PRESERVING  HEALTH.          53

Slowly descends and ling'ring to the shades.
But he whom Anget sting"., drops, if he dies,
At once, and rushes apoplectic uown ;
Or a fierce fever hurries him to hell.                   430
For, as the be <iy, through unnumber'd strings,
P^evcrberates each vibration of the Soul;
As is the Passion, such is still the Pain
The body feels ; orchronic,  or acute.
And of: a sudden storm at once o'erpowers
The Life, or gives your Reason to the winds.
Such Fares attend the Rash alarm of Fear,
And sudden Grief, and Rage, and sudden Joy.

  There are, mean time, to whom the boist'rous fit
Is Health,  and only fills the sails of life.
For where  the mind a torpid winter leads,
Wrapt in a Body corpulent and cold,
And each cl-. gg'd function lazily moves  on ;
A generous sally spurns th' incumbent load,
Unlocks the breast, and gives a cordial glow.
Bu' if your wrathful blood is apt to boil,
Or are your nerves too irritably strung,
Wave all dispute ; be cautious if you joke ;
Keep Lent for ever;  and forswear the Bowl.
For ime rash moment sends you to the shades,
Or shatters ev'ry hopeful scheme of life,
And gives to horror all your days to come.
Fate, arm'd with  thunder, fire,  and ev'ry plague,
That ruins,  tortures, or distracts mankind,
And makes the happy wretched  in an hour,
O'erwhelms you not with woes so horrible
As your own Wrath,  nor gives  more sudden blows.

  While Choler works, good friend, you may be wrong;
Distrust yourself, and sleep before you  fight.
'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave  ;               460
I f honour bids, to-morrow kill or die.
But Calm advice against a raging fit
Avails too  little;  and it tries the power
Of all that ever taught in Prose  or Song,
To tame the Fiend that sleeps a gentle Lamb,           455
And wakes a Lion.  Unprovok'd and calm,
You reason well,  see as you ought to see,
And wonder at the madness of  mankind:
Seiz'd with the common rage, you soon forget
The speculation of your wiser hours.                   470
445
450 
54
THE ART OF        Book  IV.
Beset with Furies of all deadly shapes,
Fierce and insidious, violent and slow :
With all that urge or lure us on to Fate:
What refuge shall we seek? what arms prepare ?
Where Reason proves too weak, or void of wiles
To cope with subtle or impetuous powers,              471
I would invoke new Passions to your aid:
With Indignation would extinguish Fear,
With Fear or generous Pity, vanquish Rage,
And Love with Pride; and force to force oppose.

   There is a charm, a power,  that sways the breast;
Bids every Passion revel or be still;
Inspires with Rage, or all your Cares dissolves ;
Can soothe Distraction,.and almost Despair.
That power is Music: Far beyond the stretch         485
Of these unmeaning warblers on cur stage :
Those clumsy Heroes, those fat-headed Gods,
Who move no Passion justly but Contempt;
Who, like our dancers (light indeed and strong!)
Do wond'rous fates, but never heard of grace.         499
The fault is ours ; we bear  those monstrous arts ;
Good heaven !  we praise them :  we, with loudest peals,
Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels;
And, with insipid shew of rapture, die
Of idiot notes impertinently long.                     495
But he the Muse's laurel justly shares,
A Poet he,  and touch'd with Heaven's own fire;
Who, with bold rage or  solemn pomp of sounds,
Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul;
Now tender,  plaintive, sweet almost to pain,         500
In Love dissolves you :  now in sprightly strains
Breathes a gay rapture thro' your thrilling breast;
Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad ;
Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings.
Such was the Bard, whose heaver.Iy strains of old
 Appeas'd the fiend  of melancholy Saul.                 506
 Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,
 The man who bade the Theban domes ascend,
 And tam'd the savage nations with a song :
 And such the  Thracian, whose  harmonious lyre,
 Tun'd to soft woe,  made all the  mountains weep :
 Sooth'd even th' inexorable powers of Hell,
 And half redeem'd his lost Eurydice.
 Music exalts each Joy, allays each Grief, 
PRESERVING  HEALTH.         55
Expels Diseases, softens every Pain,
Subdues the Rage of Poison, and the Plague;
And hence the wise of ancient days ador'd
One Power of Physic,  Melody, and Song.
515
THE IXi.
 
 
THE
        MINSTREL;


                 OR,


THE  PROGRESS  OF GENIUS.


             A  POEM

           IN TWO BOOKS.



  BY JAMES BEATTIE, LL. D.
Nor fear lest genuine poesy expire,
While tuneful Beattie wakes old Spenser's lyre ;
His sympathetic lay his soul reveals,
And paints the perfedt bard from what he feels.
                      H. Mqre's sensibility

No gifts have I from Indian coasts,
The infant year to hail;
I send you more than India boasts,
In Edwin's simple tale.
                                   Burns. 
 
PREFACE.
 JL he design was, to trace the progress of a Po-
etical Genius, born in a rude age, from the first
dawning of fancy and reason, till that period at
which he may be supposed capable of appearing
in the world as A Minstrel, that is,  as an ite-
nerant Poet and Musician j....a character which,
according to the notions of our fore-fathers, was
not only respectable, but sacred.
  I have endeavoured to imitate Spenser in the
measure of his verse, and in the harmony, sim-
plicity,  and variety,  of his composition.  An-
tique expressions I have avoided; admitting,
however, some old words, where they seemed 
                 PREFACE.
to suit the subject: but I hope none will be found
that are now obsolete, or in any degree  not  in-
telligible to a reader of English poetry.
   To those who may be disposed to ask,  what
could induce  me to write  in so difficult a  mea-
sure,  I can only answer, that it pleases my ear,
and seems, from its Gothic structure and origi-
nal, to bear some relation to the subject and spi-
rit of the Poem.   It admits both simplicity and
magnificence  of sound and of language, beyond
any other stanza that I am acquainted with.  It
allows the sententiousness of the couplet,  as
well as the more complex modulation of blank
verse.  What some critics have remarked,  of
its  uniformity growing  at last tiresome to the
ear, will be found to hold true, only when the
poetry is faulty in other respects. 
The  Minstrel^
A  POEM.
}le vero,  primum, dulces, ante  omnia,  Musae,
Quarum sacra fero,  ingenti perculsus araore,
Accipiant.                               vibg.
BOOK  I.
 A                     L
X"\_H !  who can tell how hard, it is to climb
  The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;
  Ah ! who can tell how many a soul sublime
  Has felt the influence of malignant star,
  And waged with Fortune an eternal war;
  Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
  And Poverty's unconquerable bar,
  In life's low vale remote has pined alone,
Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown!
                         II.
  And yet, the languor of inglorious days
  Not equally oppressive  is to all.
  Him,  who ne'er listen'd to the voice of praise,
  The silence of negledt can  ne'er appal.
  There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call,
  Would «'.irink to hear th' obstreperous trump of Fame
  Supremely blest, if to their portion fall
  Health, competence, and  peace.  Nor higher aim
Had he, whose simple tale these artless lines prccLum.
                          F 
62              THE  MINSTREL.        Book I.


                         III.
  The rolls of fame I will not now explore ;
  Nor need I here describe in learned lay,
  How forth the Minstrel fared in days of yore,
  Right glad of heart, though homely in array ;
  His waving locks and beard all hoary grey :
  While from his bending shoulder, decent hung
  His harp, the sole companion of his way,
  Which to the whistling wind responsive rung :
And ever as he went some merry lay he sung.

                          IV.
  Fret not  thyself, thou glittering child of pride,
  That a poor  Villager inspires my strain ;
  With thee let Pageantry and Power abide:
   The gentle Muses haunt the sylvan reign :
   Where through wild groves at eve the lonely swain
   Enraptured roams, to gaze on Nature's charms.
   They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain,
   The parasite their influence never warms,
 Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms.

                           V.
   Though richest hues the peacock's plumes adorn,
   Yet horror screams from his discordant throat.
   Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn,
   While warbling larks on russet pinions float:
   Or seek at noon the woodland scene remote,
   Where  the  gay linnets carol from the hill.
   O let them  ne'er, with artificial note,
   To please a tyrant, strain the little bill,
  But sing what Heaven inspires, and wander where they will.

                            VI.
    Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's  hand ;
    Nor was perfeftion made for man below.
    Yet all  her schemes with nicest art are plann'd,
    Good counteracting ill, and gladness woe.
    With gold  and gems if Chilian mountains glow ;
    If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise ;
    There  plague and poison,  lust and rapine gro\v ;
    Here peaceful are the vales, and pure the skies,
  And freedom fires the soul,  and sparkles in the eyes. 
Book  I.         THE  MINSTREL.             63

                         VII.
  Then grieve not, thou,  to whom th' indulgent Muse
  Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire ;
  Nor blame the partial Fates,  if they refuse
  Th' imperial banquet, and the rich attire.
  Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre.
  Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined ?
  No ;  let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire,
  To fancy, freedom, harmony, resign'd ;
Ambition's groveling crew ior  ever left behind.

                         VIII.
  Canst thou forego the pure ethereal soul
  In each fine sense so exquisitely keen,
  On the dull couch  of Luxury to loll,
  Stung with disease, and stupified with spleen;
  Fain to implore the aid of Flattery's screen,
  Even from thyself thy loathsome heart to hide,
  (The mansion then no more  of joy serene)-,
  Where fear,  distrust, malevolence, abide,
And impotent desire, and disappointed pride I

                          IX.
   O how canst thou renounce the boundless  store
  Of Charms which Nature to her votary yields !
  The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
  The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
   All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
   And all that  echoes to the song of even,
   All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
   And all the dread magnificence of heaven*
 O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven !

                           X.
   These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health,
   And love, and gentleness, and joy, impart.
   But these, thou must renounce,  if lust of wealth
   E'er win its way  to thy corrupted heart:
   For, ah ! it poisons like a scorpion's  dart;
   Prompting th' ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme,
   The stern resolve unmov'd by pity's smart,
   The troublous day, and long distressful dream.
 Return,  my roving  Muse, resume thy purposed theme. 
04  .            THE  MINSTREL.        Book I.

                         XI.
  There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell,
  A shepherd-swain, a man of low degree ;
  Whose sires perchance,  in Fairyland might dwell,
  Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcady ;
  But he,  I ween, was of the north countrie * ;
  A nation fam'd for song, and beauty's charms ;
  Zealous,  yet modest; innocent, though free ;
  Patient of toil; serene amidst  alarms ;
Inflexible in faith ; invincible in arms.
                         XII.
  The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made,
  On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock ;
  The sickle, scythe, or plough, he never sway'd ;
  An honest heart was almost all his stock ;
  His  drink the living water from the rock :
  The milky dams supplied hie board,  and lent
  Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock ;
  And he,  though oft with dust and sweat besprent,
Did guide and guard their wanderings, whereso'er they went.
                         XIII..
  From labour health, from health contentment springs.
  Contentment opes the  source of every joy.
  He envied not, he never thought of, kings ;
  Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy,
  That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy :
  Nor Fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled;
  He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy,
  For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smiled,
And her alone he loved,  and  loved her from a child.
                          IV.
  No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast,
  Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife ;
  Each season look'd delightful,  as it past,
  To the fond husband,  and  the  faithful wife.
  Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life
  They never roam'd; secure beneath the storm
  Which in ambition's lofty land is rife,
  Where peace and love are canker'd by the worm
Of pride, each bud of joy industrious to deform.
  * There is hardly an ancient ballad, or romance,  wherein
a Minstrel  or  Harper appears, but he is  characterised, by
way of eminence, to have been " of the north countrle.'" It is 
Book I.        THE MINSTREL.
65
                           XV.
    The wight, whose tale these artless lines unfold,
    Was all the offspring of this humble pair.
    His birth no oracle or seer foretold :
    No prodigy appear'd in earth or air,
    Nor aught that might a strange event declare.
    You guess each circumstance of Eijwin's birth ;
    The parent's transport,  and the parent's care;
    The gossip's prayer for wealth, and wit,  and worth;
 And one long summer-day of indolence and mirth.
                          XVI.
    And yet poor Edwin was  no vulgar boy ;
    Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye.
    Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy,
    Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy.
    Silent,  when glad ; affectionate,  though shy ;
    And now  his look was most demurely  sad ;
    And now  he laugh'd aloud, yet none knew why.
    The neighbours stared and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad :
 Some deem'd  him wondrous wise, and some believed hini
       mad.
                          XVII.
    But why should I his childish feats display ?
    Concourse,  and noise, and toil, he ever fled ;
    Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray
    Of squabbling imps ; but to the forest  sped ;
    Or roam'd at large the lonely mountain's head ;
    Or, where the maize of some bewildeic'd stream
    To deep untrodden groves  his footsteps led,
    There would he wander wild,  till Phoebus'  beam,
 Shot from the  western cliff, released the weary team.
                          XVIII.
    Th'exploit  of strength, dexterity, or  speed,
    To htm nor vanity nor joy could bring.
    His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed
    To work the wo of any living thing,
    By trap, or net ; by arrow or by sling;
    These  he  detested,  those he scorn'd to wield :
    He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king,
    Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field.
' And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might  yield.
 probable,  that under this appellation were  formerlv com-
 prehended all the provinces to the north  of»-h.- Trent.   .SV-
 Percy's Essays on the  English Minstrels,
                           e 2 
66             THE MINSTREL.       Book 1.

                         XIX.
  Lo!  where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves
  Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine ;
  And sees, on high, amidst th' encircling groves,
  From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine :
  While waters, woods, and winds,  in concert join,
  And Echo swells the chorus to the skies.
  Would Edwin this majestic scene resign
  For aught the huntsman's puny craft supplies ?
Ah ! no : he better knows great Nature's charms to prize.
                         XX.
  And oft  he traced the uplands, to survey,
  When o'er the  sky advanced the kindling dawn,
  The crimson cloud,  blue main, and mountain grey,
  And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn ;
  Far to the west the long, long vale withdrawn,
  Where twilight loves to linger for a while ;
  And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn,
  And villager abroad at early  toil.
 But, lo ! the sun appears ! and heaven, earth, ocean, smile.
                         XXI.
  And oh the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
   When all in mist the world below was lost.
  What dreadful pleasure ! there to stand sublime,
   Like shipwreck'd mariner on desert coast,
   And view th' enormous waste of vapour, tost
   In billows, lengthening to th' horizon round,
   Now  scoop'd in gulfs, with mountains now emboss'd■!
   And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound,
 Flocks,  herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar profound!
                         XXII.
   In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
   Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene.
   In darkness, and in storm,  he found delight:
    Nor less, than when on ocean-wave serene
    The southern sun diffused his dazzling shene*
    Even sad vicissiude amused his soul:
    And  if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
    And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
  A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he  wish'd not to control.
    * Brightness^ splendour.  The  word is used by  some late
  writers, as well  as by Milton. 
Book  I.        THE  MINSTREL.             67

                        XXIII.
  •• O ye wild groves, O where is now your bloom !"
  (The Muse interprets thus his tender thought.)
  '« Your flowers, your verdure,  and your balmy gloom,
  *' Of late so grateful in the hour of drought!
  »' Why do the birds,  that song and rapture brought
  " To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake ?
  " Ah ! why has fickle chance this ruin wrought ?
  " For now the storm howls mournful through the brake,
•* And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake.

                        XXIV.
  " Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool,
  " And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crown'd !
  "• Ah ! see , th' unsightly slime,  and sluggish pool,
  " Have all the solitary val« imbrown'd ;
  " Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound.
  •' The  raven croaks forlorn on naked spray.
  " And, hark !  the river, bursting every mound,
  " Down the vale thunders; and with wasteful sway
" Uproots the grove, and rolls the shatter'd rocks away.

                        XXV.

  »* Yet  such the destiny of all on earth :
  " So flourishes and fades majestic man.
  " Fair is the  bud his vernal morn brings forth,
  " And fostering gales a awhile the nursling fan.
  " O smile,  ye heavens, serene ; ye mildews wan,
  " Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,
  " Nor lessen of his life the little span.
  " Borne on the swift, though silent,  wings of Time,
" Old age comes qn apace to ravage all the clime.

                        XXVI.
  " And be it so.  Let those deplore their doom,
  " Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn.
  " But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
   " Can smile at Fate,  and wonder how they mourn.
  •' Shall spring to these sad scenes no more return ?
   " Is yonder wave the sun's eternal bed ?
   " Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,
   " And spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
*• Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead. 
68             THE MINSTREL.        Book I.

                       XXVII.
  " Shall I be left forgotten in the dust,
  " When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive I
  " Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust,
  " Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live ?
  " Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive
  " With disappointment, penury, and pain ?
  " N°  : Heaven's immortal  spring shall yet arrive ;
  '* And man's majestic beauty bloom again,
" Bright thro' th' eternal year of love's triumphant reign."

                       XXVIII.
  This truth sublime his simple sire had taught.
  In sooth 't was almost all the shepherd knew.
  No subtle nor superfluous lore he sought,
  Nor ever wish'd his Edwin to pursue.
  " Let man's own sphere (said he) confine his view,
  " Be  man's peculiar work his sole delight."
  And much, and oft, he warn'd him to eschew
  Falsehood and guile, and aye maintain the right.
By pleasure unseduced, unawed by lawless might.

                        XXIX.
  " And, from the prayer of Want,  and plaint of Wo,
  " O never, never turn away thine ear !
  " Forlorn,  in this bleak wilderness below,
  " Ah ! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!
  " To others do (the law is not severe)
  " What to thyself thou wishest to be done.
  " Forgive thy foes ; and leve thy parents dear,
  " And friends, and native land ; nor  those alone ;
" All human weal and wo learn thou to  make thine own.'*

                        XXX.
  See,  in the rear of the warm sunny shower,
  The visionary boy from shelter fly !
  For now the  storm of summer-rain  is  o'er,
  And cool, and fresh, and fragrant  is  the sky.  .
  And, lo '. in  the dark east, expanded high,
  The rainbow brightens to the setting sun !
  Fond fool, that deem'st the streaming glory nigh,.
  How vain the chace thine  ardor has begun !
'Tis fled afar, ere half thy purposed race be run. 
P,-..-A  I.         THE  MINSTREL.             69

                        XXXI.
  Yet couldst thou learn, that thus it fares with age,
  When pleasure, wealth, or power the bosom warm,
  This baffled hope might tame thy manhood's rage,
  And Disappointment of her sting disarm.
  But why should foresight thy fond heart alarm !
  Perish the lore that deadens young desire !
  Pursue,  poor imp, thrimaginary charm,
  Indulge  gay  Hope, and Fancy's pleasing fire :
Fancy and Hope too soon shall of themselves expire.

                       XXXII.
  When the long-sounding curfew from afar
  Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale,
  Young Edwin, lighted by the evening star,
  Lingering and listening wander'd down the vale-   ,
  There would he dream of graves, and corses pale ;
  And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng,
  And drag a length of clanking chain and wail,
  Till silenced by the owl's terrific song,
Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering isles along.

                       XXXIII.

  Or, when the setting moon, in crimson dyed,
  Hung o'er the dark and melancholy deep,
  To haunted  stream,  remote from man, he hied,
  Where Fays of yore their revels wont to keep;
  And there let Fancy rove at large, till sleep
  A vision brought to his entranced sight.
  And first, a wildly murmuring wind 'gan creep
  Shrill to his ringing ear ; then tapers bright,
With instantaneous gleam,  illumed the vault of night-

                        XXXIV.

  Anon in view a portal's blazon'd arch
  Arose ;  the trumpet bids the valves unfold;
  And forth an host of little warriors march,
  Grasping the diamond lance, and targe of gold.
  Their look was gentle, their demeanour bold,
  And green their helms, and green their silk attire ;
  And here and there, right venerably old,
  The long robed minstrels wake the warbling wire,
And some with mellow breath the martial pipe inspire. 
70              THE  MINSTREL.        Book  I.


                       XXXV.
  With merriment, and song, and timbrels clear,
  A troop of dames from myrtle bowers advance ;
  The little warriors doff the targe and spear,
  And loud enlivening strains provoke the dance.
  They meet,  they dart away,  they wheel askance ;
  To right,  to left,  they thrid the flying maze ;
  Now bound aloft with vigorous spring, then glance
  Rapid along :  with many-colour'd rays
Of tapers, gems, and gold, the echoing forests blaze.

                       XXXVI.
  The dream is fled.   Proud harbinger of day,
  Who scard'st  the vision with thy clarion shrill,
  Fell chanticleer ! who oft hast reft away
  My fancied good, and brought substantial ill ■
   O to thy cursed scream, discordant still,
  Let harmony aye shut her gentle ear :
  Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill,
  Insult thy crest,  and glossy pinions tear,
And ever in thy dreams the ruthless fox appear.

                       XXXVII.
  Forbear my Muse.  Let Love attune thy line.
   Revoke the spell.  Thine Edwin frets not so.
   For how should he at wicked chance repine,
   Who feels fiom every change amusement flow ?
  Even now his eyes with smiles of rapture glow,
   As on he wanders through the scenes of morn,
  Where the fresh flowers in living lustre blow,
   Where thousand pearls  the dewy lawns adorn,
 A thousand notes of joy in every breeze are born.

                       XXXVIII.
   But who the melodies of morn can tell ?
   The wild brook babbling down the mountain side ;
   The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
   The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
   In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide
   The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ;
   The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide ;
   The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
 And the full choir that wakes  the universal grove 
Book  I.        THE  MINSTREL.              71

                       XXXIX.
  The cottage-curs at early pilgrim bark ;
  Crown'd with her pail the trippling milkmaid sings ;
  The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and, hark !
  Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings ;
  Through rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs ;
  Slow'tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour ;
  The partridge bursts away on whirring wings;
  Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower,
And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tour.

                          XL.
  O Nature, how in every charm supreme;
  Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new t
  O for the voice and fire of seraphim,
  To sing thy glories with devotion due !
  Blest be the day I  'scaped the wrangling crew,
  From Pyrrho's maze,  and Epicurus' sty ;
  And held high converse with the godlike few,
  Who to th' enraptur'd heart, and ear, and eye,
Teach beauty,  virtue, truth, and love, and melody.

                         XLI.
   Hence ! ye,  who snare and stupefy the mind,
   S»phists, of beauty, virtue, joy,  the bane !
   Greedy and fell, though impotent and blind,
   Who spread your  filthy nets in Truth's fair fane,
   And ever ply your venom'd fangs amain !
   Hence to dark Error's den,  whose rankling slime
   First gave you form!  hence !  lest the Muse should deign,
   (Though loath on theme so mean to waste a rhyme),
 With vengeance to pursue your sacrilegious crime.

                         XLII.
   But hail, ye mighty masters of the lay,
   Nature'^ true sons, the friends of man and truth !
   Whose song, sublimely sweet, serenely gay,
   Amus'd my childhood, and inform'd my youth.
   O let your spirit still my bosom sooth,
   Inspire my dreams, and my wild wanderings guide"!
   Your voice each rugged path of life can smooth ;
   For well I know,  where-everye reside,
 There harmony, and peace, and innocence abide 
THE MINSTREL.        Book i.
                        XLIII.
  Ah me ! neglected on the lonesome plain,
  As yet poor Edwin never knew your lore,
  Save when against the winter's drenching rain,
  And driving snow,-the cottage shut the.door,
  Then,  as instructed by tradition hoar,
  Her legend when the Beldame 'gan impart,
  Or chant the old heroic ditty o'er,
  Wonder and joy ran thrilling to his heart;
Much he the tale admired, but more the tuneful art.
                        XLIV.
  Various and strange was the long-winded tale ;
  And halls,  and knights, and feats of arms, display'd j
  Or merry swains,  who quaff the nut-brown ale,
  And sing, enamour'd of the nut-brown maid ;
  The moon-light revel of the fairy glade ;
  Or hags,  that suckle an infernal brood,
  And ply in caves th' unutterable trade*,
  'Midst fiends and speCtres, quench the moon in blood,
Yell in the midnight storm, or ride th'  infuriate flood.
                        XLV.
  But when to horror his amazement rose,
  A gentler strain the Beldame would rehearse,
  A tale of rural  life, a tale of woes,
  The orphan-babes, and guardian uncle fierce.
  O cruel!  will no pang of pity pierce
  That heart by lust of lucre sear'd to stone ?
  For sure, if aught of virtue last, or verse,          ■
  To latest times shall tender souls bemoan
Those hopeless orphan-babes by thy fell arts undone.
                        XLVI.
  Behold, with berries smear'd, with brambles tornf.
  The babes now famish'd lay them down to die.
  Amidst the howl of darksome woods forlorn,
  Folded in one another's arms they lie ;
  Nor friend, nor stranger, hears their dying cry :
  " For from the town, the man returns no more."
  But thou, who Heaven's just vengeance darest defy,
  This deed with fruitless tears shalt soon deplore,
When Death lays waste thy house, and flames consume thy
      store.
  * Allusion  to Shakespeare.
  Macbeth.  How now, ye secret, black, and midnight hae-s
      Whatis'tyoudo?                             S
  Witches.  A deed without a name. Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I.
  t See the fine old ballad,  called, The Children in the Wood. 
Book  I.        THE  MINSTREL.             73

                        XLVII.
  A stifled smile of stern vindictive joy
  Brighten'd one moment Edwin's starting tear,
  "  But why should gold man's feeble mind decoy,
  "  And Innocence thus die by doom severe ?"
  O Edwin !  while thy heart  is yet sincere,
  Th' assaults of discontent and doubt repel:
  Dark even at noontide is our mortal sphere ;
  But let us hope ;  to doubt is to  rebel ;
 Let  us exult in hope, that all  shall yet be well.

                       XLVIII.
  Nor be thy generous indignation check'd,
  Nor check'd the tender tear to  Misery given ;
  From Guilt's contagious power shall that proteCt,
  This soften and  refine the soul  for Heaven.
  But dreadful is their doom,  whom doubt has driven
  To censure Fate, aud pious Hope forego :
  Like yonder blasted boughs by  lightning riven,
  Perfection,  beauty,  life, they never know,
 But frown on all that  pass, a monument of wo.

                        XLIX.
  Shall he, whose birth, maturity, and age,
  Scarce fill the circle of one  summer day,
  Shall the poor gna*  with discontent and rage
  Exclaim, that Nature hastens to decay,
  If but a cloud obstrufl the solar ray,
  If but a momentary  shower  descend !
  Or shall frail man Heaven's dread decree gainsay,
   Which bade theories of events extend
 Wide through unnumber'd worlds and ages without end !

                          L.
   One part,  one little part, we dimly scan
   Through the dark medium  of life' feverish dream ;
   Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan,
   If but that little part incongruous seem.
   Nor is that part perhaps what  mortals deem ;
   Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise.
   O then renounce that impious self-esteem,
   That aims to trace the secrets  of che skies ;
 For thou art but of dust; be humble, and be wise,
                            G 
74              THE  MINSTREL.        Book I.


                          LI.
  Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years.
  For Nature gave him strength and lire, to soar
  On Fancy's wing above this vale of tears ;
  Where dark cold-hearted sceptics,  creeping, pore
  Through microscope of metaphysic lore :
  And much they grope for truth, but never hit.
  For why i  their powers, inadequate before,
  This idle art makes more and more unfit ;
Yet deem they darkness light, and their vain blunders wit.

                          LII.
  Nor was this ancient dame a foe to mirth.
  Her ballad, jest,  and riddle's quaint  device
  Oft cheer'd the shepherds round their social hearth;
  Whom levity or spleen could ne'er entice
  To purchase chat or laughter, at the  price
  Of decency.  Nor let it faith exceed,
  That Nature forms a rustic taste so nice.
  Ah ! had they been of court or city breed,
 Such delicacy were right marvellous indeed.

                         LIII.
  Oft when the winter-storm had ceased to rave,
  He roam'd the snowy waste at even,  to view
   The cloud stupendous, from th' Atlantic wave
   High-towering, sail along th' horizon blue :
  Where 'midst  the changeful scenery ever new
  Fancy a thousand wond'rous forms descries
   More wildly great than ever pencil drew,
  Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size,
 And glittering cliffs on cliffs,  and fiery ramparts rise

                          LIV.

  Thence musing onward to the sounding shore,
   The lone  enthusiast oft would take his way,
   Listening with pleasing dread to the deep roar
   Of the wide-weltering waves.  In black array
   When sulphurous clouds roll'd on th' autumnal dav.
   Even then he hasten'd from the haunt of man,
   Along the trembling wilderness to strav,
   What time the lightning's fierce career began,
 And o'er Heaven's rending arch the ratding thunder ran. 
Book  I.        THE  MINSTREL.              75

                          LV.
  Responsive to the sprightly pipe when all
  In sprightly dance the village-youth were join'd,
  Edwin,  of melody aye held in thrall.
  From the rude gambol far remote reclined,
  Sooth'd with  the soft notes warbling in  the wind.
  Ah then,  all jollity seem'd noise and folly.
  To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined,
  Ah what is mirth but turbulence unholy,
When with  the charm compared of heavenly melancholy.

                         LVI.
  Is there a heart that music cannot melt ?
  Alas ! how is that rugged heart forlorn !
  1'. there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt
  Of solitude and melancholy born ?
  He needs not woo the Muse ; he is her scorn.
  The sophist's robe of cobweb he shall twine ;
  Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page ;  or mourn,
  And delve for life in Mammon's  dirty mine ;
Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine,

                         LVII.
  For Edwin fate a nobler doom had plann'd ;
  Song was his favourite and first pursuit.
  The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand,
  And languish'd to his breath the plaintive flute.
  His infant muse, though artless, was not mute :
  Of elegance  as yet he took no care ;
  For this of time and culture is the fruit  ;
   And Edwin  gain'd at last this fruit so rare :
 As in some future verse I purpose to declare.

                         LVIII.
   Meanwhile, whate'er of beautiful, or new,
   Sublime, or dreadful, in earth,  sea or sky,
   By chance, or search, was offer'd to his view,
   He scan'd with curious and romantic eye.
   Whate'er of lore tradition could supply
   From Gothic tale, or song, or fable old,
   Roused him, still keen to listen  and to pry.
   At last, though long by penury control'd,
 And solitude,  his soul her graces 'gan unfold. 
76             THE MINSTREL.        Book I.

                         LIX
  Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land,
  For many a long month lost in snow profound,
  When Sol from Cancer sends the season bland,
  And in their northern cave the storms are bound ;
  From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,
  Torrents are hurl'd ;  green hills emerge ; and To,
  The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crown'd ;
  Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go ;
And wonder,  love,  and joy, the peasant's heart o'erflow*.

                          LX.

  Here pause, my Gothic lyre, a little while.
  The leisure hour is all that thou canst claim.
  But on this verse if Montagu should smile,
  New strains erelong shall animate thy frame.
  And her applause to me is more than fame ;
  7ror still with truth accords her taste refined.
  At lucre or renown let others aim,
  I only wish  to please the gentle mind,
Whom nature's charms inspire,  and love of humankind.


  * Spring and Autumn are hardly known to the Laplanders.
About1 the time the sun enters Cancer, their fields,  which a
week before were covered with  snc w, appear on a sudden
full of gr^.s;. and flowers. Scktffer's History <f Lapland, p. 16. 
BOOK  II.
                          I.

   \_^/F chance or change O let not man complain,
  Else shall he never, never cease to wail;
  For, from the imperial dome, to where the swaia
  Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,
  All feel th' assault of fortune's fickle gale ;
  Art, empire, earth itself, to change are doom'd ;
  Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale,
  And gulphs the mountain's mighty mass entomb'd,
And where th' Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloom'd*.

                          II.
  But sure to foreign climes we need not range,
  Nor search the ancient records of our race,
  To learn the dire effects of time and change,
  Which in ourselves,  alas,  we daily trace.
  Yet at the darken'd eye, the wither'd face,
  Or hoary hair, I never will repine :
  But spare, O Time,  whate'er of mental grace,
  Of condour, love,  or sympathy divine,              ,. .
Whate'er of fancy's ray,  or friendship's flame is mine.

                          III.
  So I, obsequious to Truth's dread command,
  Shall here without reluCtance change my lay,
  And smite the Gothic lyre with harsher hand ;
  Now when I leave that flowery path for aye
  Of childhood,  where I sported many a day,
  Warbling and sauntering carelessly along ;
  Where every face was innocent and gay,
  Each vale romantic,  tuneful every tongue,
Sweet, wild,  and artless all, as Edwin's infant song,
                  *  See Plato'* Timeus.
                          e 2 
73             THE  MINSTREL.      Book II.


                         IV.
  " Perish the lore that deadens young desire"
  Is the soft tenor of my song no more.
  Edwin, though loved of heaven, must not aspire
  To bliss, which mortals never knew before.
  On trembling wings let youthful fancy soar,
  Nor always haunt the sunny realms of joy :
  But now and then the shades of life explore ;
  Though maiiy a sound and sight of wo annoy,
 And many a qualm of care his rising hopes destroy.

                           V.
   Vigour from toil, from trouble patience grows.
   The weakly blossom, warm in summer bower,
   Some tints of transient beauty may disclose ;
   But soon it withers in the chilling hour.
   Mark yonder oaks ! Superior to the power
   Of all the warring winds of heaven they rise,
   And from the  stormy promontory  tower,
   And toss their giant arms amid the skies,
 While each assailing blast increase of strength suppliei,

                           VI.
    And now the downy cheek and deepen'd voice
    Gave dignity to Edwin's blooming prime ;
    And walks of wider circuit were his choice,
    And vales more mild, and mountains more sublime.
    One evening, as he framed the careless rhyme,
    It  was his chance to wander far abrcad,
    And o'er a lonely eminence to climb,
    Which heretofore his foot had never trode ;
  A  vale appear'd below, a deep retired  abode.

                           VII.
     Thither he hied,  enamour'd of the scene.
     For rocks on  rocks piled, as by magic Spell,
     Here scorch'd with lightning, there with ivy green,
     Fenced from  the north and east this savage dell.
     Southward a mountain rose with easy swell,
     Whose long, long groves eternal murmur made :
     And toward the western sun a streamlet fell,
     Where,  through the cliffs, the eye,  remote, survey'd
  Blue hills,  and glittering wave*,  and skies in gold array'di 
Book  II.        THE  MINSTREL.             79

                         VIII.
  Along this narrow valley you might see
  The wild deer sporting on the meadow ground,
  And, here and there, a solitary tree,
  Or mossy stone, or rock with woodbine crown'd.
  Oft did the cliffs reverberate the sound
  Of parted fragments tumbling from on high ;
  And  from the summit of that craggy mound
  The perching eagle oft was heard to cry,
Or on resounding wings to shoot athwait the sky.

                          IX.
  One cultivated spot there was,  that spread
  Its flowry bosom to the noonday beam,
  Where many a rose-bud rears its blushing head,
  And  herbs for food with future plenty teem.
  Sooth'd by the lulling sound of grove and stream,
  Romantic visions swarm on Edwin's soul:
  He minded not the sun's last trembling gleam,
  Nor heard from far the twilight curfew toll ;
When slowly on his ear these moving accents stole.

                           X.
  " Hail,  awful scenes, that calm the troubled breast,
  " And woo th; weary to profound repose ;
  " Can passion's wildest uproar lay to rest,
  " And whisper comfort to the man of woes I
  " Here innocence may wander,  safe from foes,
  " And contemplation soar on seraph wings.
  " O Solitude,  the man who thee foregoes,
  " When lucre lures him, or ambition stings,
" Shall never know the source whence real grandeur springsi

                          XI.
  " Vain man,  is grandeur given to gay attire?
  " Then let the butterfly thy pride upbraid :
,  "To friends,  attendants,  armies, bought with hire t
  " It  is thy weakness that requires their aid :
  " To palaces,  with gold and gems inlay'd ?
  " They fear the thief, and tremble in the storm :
  " To hosts,  through carnage who to conquest wade ?
  '* Behold the vi&or vanquish'd by the worm!
" Behold, what deeds of wo the locust can perform ! 
90             THE MINSTREL.      Book II.


                         XII.
  «« True dignity is his, whose tranquil mind
  «' Virtue has raised above the things below ;
  " Who,  every hope and fear to Heaven resign'd,
  " Shrinks not, though Fortune aim her deadliest blow."
  This strain from 'midst the rocks was heard to flow,
  In solemn sounds.  Now beam'd the evening star j
  And from embattled clouds emerging slow
  Cynthia came riding on her silver car ;
And hoary mountain-cliffs shone faintly from afar.

                         XIII.
  Soon did the solemn voice its theme renew ;
  (While Edwin wrapt in wonder listening stood)
  " Ye tools and toys  of tyranny, adieu,
  " Scorn'd by the wise,  and hated by the good !
  " Ye only can engage the servile brood
  " Of Levity and Lust, who all their days,
  " Asham'd of truth and liberty, have woo'd,
  " And hug'd the chain, that glittering on their gaze
 " Seems to outshine the pomp of heaven's empyreal blaze.

                         XIV.
   •' Like them,  abandon'd to Ambition's sway,
   " I sought for glory in the paths of guile ;
   " And  fawn'd and smiled, to plunder and betray,
   " Myself betray 'd and plunder'd all the while ;
   " So gnaw'd the viper the ccrr- ding file.
   " But now with pangs of keen remorse I rue
   •« Those years of trouble and debasement vile.
   " Yet why should I this cruel theme pursue ?
 " Fly, fly, detested thoughts,  for ever from my view.

                          XV.
   " The  gusts of appetite, the clouds of care,
   •« And storms of disappointment, all o'erpast,
   " Henceforth, no earthly hope wMi heaven shall share
   " This heart, where peace serenely shines at last.
   " And if for me no treasure be amass'd,
   " And if no future age shall hear my name,
   " I lurk the more secure from fortune's blast,
   "  And with more leisure  feed this pious flame,
  «« Whose rapture far  transcends the fairest hope of fame* 
Book  II.        THE  MINSTREL.
81
                         XVI.
  " The end and the reward of toil is rest.
  " Be all my prayer for virtue and for peace.
  " Of wealth and fame,  of pomp and power possess'd,
  " Who ever felt his weight of wo decrease !
  •• Ah ! what avails the lore of Rome and Greece,
  '* The lay heaven prompted, and harmonious string
  " The dust of Ophir, or the Tyrian fleece,
  " AH that art, fortune, enterprise,  can bring,
" If envy, scorn,  remorse, or pride the bosom wring !

                        XVII.
  " Let Vanity adorn the marble tomb
  " With trophies,  rhymes, and  'scutcheons of renown,
  " In the deep dungeon of some  Gothic  dome,
  " Where night and desolation ever frown.
  " Mine be the breeezy  hill that skirts the down ;
  " Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
  " With here and there a violet bestrown,
  " Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave ;
" And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave.

                        XVIII.
  " And thither let the village swain repair ;
  " And, light of heart, the village maiden gay,
  " To deck with flowers her half-dishevel'd hair,
  •' And celebrate the merry morn ot  May.
  " There let the shepherd's pipe the live-long day
  " Fill all the grove wi h love's  bewitching wo ;
  " And when mild Evening comes in mantle grey,
  " Let not the blooming band make  haste to go ;
" No ghost nor spell my long and last abode shall  know,

                         XIX.
  " For though I fly to 'scape from Fortune's rage,
  *' And bear the scars of envy, spite, and scorn,
  " Yet wi'h mankind no horrid  war I wage,
  " Yet with no impious  spleen my breast is torn;
  " For virtue lost, and ruin'd man, I mourn.
  «' O  Min, creation's pride, heaven's darling child,
  " Whom natun-'s best divinest  gifts adorn,
  " Wliy from thy home  are truth and joy exiled,
" And  ail thy favourite haunts with blood aad tears defiled! a 
82             THE  MINSTREL.       Book  II.

                         XX.
  " Along yon glittering sky what glory streams !
  " What majesty attends Night's lovely queen !
  " Fair laugh our vallies in the vernal beams ;
  " And mountains rise, and oceans roll between,
  *• And all conspire to beautify the scene,
  " But, in the mental world,  what chaos drear !
  " What forms of mournful, loathsome, furious mien !
  " O when shall that Eternal Morn appear,
" These dreadful forms to chase, this chaos dark to clear !
                         XXI.
  " O Thou, at whose creative smile, yon heaven,
  " In all the  pomp of beauty, life and light,
  " Rose from th' abyss ; when dark Confusion, driven
  " Down,  down the bottomless profound of night,
  " Fled, where he ever flies thy piercing sight!
  " O glance on these sad shades one pitying ray,
  " To blast the fury of oppressive might,
  " Melt the hard heart to love and mercy's sway,
 ' And cheer the wandering soul,  and light him on the way."
                        XXII.
  Silence ensued : and Edwin raised his eyes
  In tears,  for grief lay heavy at his heart.
  " And is it thus in courtly life  (he cries)
  " That man to man aCts a betrayer's part ?
  " And.dares he thus the gifts of heaven pervert,
  •' Each social instinct, and sublime desire ?
  " Hail poverty!  if honour,  wealth, and art,
  " If what the great pursue,  and learn'd admire,
•• Thus dissipate and quench the soul's ethereal fire t
                        XXIII.
  He said, and turn'd away ; nor did the Sage
  O'erhear, in silent orison's employ'd.
  The Youth, his rising sorrow to assuage,
  Home as he hied, the evening scene enjoy'd :
  For now no cloud obscures the starry void;
  The yellow  moonlight sleeps on all the hills * ;
  Nor is the mind with startling sounds annoy'd;
  A soothing  murmur the lone region fills,
Of groves,  and dying gales, and melancholy rills.

  » How sweet thft moonlight sleeps upon this bank.
                                           Sbakspeart. 
Book  II.      THE  MINSTREL.             83

                        XXIV.
  But he from day  to day more anxious grew.
  The  voice still seem'd to vibrate on his ear.
  Nor durst he hope the Hermit's tale untrue ;
  For man he seem'd to love, and heaven to fear ;
  And none speaks false,  where there is none to hear.
  " Yet, can man's gentle heart  become so fell !
  *• No more in vain conjecture let me wear
  " My hours away, but seek the Hermit's cell;
*' 'Tis he my doubt can clear, perhaps my care dispel."

                        XXV.
  At early dawn the Youth his journey took,
  And many a mountain pass'd, and valley wide,
  Then reach'd the wild ; where, in a flowery Nook,
  And seated on a mossy  stone, he  spied
  An ancient man : his harp lay him beside.
  A stag sprang from the  pasture at his call,
  And, kneeling, lick'd the wither'd hand  that tied
  A wreathe of  woodbine round  his antlers tall,
And hung his lofty neck with many a flowret small.

                        XXVI.
  And now the hoary Sage arose, and saw
  The wanderer approaching : innocence
  Smiled on his glowing cheek, but modest awe
  Depress'd his eye, that fear'd to give offence.
  " Who art thou, courteous stranger ? and from whence?
  " Why roam thy steps to this sequester'd dale ?"
  " A shepherd-boy (the Youth replied) far hence
  " My habitation ; hear my artless  tale ;
" Nor levity nor falsehood shall thine ear assail.

                        XXVII.
  " Late as I roam'd, intent on Nature's charms,
  " I reach'd at eve this wilderness profound ;
  " And, leaning where yon oak expands her arms,
  '* Heard these rude cliffs thine awful voice rebound,
  " (For in  thy speech I recognize the sound.)
  "  You mourn'd  for ruin'd man, and virtue lost,
  " And seem'd to feel of keen remorse the wound,
  "  Pondering on former days by guilt engross'd,
"  Or in the giddy storm  of dissipation toss'd. 
34             THE MINSTREL.        Book  II.
                       XXVIII.
  "  But say, in courtly life can craft be learn'd,
  "  Where knowledge opens, and exalts the soul ?
  "  Where Fortune lavishes her gifts ur.earn'd,
  "  Can selfishness the liberal heart controul ?
  "  Is glory there achiev'd by arts as foul
  "  As those that felons, fiends, and furies plan ?
  "  Spiuers ensnare,  snakes poison, tygers prowl;
  "  Love is the Godlike attribute of man.
*• O teach a simple youth this  mystery to scan.

                        XXIX.
  "  Or else the lamentable strain disclaim,
  "  And give me back the calm  contented mind;
  •'  Which, late, exulting, view'd  in Nature's frame,
  "  Goodness untainted, wisdom unconfirmed,
  **  Grace,  grandeur,  and utility combined.
  "  Restore those tranquil days, that saw me still
  ««  Well pleas'd with all, but most with human  kind;
  "  When fancy roam'd through Nature's wcrks at will.
" Uncheck'd by cold distrust,  and uninform'd of ill."

                        XXX.
  "  Wouldstthou (the sage replied) in peace return
  "  To the gay dreams of fond romantic youth,
  "  Leave me to hide in this remote sojourn,
  "  From every gentle ear ihe dreadful truth :
  •'  For if my desultory strain wMi ruth
  "  And indignation make thine eye o'erflow,
  ■'  Alas? what comfort cculd thy anguish sooth,
  "  Shouldst thou th' extent of  human folly kno'w.
" Be ignorance thy choice,  where knowledge leads to wo.

                        XXXI.
  "  But let untender thoughts afar be driven ;
  "  Nor venture to arraign the dread deciee.
  "  For know, to man, as candidal e f< r heaven
  "  The voice of The Eternal said, Be free :  '
  "  And this divii e prerogative to thee'
  "  Does vinue, happiness,  and heaven convey •
  "  For virtue is  the child cf liberty,           '
  "  Arnd haPpJness of virtue  ; nor can they
" Be free to ktep the path, who are not free to stray. 
 Book  II.        THE  MINSTREL.            85

                        XXXII.
   " Yet leave me not.   I would allay that  grief,
   " Which else might thy young virtue overpower
   " And in thy converse I shall find relief,
   " When the dark shades of melancholy lower;
   " For solitude has many a dreary hour,
   " Even when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain :
   •' Come often then ; for, haply, in my bower,
   " Amusement,  knowledge, wisdom thou may'st gain :
 " If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain."

                       XXXIII.
   And now, at length, to Edwin's ardent gaze
   The Muse of history unrolls her page ;
   But few,  alas!  the scenes  her art displays,
   To charm his fancy, or his heart engage.
   Here Chiefs their thirst of power in blood assuage,
   And straight their flames with ten-fold fierceness bura :
   Here smiling Virtue prompts the patriot's rage,
   But lo, erelong, is left alone to mourn,
 And languish in the dust, and clasp th' abandon'd urn.

                       XXXIV.
   " Ambition's slippery verge shall mortals  tread,
   " Where ruin's gulph unfathom'd yawns beneath !
   " Shall life, shall liberty be lost, (he said)
   " For the vain toys that Pomp and Power bequeath !
   " The car of victory, the plume, the wreathe,
   " Defend  not from the bolt of fate the brave ;
   " No note the clarion of Renown can breathe,
   " T' alarm the long night of the  lonely grave,
" Or check the headlong haste of Time's o'erwhelming wave,.

                       XXXV.
   " Ah, what avails it to have traced the springs,
   " That whirl of empire the stupendous wheel!
  " Ah, what have I to do with conquering kings,
  «' Hands drench'd in blood, and breasts begirt with steel!
  «' To those, whom Nature taught to think and feel,
  " Heroes,  alas !  are things of small concern ;
  " Could History man's secret heart reveal,
  " And what imports a heaven-born mind to learn,
" Her transcripts to explore what bosom would not yearu! 
86             THE MINSTREL.       Book  II,

                       XXXVI.
  " This praise, O Cheronean Sage*, is thine.
  " (Why should this praise to thee alone belong?)
  " All else from Nature's moral path decline,
  " Lured by the toys that captivate the throng ;
  " To herd in cabinets and camps, among
  " Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride ;
  " Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song,
  " How tyrant blood?  o'er many a region wide,
" Rolls to a thousand thrones its execrable tide.

                       XXXVII,
  *' O who of man the story will unfold,
  " Ere victory and empire wrought annoy,
  " In that elysian age (misnamed of gold)
  " The age of love, and innocence, and joy,
  *' When all were great and free ! man's sole employ
  " To deck the bosom of his parent earth ;
  " Or toward his bower the murmuring stream decoy,
  " T° aid the flowret's long-expeCted birth,
" And lull the bed of peace, and crown  the board of rairtli.

                      XXXVIII.
  " Sweet were your shades,  O ye primeval groves,
  " Whose boughs to man his food and shelter lent,
  " Pure in his pleasures,  happy in his loves,
  " His eye still smiling, and his heart content.
  "Then, hand in hand,  Health,  Sport,  and  Labour went,
  " Nature supply'd the wish she taught to crave.
  " None prowl'd for prey, none watch'd to circumvent.
  " To all an equal lot heaven's bounty gave :
" No vassal fear'd his lord, no tyrant fear'd his slave.

                       XXXIX.
  " But ah! th'  Historic Muse has never dared
  !' To pierce those hallow'd bowers :  'tis Fancy's bean|
  " Pour'd on the vision of th' enraptured Bard,
  *' That paints the charms of that delicious theme.
  " Then hail sweet Fancy's ray !   and hail the dream
  " That weans the  weary soul from guilt and wo!
  " Careless what others  of my choice  may  deem,
  *' I  long where Love and Fancy lead  to go,
*' An,d meditate on heaven ; enough of earth 1 kn»w."

           •          * Plutarch. 
Book  II.        THE  MINSTREL.              87 -

                         XL.
  " I cannot blame thy, choice  (the Sage replied)
  " For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways.
  " And yet, even there, if left without a guide,
  " The young adventurer unsafely plays.
  " Eyes dazzled long by Fiction's gaudy rays
  " In modest Truth nor light nor beauty find.
  " And who,  my child,  would trust the meteor blaze,
  " That soon must fail,  and leave the wanderer blind,
" More dark and helpless far,  than if it ne'er had shined ?

                         XLI.
  " Fancy enervates,  while it sooths, the heart,
  " And, while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight:
  " To joy each heightening charm it can impart,
  " But wraps the hour of wo in tenfold night.
  " And often, where no real ills affright,
  " Its visionary fiends, an endless train,
  " Assail with equal or  superior might,
  " And through the throbbing heart, and dizzy brain,
" And shivering nerves,  shoot  stings of more than mortal
       pain.
                        XLII.
  " And yet, alas ! the real ills of life
  " Claim the full vigour of a mind prepared,
  " Prepared for patient, long, laborious strife,
  " It's guide Experience, and Truth its guard.
  " We fare on earth as  other men have fared.
  " Were they successful ? Let not us despair.
  " Was disppointment oft their sole reward ?
  "  Yet shall their tale instruct, if it  declare,
!* How they have borne the load ourselves are doom'd to bear.

                        XLIII.
  " What charms th' Historic Muse  adorn, from spoils,
  "  And blood,  and tyrants, when she wings her flight,
  "  To hail the patriot Prince,  whose pious toils
  "  Sacred to science, liberty,  and right,
  "  And peace, through every age divinely bright
  "  Shall shine the boast and wonder of mankind!
  "  Sees yonder sun,  from his meridian height,
  "  A lovelier scene than Virtue thus enshrined
" In power, and man with man for mutual aid combined { 
 fc8             THE MINSTREL.       Book II.

                         XLIV.
   " Hail sacred Polity, by Freedom rear'd !
   " Hail sacred Freedom, when by Law restrain'd !
   " Without you what were man ? A grovelling herd
   " In darkness,  wretchedness, and want enchain'd.
   " Sublim'd by you, the Greek and  Roman reign'd
   " In arts unrivall'd : O, to latest days,
   " In Albion may your influence unprofaned
   " To godlike worth the generous bosom raise,
 " And prompt the Sage's lore, and fire the  Poet's lays 1
                         XLV.
   " But now let other themes our care engage.      t
   " For lo, with  modest yet majestic grace,
   " To curb Imagination's lawless  rage,
   " And from within the cherish'd heart to brace,
   " Philosophy appears.   The gloomy race
   " By Indolence and moping Fancy  bred,
   " Fear,  Discontent, Solicitude give place,
   *' And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead,
 " While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed.
                        XLVI.
   " Then waken  from long lethargy to life*
   " The seeds of happiness, and powers of thought j
   " Then jarring appetites forego their strife,
   " A strife by ignorance to madness wrought.
   " Pleasure by savage man is dearly bought
   " With fell revenge, lust that defies controul
   " With gluttony and death.  The mind untaught
   " Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl;
 " As Phoebus to the world, is Science to the soul.
                        XLVIL
   " And Reason now thi ough Number, Time,  and Space,
   " Darts the keen lustre of her  serious eye,
   "And learns, from faCls compared, the laws to trace^
   " Whose long progression leads to Deity.
   " Can mortal strength presume to soar so high!
   " Can mortal sight, so oft bedim'd with tears,
   " Such glory bear '....for lo, the shadows fly
   " From nature's face ; Confusion disappears,
 * And order charms the eyes, and harmony the ears.

   * The  influence of the Philosophic  Spirit,  in humanizing
the mind, and preparing it for intellectual exertion and deli-
cate pleasure ;....in exploring,  by the help of geometry, the 
Book  II.       THE  MINSTREL.             89

                        XLVIII.
  " In  the deep windings of the grove, no more
  " The hag obscene,  and grisly phantom dwell;
  " Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
  " Of winds,  is heard the angry spirit's yell;
  " No wizard mutters the tremendous spell,
  " Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic swoon ;
  " Nor bids the noise of drums and trumpets swell,
  " To ease of fancied pangs the labouring moon,
" Or chace the shade that blots the blazing orb of noon.
                        XLIX.
  «' Many a long-lingering year, in lonely isle,
  " Stun'd with th' eternal turbulence of waves,
  " Lo, with dim eyes,  that never learn'd to smile,
  " And trembling hands, the famish'd native craves
  " Of Heaven his wretched fare :  shivering in caves,
  " Or scorch'd on rucks, he pines  from day to day ;
  " But Science gives the word; and lo,  he braves
  " The surge and tempest,  lighted by her ray,
«' And  to a  happier land wafts merrily away.
                          L.
  " And even where Na'ure loads the teeming plain
  " With the full pnnp of vegetable store,
  " Her bounty, unimproved,  is deadly bane :
  " Dark woods and rankling wilds, from shore to shore,
  " Stretch their enormous gWm ;  which to explore
  " Even Fancy trembles, i:i her sprightliest mood ;
  " For there each eyeball gleams with lust of gore,
  " Nestles each murderous and each monstrous brood,
" Plague lurks in every shade, and steams from every flood.
                          LI.
  «<  'Twas from Philosophy man learn'd to tame
  "  The soil by plenty to intemperance fed.
  " Lo,  from the echoing ax, and thundering flame,
  "  Poison and plague and yelling rage are fled.
  "  The wafers, bursting from their slimy bed,
  "  Bring heal h and melody to every vale :
  "  And, from 'he breezy main, and mountain's head,
  "  C-res and Flora, to the sunny dale,
 •' To fan their glowing  charms, invite the fluttering gale.
 system of the uaiverse ;....in banishing superstition ;....in pro"
 moMn^ navigation,  agriculture, medicine,  and moral and
 political science :-..from Stanza XLVI.  to  Stanza LVI. 
90             THE MINSTREL.       Book  II.

                         LII.
  " What dire necessities on every hand
  " Our art, our-strength, our fortitude require !
  " Of foes intestine what a numerous band
  " Against this little throb of life conspire !
  " Yet Science can elude their fatal ire
  " A while, and turn aside Death's level'd dart,
  " Sooth the sharp pang, allay the fever's fire,
  " And brace the nerves once more, and cheer the heart,
" And yet a few soft nights and balmy days impart.

                         LIII.
  " Nor less to regulate man's moral frame
  " Science exerts her all-composing sway.
  " Flutters thy breast with fear, or pants for fame,
  " Or pines to Indolence and Spleen a  prey,
  " Or Avarice,  a fiend more fierce than they ?
  " Flee to the shade of Academus' grove ;
  " Where cares molest not,  discord melts away
  " In harmony, and the pure passions prove
" How sweet the words of truth breathed, from  the lips of
       Love.
                         LIV.
  " What cannot Art and Industry perform,
  " When Science plans the  progress of their toil!
  " They smile at penury, disease, and storm ;
  "  And oceans from their mighty mounds recoil.
  "~ When tyrants scourge, or demagogues embroil
  " A land, or when the rabble's headlong rage
  " Order transforms to anarchy and spoil,
  " Deep-versed in man the  philosophic Sage
" Prepares with lenient hand their phrenzy to assuage.

                          LV.
   " 'Tis he alone,  whose comprehensive mind,
   " From  situation, temper,  soil, and clime
   " Explored,  a nation's  various powers can bind
   " And various orders, in one Form sublime
   " Of policy, that, midst the wrecks of time,
   " Secure shall lift its head on high, nor fear
   " Th' assault of foreign or domestic crime,
   " While public faith, and  public love sincere,
=*' And Industry and Law maintain their sway severe* 
Book  II.       THE  MINSTREL.             fl
                      ■✓'
                        LVI.
  Enraptured by the Hermit's strain,  the Youth
  Proceeds the path of Science to explore.
  And now, expanding to the beams of Truth,
  New energies, and charms  unknown before,
  His mind discloses :  Fancy now no more
  Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies ;
  But fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power,
  Aloft from cause to cause exults to rise,
 Creation's blended stores  arranging as she flies.
                         LVII.
  Nor love of Novelty alone inspires,
  Their laws and nice dependencies to scan :
  For, mindful of the aids that life requires,
  And of the services man owes to man,
  He meditates new arts on Nature's plan ;
  The cold desponding breath of Sloth to warm,
  The flame of Industry  and  Genius  fan,
   And Emulation's noble rage alarm,
 And the long hours of Toil and Solitude to charm.
                        LVIII.
   But she, who set on fire his infant heart,
   And all his dreams and all  his wanderings shared
   Andbless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art,
   Still claim th' Enthusiast's fond and first regard.
   From Nature's beauties variously compared
   And variously combined, he  learns to frame
   Those forms of bright perfection*, which the Bard,
   While  boundless hope and boundless views inflame,
 Enamour'd consecrates to never-dying fame.
                          LIX.
   Of late, with cumbersome, though pompous show,.
   Edwin would oft his flowery rhyme deface,
   Through ardour to adorn ; but Nature now
   To his experienced eye a modest grace
   Presents, where Ornament the second place
   Holds  to intrinsic worth and just design
   Subservient still.   Simplicity apace
   Tempers his rage :  he owns her charm divine,
 And clears th' ambiguous phrase, and lops th' unwieldly line,
   * General ideas of excellence, the immediate archetypes
 of sublime imitation,  both  in  painting and in poetry.  See
 jtristetle's Poetics, and the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
92             THE  MINSTREL.       Book  II.
                                                      *
                         LX.
  Fain would I sing (much yet unsung remains)
  What sweet delirium o'er his bosom stole,
  When the great Shepherd of the Mantuan plains*
  His deep majestic melody 'gan roll:
  Fain would I sing, what transport  storm'd his soul,
  How the red current throb'd his veins along,
  When like Pelides,  bold beyond controul,
  Without art graceful,  without effort strong,
Homer raised high to heaven the loud, th' impetuous song.
                        LXI.
  And how his lyre, though rude her first essays,
  Nowskill'd to sooth, to triumph, to complain,
  Warbling at will through each harmonious maze,
  Was taught to modulate the artful strain,
  I fain would sing—but ah !  I Sirive in vain.
  Sighs from a breaking heart my voice confound,
  With trembling step,  to j-in yon weeping train,
  I haste, where gleams funereal glare around,
And, mix'd with shrieks of woe, the knells of death resound.
                         LXII.
  Adieu,  ye lays, that Fancy's flowers adorn,
  The soft amusement of the  vacant mind !
  He sleeps in dust, and all the Muses mourn,
  He,  whom each virtue fired, each glance refined,
  Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind ! +
  He sleeps in dust.   Ah, how should I presume
  My theme ! To heart-consuming grief resign'd
  Here on his recent grave I  fix  my view,
And pour my bitter tears.   Ye flowery lays adieu !
                        LXIII.

  Art thou, my Gregory, foreverfled ?
  And am I left to unavailing wo ?
  When fortune's storms assail this weary head,
  Where cares long since have shed untimely  snow,
  Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go ?
  No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers;
  Thy placid e\ es with smiles no longer glow,
  My hopes to cherish,  and allay m> fears
'Tis meet that I should mourn : flow forth afresh my tears.
                        * Virgil.
  •f- This  excellent person died suddenly, on the  10th  of
February, 1773.  The conclusion of this poem  was  written
a few days after. 
The  Hermit.
(BY THE  AUTHOR OF THE MINSTREL*)
XXT the close of the day,  when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove :
'Twas thus, by the cave of a mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious,  a Hermit began ;
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a Sage, though he felt as a man.

" Ah why, all abandon'd to darkness and wo,
" Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall ?
" For Spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
" And Sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral.
" But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
" Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee mourn ;
" O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away :
" Full quickly they pass—but they never return,

" Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
" The Moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays :
" But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
" She shone,  and the planets were lost in her blaze.
" Rollon thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
" The path that conducts thee to splendor again.
" But Man's faded glory what change shall renew !
** Ah fool ! to exult  in a glory so vain ! 
94
THE HERMIT.
« 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more j
" I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you ;
" For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
" Prefumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.
" Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn ;
" Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.
" But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn!
" O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!"

' 'Twas thus, by the glare of false Science betray'd,
' That leads to bewilder ; and dazzles, to blind ;
« My  thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
' Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.
«' O pity, great Father of light," then I cr. 'd,
" Thy creature who fain would not wander from a1, ee'.
 " Lo,  humbled in dust, I relinquish m> pride •
 r< From doubt and from darkness thou only cai.st free."

'« And darkness and doubt are nc   flying away.
 ' No longer I roam in conjecture .. rlorn.
 ' So breaks on the traveller,  fiat and astray,
 • The bright and the balmy e.mlgence of morn.
 ' See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
 « And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom !
 • On the  cold cheek i f death smiles and roses are blending,
 • And Beauty Immori.al awakes from the tomb.'
THE END. 
 
 
THE
PLEASURES
OF
IMAGINATION;
A POEM
IN THREE BOOKS.
BY Dr. AKENSIDE.
And that sweet bard, who to our fancy brings
" The gayest, happiest attitudes of things,"
His raptur'd verse can throw neglected by,
And to Lucretius lift a reverend eye.
Murphy's Poet. Eplst. to Dr. Johnson. 
« 
THE
DESIGN.
HP
 J|_ here  are  certain powers in human nature
which seem to hold a middle  place  between the
organs of bodily sense and the faculties of moral
perception.----They have been called by a very
general name,  The Powers of Imagination.   Like
the external senses they  relate to matter and mo-
tion ; and at the same time,  give the mind ideas
analogous to those of moral approbation and dis-
like.  As they  are the inlets of some of the most
exquisite pleasures we are acquainted  with, men
of warm and sensible tempers have sought means
to recall the delightful perceptions they afford, in-
dependent  of the objects which originally produ-
ced them.   This gave rise to the imitative or de-
signing arts ;  some of  which, like  painting and
sculpture,  direclly copy  the external appearances
which were admired in nature ; others,  like mu- A
sic and  poetry, bring them back  to remembrance
by signs universally established and understood.

   But these arts,  as they grew more correct and
deliberate, were naturally led to extend their imi-
tation beyond the peculiar objects of the imagina-
tive powers ; especially poetry, which making use
of language as the instrument by which it*imi- 
II
   tales,  is consequently become an unlimited repre-
   sentative of every species and mode of being. Yet
   as their primary intention was only to express the
   objects of imagination,  and as they still  abound
   chiefly in ideas of that  class, they of course re-
   tain their original character, and all the different
   pleasfllres they excite, are termed, in general, Plea->
   sures of Imagination.

      The design of the following poem is to give a
   view of these, in  the  largest  acceptation of the
   term ;  so that whatever our imagination feels from
   the agreeable appearances of nature, and all the va-
   rious entertainment we  meet with either in poetry,
   painting, music, or any of the elegant arts,  might be
   deducible from one or other of those principles in the
   constitution of the  human mind which are here esta-
   blished and explained.

      In executing this  general plan, it was neces-
   sary first of all to distinguish the imagination from
   our other faculties ; and then to characterise those
   c-vio;i!•>::? forms or  properties of being about which
   it is conversant,  and which are by nature adapted
   to it, as light is to the eyes, or truth  to the un-
   derstanding.  These properties Mr.  Addison had
   reduced to the three general classes  of greatness,
   novelty, and beauty ; and into these we may ana-
   lyse every  object,  however complex, which, pro-
   perly speaking, is delightful to the  imagination.
   But  such an object may also include many other
9 sources of pleasure ; and  its beauty, or novelty,
   or grandeur,  will make a stronger impression by
   reason of this concurrence. Besides this,  the imi-
   tative arts,  especially poetry,  owe much  of  their
   effect to a  similar exhibition  of properties quite
   foreign to the imagination ; insomuch that in eve-
   ry line of the most applauded poems, we meet
   with either ideas drawn from the external senses, 
                      Ill

or truths discovered to  the  understanding,  or il-
lustrations of contrivance and final causes ,  or, a-
bove all  the rest, with circumstances  proper to
awaken and engage the passions.  It was  there-
fore necessary to enumerate and  exemplify these
different  species of pleasure  ; especially that from
the passions, which, as it is supreme in the noblest
works of human genius, so, being in some parti-
culars not a little  surprising, gave an opportunity
to enliven the didactic turn of the poem, by  in-
troducing a piece of machinery to account for the
appearance.

  After these parts of the subject which hold chief-
ly of admiration,  or naturally warm and interest
the mind,  a pleasure of a very  different nature,
that from  ridicule,  came next to be considered.
As this is the foundation of the comic manner in
all the arts, and  has been  but very imperfectly
treated by moral  writers, it was thought proper
to give it a particular  illustration, and  to  distin-
guish the general sources from which the ridicule
of characters is derived.  Here  too  a  change of
stile became necessary ;  such  a  one as might yet
be consistent, if  possible, with the  general taste
of composition in the serious parts of the subject;
nor is it  an easy task to give any tolerable force
to images of this kind,  without running either in-
to the gigantic expressions of the mock heroic, or
the familiar and pointed raillery of professed satire j
neither of which  would have been proper here.

   The materials of all imitation being thus  laid
open, nothing now remained but to illustrate some
particular pleasures which  arise either from  the
relations of different  objects  one to another, or
from the nature of imitation  itself.    Of the first
kind is that various and complicated resemblance
existing between several parts of the material,  and 
IV
     immaterial worlds, which is the foundation of me-
     taphor and wit.  As it seems in a great measure
     to depend on the early associations of our ideas,
     and as this habit  of associating is the source of
     many pleasures and pains in life, and on that ac-
     count bears a great share in the influence of poe-
     try and the other arts, it is therefore  mentioned
     here, and its effefts described.    Then follows a
     general account of the production of these elegant
     arts, and the secondary pleasure,  as it is  called,
     arising from the resemblance of their imitations
     to the original appearances of nature. After which
     the design is closed with some  reflections  on  the
     general conduct of the powers of imagination, and
     on their natural and moral  usefulness in life.

        Concerning the manner or turn of composition
     which prevails in this piece,  little can be said with
     propriety by the  author.   He  had two models j
     that ancient  and simple one of the first Grecian
     poets as it is refined by Virgil in the Georgics;
     and the familiar epistolary way of Horace.  This
     latter has several advantages. It admits of a great-
     er variety of stile ; it more readily engages  the
     generality  of readers, as partaking more of the
     air of conversation ; and, especially with the assist-
     ance of rhyme,  leads to a closer and more concise
     expression.  Add to this the example of the most
     perfect of modern poets, who has so happily  ap-
     plied this manner to the noblest parts of philoso-
.     phy, that the public taste is in  a  great measure
     formed to it alone.  Yet after all,  the  subjea be-
     fore us, tending almost constantly  to  admiration
     and enthusiasm,  seemed rather to demand a more
     open, pathetic, and figured stile.  This too  ap-
     peared more natural, as the author's aim was,  not
     «o  much to  give  formal precepts,  or  enter, into
     the way of direa argumentation, as, by exhibiting
     the most engaging prospeas of nature, to enlarge; 
V
and harmonize the imagination, and by that means
insensibly dispose the minds of men to the same
dignity of taste in religion, morals, and civil life.
It is on this account that he is  so careful to point
out the benevolent intention of the author of na-
ture in every principle of the human  constitution
here insisted on,  and also to unite  the moral ex-
cellencies of life in the  same point of view  with
the mere external objeas of good taste ; thus re-
commending them in common to our natural pro-
pensity for admiring what is beautiful and lovely.
The same views have also led him to introduce
some sentiments which may perhaps be  looked
upon as not quite direa to the subject; but, since
they bear an obvious relation to it, the authority of
Virgil, the faultless model of didaaic poetry, will
best support him in this particular.  For the sen-
timents themselves he makes no apology. 
ARGUMENT.
  X HE subject proposed.  Difficulty of treating
 it poetically.   The ideas  of the divine mind, the
 origin of every quality pleasing to the imaginatU
 on.   The natural variety of consitution in the
 minds of men,  with its final cause.  The idea of
 a fine imagination, and the state of the mind in
 the enjoyment of those pleasures which it affords.
 All the primary pleasures of imagination result
from the perception of greatness, or jvonderful.
 ness, or beauty in objects.   The pleasure from
 greatness, with  its final cause.    Pleasure from
 novelty  or wonderfulness, with  its final cause.
 Pleasure from beauty, with its final cause. The
 connection of beauty with truth and good,  applied
 to  the conduct of life.   Invitation to the study
 of moral philosophy.   The different degrees of
 beauty  in different  species  of  obje&s~Cohur,
 shape, natural concretes, vegetables, animals, the
 mind, the  sublime,  the fair, the wonderful of the
 mind. The connection of the imagination and mo-
 ral faculty.  Conclusion. 
THE
Pleasures  of Imagination.

             A  POEM.
BOOR t.
 W ITH wnat attractive charms this goodly frame
Of nature touches the consenting hearts
Of mortal men;  and what the pleasing stores
Which beauteous imitation thence derives
To deck the poet's, or the painter's toil ;
My verse unfolds.  Attend, ye gentle powers
Of musical delight ! and while I sing
Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain.
Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast,
Indulgent Fancy ! from the fruitful banks
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakespeare lies,  be present; and with thee
Let FiCtion come, upon her vagrant wings
Wafting ten thousand colours through the air,
Which by the glances of her magic eye,
She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms
Her wild creation.  Goddess of the lyre
Which rules the accents of the moving sphere,
Wilt thou, eternal Harmony ! descend,
And join this festive train ? for with thee comes
The guide, the guardian of  their lovely sports, 
106            PLEASURES  OF         Book I.

Majestic Truth ; and where truth deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.
Be present all ye Genii who conduct.                    24
The wand'ring footsteps of the youthful bard,
New to your springs and shades j who touch his ear
With finer sounds ;  who heighten to his eye
The bloom of nature, and before him turn
The gayest, happiest attitudes of things.               30

  Oft have the laws of each poetic strain
The critic verse employ'd ;  yet still unsung
Lay this prime subject, though importing most
A poet's name ; for fruitless is the attempt,
By dull obedience a»d the curb of rules,                35
For creeping toil to climb the  hard ascent
Of high Parnassus.  Nature's kindling breath
Must fire the chosen genius ; nature's hand
Must point the path, and imp his eagle wings
Exulting o'er the painful steep to soar                  40
High as the summit; there to breathe at large
JiLthereal air ;  with bards and sages old,
Immortal sons of praise.  These flattering scenes
To this negleCled labour court my song I
Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task               45
To paint the finest features of the mind,
And to most subtle and mysterious things
Give colour, strength and motion.  But the love
Of nature and the muses bid explore,
Thro' secret paths, erewhile untrod by man,            50
The fair poetic region, to deteft
Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,
And shade my temples with unfading flowers
Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess,
Where never poet gain'd a wreath before.             55

  From heav'n my strains begin ; from heav'n descends
The flame of genius to the human breast,
And love and  beauty,  and poetic joy
And inspiration.  Ere the radiant sun
Sprung from the east, or 'mid the vault of night        60
The moon suspended her serener lamp ;
Ere mountains,  woods, or streams adoin'd the globe ;
Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore ;
Then liv'd the eternal One ; then deep retir'd
In his unfathom'd essence,  view'd at large             65
The uncreated images of things ; 
Book  I.       IMAGINATION.
107
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods and streams, the rolling globe,
And wisdom's form celestial.  From the first
Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd,              70
His admiration ; till in time complete,
What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile
Unfolded into being.   Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame,
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves ;     75
Hence light and shade alternate ; warmth and cold;
And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.

  But not alike to every mortal eye
Is this great scene unveil'd.  For, since the claims      80
Of social life, to different labours urge
The active powers of man—with wise intent
The hand of nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a different bias, and to  each
Decrees its province in the common toil.                85
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,
The changeful moon, the circuit of  the stars,
The golden zones of heaven ; to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things,
Of time and space, and fate's unbroken chain,           90
And will's quick impulse ; others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtue swells the tender veins
Of herbs and flowers ; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind              95
In balmy tears.  But some to higher hopes
Were destin'd ; some within a finer mould
She wrought, and temper'd with  a purer flame.
To these the sire omnipotent unfolds
The world's harmonious volume, there to read         100
The transcript of himself.  On every part
They trace the bright impressions of his hand;
In earth,  or air, the meadows purple stores,
The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's  form
Blooming with rosy smiles,  they see portray'd         105
That uncreated beauty, which delights
The mind supreme.  They also feel her charms,
Enamour'd ; they partake the eternal joy.

  As Memnon's marble harp renown'd of old
By fabling Nilus,  to the quivering touch               110 
108
PLEASURES  OF
Book I,
Of Titan's rays, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded thro' the warbling air
Unbidden strains ;  even so did nature's hand
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs cf the mind ;
So the glad impulse of congenial pswers,
Or of sweet sound, or fair proportion'd form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve ; all naked and alive
They catch the spreading rays ,• till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without,
Responsive.  Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment;  fancy dreams               125
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss ;  the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wond'ring ear,
And smiles; the passions gently sooth'd away,
Sink to divine repose, and love  and joy                130
Alone are waking ; love and joy serene
As airs that fan the summer.  O, attend,
Who'er thou art whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love
Of nature warms,  O, listen to my song,               135
And I will guide thee to her fav'rite walks,
And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,
And point her loveliest features to thy view.

   Know  then, whate'er of nature's pregnant stores,
Whate'er of  mimic art's reflected forms                140
With love and admiration thus inflame
The  powers of fancy, her delighted sons
To three illustrious orders have referr'd ;
Three sister graces, whom the painter's hand,
The  poet's tongue confesses :  The sublime,             145
The  wonderful, the fair.   I see them dawn !
I see the radiant visions, where they rise,
More lovely than when Lucifer displays
His beaming forehead thro' the gates of morn,
To lead the train of Phoebus and the spring.           150

   Say, why was man so eminently rais'd
Amid the vast creation ; why ordained
Thro' life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame j
115
120 
Book  I.       IMAGINATION.
109
But that the omnipotent might send him forth          155
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre to run
The great career of justice  ; to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds ;
To shake each partial purpose from his breast;         160
And thro' the  mis"s of passion and of sense,
And thro' the tossing tide of chance and pain
To hold his course unfalt'ring, while the voice
Of truch and virtue, up the steep ascent
Of nature, calls him to his high reward,               165
The applauding smile of heaven?  else wherefore burns,
In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope
That breathes  from day to day sublimer things,
And mocks possession ? wherefore darts the mind,
With  such resistless ardour to embrace                lJ'O
Majestic forms ; impatient  to be free,
Spurning the gross controul of wilful might j
Proud of the strong contention of her toils ;
Proud to be daring ? Who but rather turns
To heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view,          175
Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame ?
Who that,  from Alpine heights, his lab'ring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his  broad tide
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade, 180
And continents of sand ;  will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a scanty rill
That murmurs at his feet ?  The high born  soul
Disdains to rest her heaven aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry.   Tired of earth            185
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Thro' fields of air ; pursues the flying storm ;
Rides on the volley'd lightning thro' the heavens ;
Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long traCt of day.   Then high she soars     190
The blue profound,  and hovering o'er the sun
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light ; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of time.  Thence far effus'd          195
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets ; thro' its burning signs
Exulting circles the perennial wheel
Of nature, and looks back  on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,           200
                           K 
110            PLEASURES  OF         Book I.

Invests the orient.   Now amaz'd she views
The empyreal waste,  where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode ;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travel'd the profound six thousand years           205
Nor yet arriv'd in sight of mortal things.
Even on the barriers of the world untir'd
She meditates the eternal depth  below ;
Till, half recoiling, down the heaalong steep
She plunges ;  soon o'erwhelmn'd and swallowed up     210
In the immense of being.  There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal.  For from  the birth
Of mortal man, the sov'reign  Maker said,
That not in humble or in brief  delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown                   215
Power's purple robes, or pleasure's flow'ry lap
The soul should find enjoyment;  but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Thro' all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,             220
And infinite perfection close the  scene.

   Call now to mind what high,  capacious powers
 Lie folded up in man ; how far  beyond
 The praise of  mortals, may the eternal growth
 Of nature to perfection half divine,                   225
Expand the blooming soul ? What pity then
 Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth
 Her tender blossom ; choke the  streams of life,
And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd
Almighty wisdom ; nature's happy cares              230
The obedient heart far otherwise incline.
Witness the sprightly joy when  aught unknown
 Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power
To brisker measures ; witness the negleCt
 Of all familiar prospects, tho' beheld                 235
 With transport once ; the fond,  attentive gaze
 Of young astonishment j the sober zeal
 Of age, commenting on prodigious things,
 For such the bounteous providence of heaven,
 In every breast implanting this desiie                 240
 Of objeCts new and strange, to urge us on
 With unremitted labour to pursue
 Those sacred stores that wait the ripening  soul,
 In truth's exhaustless bosom.  What need  words
 To paint its power ? For this the daring youth          245 
 Book  I.         IMAGINATION.             Ill

 Breaks from his weeping, mother's  arixious arms,
 In foreign climes to rove j the pensive sage,
 Heedless of sleep or midnight's harmful damp,
 Hangs o'er the sickly taper;  and untir'd
 The virgin follows, with enchanted  step,              250
 The mazes of some wild and wond'rous tale,
 From morn to eve ;  unmindful of her term,
 Unmindful of the happy dress that  stele
 The wishes of the youth, when every maid
 With envy pin'd.  Hence, finally, by night            555
 The village matron,  round the blazing hearth,
 Suspends the infant audience with her tales,
 Breathing astonishment ! of witching rhymes,
 And evil spirits ; of the death-bed call
 To him who robb'd the  widow, anddevour'd          260
 The orphan's portion :  of unquiet souls
 Ris'n from the grave to  ease the heavy guilt
 Of deeds in life  conceal'd ; of shapes that walk
 At dead of night, and clank their chains,  and wave
 The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.           265
 At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,
 Gazing each other speechless,  and congeal'd
 With shivering sighs ; till eager for the  event,
 Around the beldam all ereCt they hang,
 Each trembling heart  with grateful terrors quell'd.      270

  But lo ! disclos'd in all her smiling pomp,
 Where beauty, onward moving,  claims the verse
 Her charms inspire :  the freely flowing verse
 In thy immortal praise,  O form divine,
 Smooths her mellifluent  stream.  Thee,  beauty, thee,   275
 The regal dome,  and  thy enlivening ray
 The mossy roofs adore ;  thou, better sun !
 For ever beamest on the enchanted heart
 Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight
 Poetic.  Brightest progeny of heaven !                 280
 How shall I trace thy  features ?  where select
 The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom ?
 Haste then, my song, thro' nature's wide expanse,
 Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth,
 Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains,        285
 Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air,
 To deck thy lovely labour.  Wilt thou fly
 With laughing Autumn to the Atlantic  isles,
And range with  him th' Hesperian field, and see,
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove,          290 
112             PLEASURES OF        Book I.

The branches shoot with gold ; where'er his step
Marks the glad soil,  the tender clusters glow
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill
As with the blushes of an evening sky.
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume,            295
Where gliding thro' his daughter's honor'd shades,
The smooth Peneus from his glassy flood
Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene ?
Fair Tempe ! "haunt belov'd of sylvan powers,
Of nymphs and fawns ; where in the  golden age       300
They play'd in secret on the shady brink
With ancient Pan ; while round their choral steps
Young hours and genial gales with constant hand
Shower'd blossoms, odours, shower'd ambrosial dews
And spring's Elysian  bloom.  Her flowery store        305
To thee nor Tempe shall refuse ; nor watch
Of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits
From thy free spoil.   O bear then, unreprov'd.
Thy smiling treasures to the  green recess
Where young Dione stays.   With sweetest airs       310
Entice her forth to lend her angel form
For beauty's honour'd image.  Hitherturn
Thy graceful footsteps ;  hither, gentle maid,
Incline thy polish'd forehead  ; let thy eyes
Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn ;              315
And may the fanning breezes waft aside
The radiant locks, dissolving as it bends
With airy softness from the marble neck,
The cheek fair blooming,  and the rosy lip
Where winning smiles and pleasure sweet as love,      320
With sanctity and wisdom, temp'rirg blend
Their soft allurement.  Then the pleasing force
Of nature, and her kind parental care,
Worthier I'd sing ; then all the enamour'd youth
With each admiring virgin, to my lyre                325
Should throng attentive,  while I point on high
 Where beauty's living image, like the morn
That wakes in zephyr's arms the blushing May,
Moves onward ;  or as Venus, when she stood
Effulgent on the pearly car, and smil'd,                330
Fresh from  the deep, and conscious of her form,
To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells,
And each coerulean sister of the flood
With fond acclaim attend her o'er the waves,
To seek the Idalian bower.   Ye smiling band          335
Of youths and virgins, who, thro' all the maze 
 Book  I.         IMAGINATION.             lis

 Of young desire, with rival steps pursue
 This charm of beauty ; if the pleasing toil
 Can yield a moment's respite, hither turn
 Your favourable ear, and trust my words.              340
 I do not mean to wake the gloomy form
 Of superstition drest in wisdom's garb,
 To damp your tender hopes ; I do not mean
 To bid the jealous thund'rer fire the heaven
 Or shapes infernal rend the groaning earth             345
 To fright you from your joys ; my cheerful song
 With better omens calls you to the field,
 Pleas'd  with your gen'rous ardour in the chace,
 And warm as you.   Then tell me, for you know,
 Does beauty ever deign  to dwell where health           350
 And aCtive use are strangers ? Is her charm
 Confess'd in aught, whose most peculiar ends
 Are lame and  fruitless ? Or did nature mean
 This awful stamp the herald of a lye ;
 To hide the shame of discord and disease,.            35$
 And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart
 Of idle  faith ? O no ! with better cares,
 Th* indulgent  mother, conscious how infirm
 Her offspring tread the paths of good and  ill,
 By this  illustrious image, in each kind                 360
 Still more  illustrious  where the object holds
 Its native powers most perfed,.she by this
 Illumes  the headlong impulse of desire,
 And sanctifies his choice.  The generous  glebe
 Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear traCt       365
 Of streams delicious to the thirsty soul,
 The bloom of neCtar'd fruitage ripe to sense,
 And every charm of animated things,
 Are only pledges of a state sincere,
 Th' integrity and order  of their frame,                 370
 When all is  well within, and every end
 Accomplish'd.  Thus was beauty  sent from heaven
 The lovely ministress of truth and good
 In this dark  world :  for truth and good are one,
 And beauty dwells in them, and they in her,            375
 With like precipitation.   Wherefore then,
0 sons of earth ! would you dissolve the tye  ?
O  wherefore, with a rash, imperfect aim,
Seek you those flow'ry joys with which the hand
Of lavish fancy paints each flattering scene            380-
Where beauty seems to  dwell,  nor or.ce enquire
Where is the sanction of eternal truth,
                          K..2 
114             PLEASURES  OP         Book I.

Or where the seal of undeceitful good,
To save your search from folly ? Wanting these,
Lo !  beauty withers in your void embrace,              385
And with the glitt'ring of an idiot's toy
Did  fancy mock your vows.   Nor let the gleam
Of you'.hful hope that shines upon your hearts,
Be chill'd or clouded at this awful task
To learn the lore of undeceitful good,                 390
And truth eternal.  Tho' the poisonous charms
Of baleful superstition guide the feet
Of servile numbers, through a dreary wav
To their abode,  through deserts, thorns and mire ;
Add leave the wretched pilgrim all forlorn             395
To muse, at last, amidst the ghostly gloom
Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cioister'd cells ;
To walk with speClres through the midnight shade,
And to the  screaming owl's accursed song
Attune the  dreadful workings of his heart;           400
Yet be not you dismay'd.  A gentler star
Your lovely search illumines.   From the grove
Where wisdom  talk'd with her Athenian sons,
Could my ambitious hands entwine a wreath
Of Plato's olive  with the Mantuan bay,               405
Then should my powerful voice at once dispel
These monkish  horrors : then in light  divine
Disclose the Elysian prospect,  where the steps
Of those whom  nature charms, through blooming walks,
Thro' fragrant mountains and poetic streams,         410
Admit the train of sages, heroes,  bards,
Led by their winged genius and the choir
Of laurell'd science and harmonious art,
Proceed exulting to the eternal shrine,
Where truth enthron'd with the celestial twins,        415
The undivided part'ners of her sway,
With good  and beauty reigns.  O let not us,
LulPd by luxurious pleasure's languid strain,
Or crouching to the frowns of bigot  rage,
O let not us a moment pause to join                  420
The godlike band.   And if the gracious power
That first awaken'd mv untutor'd song,
Will to my invocation breathe anew
The tuneful spirit;  then thro' all our paths,
Ne'er shall the  sound of this devoted lyre              425
Be wanting ; whether on the rosy mead,
 When summer  smiles,  to warn the melting heart
 Qf luxury's allurement; whether firm 
Book  I.        IMAGINATION.             115

Against the torrent and the stubborn hill
To urge bold virtue's unremitted nerve,                430
And wake the strong divinity of soul
That conquers chance and fate ; or whether struck
For sounds  of triumph, to proclaim her toils
Upon the lofty summit ;  round her brow
To twine the wreath of incorruptive praise ;            435
To trace her hallow'd light thro' future worlds,
And bless Heaven's image in the heart of man.

  Thus with a fathful aim have we presum'd,
Adventurous,  to delineate nature's form ;
Whether in vast, majestic pomp array'd,              440
Or drest for pleasing wonder,  or serene
In beauty's rosy smile.  It now remains,
Thro' various being's fair-proportion'd scale,
To trace the rising lustre of her charms,
From their first twilight, shining forth at length,        445
To full meridian splendour.  Of degree
The least and lowliest, in the effusive warmth
Of colours mingling with a random blaze,
Doth beauty dwell.   Then higher in the line
And variation of determin'd shape,                   450
Where truth's eternal measures mark the bound
Of circle, cube,  or sphere.   The third ascent
Unites this varied symmetry of parts
With colour's bland allurement ;  as the pearl
Shines in the concave of its azure bed,                455
And painted shells indent their speckled wreath.
Then more attractive rise the blooming forms,
Through which the breath of nature has infus'd
Her genial  power to draw, with pregnant veins,
Nutritious moisture from the bounteous earth,          460
In fruit and seed prolific : thus the flowers
Their purple honors with the spring resume ;
And such the stately tree which autumn bends
With blushing treasures.   But more lovely still,
In nature's charm, where, to the full consent          465
Of complicated members, to the  bloom
Of colour,  and the vital change of growth,
Life's holy flame and piercing sense are given,
And active motion speaks the temper'd soul:
So moves the bird of Juno ;  so the steed               470
With rival ardor beats the dusty plain,
And faithful dogs with eager airs of joy
Salate their fellows.   Thus doth beauty  dwell 
116             PLEASURES  OF         Book I.
There most conspicuous, ev'n in outward shape,
Where dawns the high expression of a mind ;          475
By steps conducting our enraptur'd search
To that eternal origin, whose power,
Thro' all the unbounded symmetry of things,
Like rays effulging from the parent sun,
This endless mixture of her charms diffus'd.           480
Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven l1)
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beautious and  sublime ; here hand in hand,
Sit paramount the Graces ; here enthron'd,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,                   485
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.
Look, then, abroad thro' nature, to the range
Of planets,  suns,  and adamantine spheres
Wheeling unshaken thro' the void immense ;
And speak,  O man ! does this capacious scene          490-
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
 Refulgent from the stroke  of Cxiar's fate,
 Amid the croud of patriots ; t.nd his arm
 Aloft extending,  like  eternal Jove                     495
 When guilt brings down the thunder,  call'd aloud
 On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
 And bade the father of his country, hail!
 For lo ! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
 And Rome again is free ?  Is aught so fair              500
 In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,.
 In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,
 In nature's fairest forms, is ought so fair
 As virtuous friendship ? as the candid blush
 Of him  who strives with  fortune to be just ?            595
 The graceful tear that streams for others' woes ?
 Or the mild majesty of private life,
 Where peace with ever blooming olive crowns
 The gate ;  where honour's liberal hands effuse
 Unenvy'd treasures, and the snowy wir.gs              510
 Of innocence  and love proteCt the scene ?
 Once more search, undismay'd,  the dark profound
 Where nature works in secret ; view the beds
 Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault
 That bounds the hoary ocean ; trace the forms         £15
 Of atoms moving wi^h incessant change
 Their elemental round ; behold the seeds
 Of being,  and the energy of life
  Kindling the mass with ever active flame ; 
Book  I.         IMAGINATION.             117

Then to the secrets of the working mind               520
Attentive turn ; from dim oblivion call
Her fleet ideal band ; and bid them go !
Break thro' time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour
That saw the heavens created ; then declare
If aught were found in those external scenes           525
To move thy wonder now.   For what are all
The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears,
Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts ?
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows
The superficial impulse ;  dull their charms,            530
And satiate soon,  and pall the languid eye.
Not so the moral species, or the powers
Of genius and design ; the ambitious mind
There sees herself; by these congenial forms
Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser aCt             535
She bends each nerve, and meditates well pleas'd
Her  features in the mirror.  For of all
The  inhabitants of earth, to man alone
Creative wisdom gave to lift his eye
To truth's eternal measures ; thence to frame          540
The sacred laws of action and of will,
Discerning justice from unequal deeds,
And temperance from folly.  But beyond
This energy of truth, whose dictates bind
Assenting reason, the benignant sire,                545
To deck the honour'd paths of just and good,
Has added bright imagination's rays ;
Where virtue, rising from the awful depth
Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake
The unadorn'd condition of her birth                 550
And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues,
Assumes a various feature,  to attract,
With charms responsive to each gazer's eye,
The hearts of men.  Amid his rural walk,
The ingenuous youth whom solitude inspires           555
With purest wishes, from the pensive shade
Beholds her moving like a virgin-muse
That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme
Of harmony and wonder ; while among
The herd of servile minds,  her strenuous form          560
Indignant flashes on the patriot's eye,
And through the rolls of memory appeals
To ancient honour ; or in aCt serene,
Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword
Of public power, from dark ambition's reach          565
To guard the sacred volume of the laws. 
118     PLEASURES OP IMAGINATION.   Book I.

  Genius of antient Greece ! whose faithful steps
Well pleas'd I follow thro' the sacred paths
Of nature and of science ;  nurse divine
Of all heroic deeds and fair desires !                   570
O !  let the breath of thy extended praise
Inspire my kindling bosom to the height
Of this untempted theme.   Nor be my thoughts
Presumptuous counted, if, amid the calm
That smooths this vernal evening into smiles,          575
I steal impatient from the  sordid haunts
Of  strife and low ambition, to attend
Thy sacred presence in the sylvan shade,
By their malignant footsteps ne'er profan'd.
Descend, propitious ! to my favor'd eye ;              580
Such in thy mien, thy warm exalted air,
As when the Persian tyrant, foil'd and stung
With shame and desperation, gnash'd his teeth
To see thee rend the pageants of his throne ;
And at the lightning of thy lifted spear               585
Crouch'd like a slave.  Bring all  thy martal spoils,
Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphant songs,
Thy smiling band of arts,  thy godlike sires
Of civil wisdom, thy heroic youth
Warm from the schools of glory.  Guide my way     590
Thro'  fair Lyceum's walk, the green retreats
Of  Acadenvus, and the thymy vale,
Where oft enchanted with Socratic sounds,
Ilissus pure devolv'd his tuneful stream
In gentle murmurs.   From the blooming store          595
Of these auspicious fields,  may I unblam'd
Transplant some living blossoms, to adorn
My native clime : while far above the flight
Of  fancy's plume aspiring, I unlock
The springs of ancient wisdom j while I join         600
Thy name thrice hcnour'd ! with the  immortal praise
Of  nature ; while to my compatriot youth
I point the high example of thy sons,
And tune to Attic themes the British lyre. 
 
ARGUMENT.
 JL HE separation  of the works  of the  imagi-
nation from philosophy,  the cause  of their abuse
among the moderns.—Prospect of their reunion
under the influence of public liberty.  Enumera-
tion of accidental pleasures, which  increase the
effect of objects delightful to  the  imagination.—
The pleasures  of  sense.   Particular  circum-
stances of the mind.   Discovery of truths.   Per-
ception  of contrivance and design.  Emotion of
the passions.  All the natural passions partake of
a pleasing sensation, -with the final cause of this
constitution illustrated by an allegorical vision and
exemplified in sorrow,  pity,  terror, and indig-
nation. 
P=P=
BOOK  II.
w,
       HEN shall the laurel and the vocal string
Resume their honours ?  When shall we behold
The tuneful tongue,  the Promethean hand
Aspire to ancient praise ?  Alas ! how  faint,
How slow the dawn of beauty and of truth               5
Breaks the reluCtant  shades of Gothic night
Which yet involve the nations !  Long they groan'd
Beneath the furies of rapacious force ;
Oft as the gloomy north, with iron swarms
Tempestuous pouring from her frozen caves,            10
Blasted the Italian shore, and swept the works
Of liberty and wisdom down the gulph
Of all devouring night.   As long immur'd
In noon-tide darkness, by the glimm'ringlamp
Each muse and each fair science pin'd away            15
The sordid hours ; while foul, barbarian hands
Their mysteries profan'd,  unstrung the lyre,
And chain'd the soaring pinion down to earth.
At last the muses rose  and spurn'd their bonds,
And wildly warbling, scatter'd,  as they flew,            20
Their blooming wreaths from fair Valclusa's bowers
To  Arno's myrtle border and the shore
Of  soft Parthenope.  But still  the rage
                           L 
122            PLEASURES OF        Book II.

Of dire ambition, and gigantic power,
From public aims,  and from the busy walk              25
Of civil commerce,  drove the bolder train
Of penetrating science, to the cells,
Where studious ease consumes the silent hour
In shadowy searches and unfruitful care.
Thus from their guardians torn, the tender arts          30
Of mimic fancy and harmonious joy,
To priestly domination and the lust
Of lawless courts, their amiable toil
For three inglorious ages have resign'd,         i
In vain reluClant;  and Torquato's tongue               35
Y/as turn'd for slavish peans at the throne
Of tinsel pomp ; and Raphael's magic  hand
Effus'd its fair creation to enchant
The fond adoring herd in Latian fanes
To blind belief ; while on their prostrate necks          40
The sable tyrant plants his heel  secure.
But now behold ! the radiant sera dawns,
When freedom's ample fabric, fix'd at length
For endless years on Albion's happy shore
In full proportion,  once more shall extend               45
To all the kindred powers of social bliss
A common mansion, a parental roof.
There shall the virtues, there shall wisdom's'train,
Their long lost friends rejoining, as of old,
Embrace the smiling family of arts,                     50
The muses and the graces.  Then no more
Shall vice distraCling their delicious gifts
To aims abhorr'd with high distaste and scorn
Turn from their charm the philosophic eye,
The patriot bosom : then no more the  paths             55
Of public care or intellectual toil,
Alone by footsteps haughty  and severe,
The gloomy state he trod ; the harmonious muse
And her persuasive sisters then  shall plant
Their sheltering laurels o'er the bleak ascent,           60
And shed their flowers along the rugged way.
Arm'd with the lyre,  already have we  dar'd,
To pierce divine philosophy's retreats
And leach the muse her  lore ; already  strove
Their long divided honours to unite,                    65
While tempering this deep argument we sang
CI truth and beauty.   Now the same fair task
Impends ;  now urging our ambitious toil,
We hasten to recount the various springs 
 Book  IL         IMAGINATION.'            123

 Of adventitious pleasure, which adjoin                  70
 Their grateful influence to the prime eilecl
 Of objeCts grand or beauteous, and inlarge
 The complicated joy.   The sweets of sense,
 Do they not oft with kind accession flow,
 To raise harmonious fancy's native charm ?              7J
 So while we taste the fragrance of the rose,
 Glows not her blush the fairer ?  While we  view
 Amid the noontide walk a limpid rill
 Gush thro' the trickling herbage,  to the thirst
 Of summer yielding the delicious draught                80
 Of cool  refreshment;  o'er the mossy brink
 Shines not the surface clearer, and the waves
 With sweeter music murmur as they flow ?

   Nor this alone ;  the various lot of life
 Oir from external circumstance assumes                  $5
 A moment's disposition to rejoice
 In those delights which at a different hour
 Would pass unheeded.  Fair the face of spring,
 When rural songs and odours wake the morn, '
 To every eye ;  but how much more to his,               90
 Round whom the bed of sickness long diffus'd
 Its melancholy gloom !  how doubly fair,
 When first with fresh-born vigor he inhales
 The  balmy breeze,  and feels the blessed sun
 Warm at his bosom, from the springs of life             c-j
 Chasing oppressive damps and languid pain !

  Or shall I  mention, where celestial truth
 Her  awful light discloses, to effulge
 A more  majestic pomp on beauty's frame I
 For man loves knowledge,  and the beams of truth      10*
 More welcome touch his understanding eye,
 Than all the blandishments of sound, his ear,
 Than all of taste his tongue.  Nor ever yet
 Tu melting rainbow's vernal tinCtur'd hues
To me have shone so pleasing, as when first            10J
The hand of science pointed cut the path
In which the sun-beams gleaming  from the west
 Fall on the watry cloud, whose darksome veil
 Involves the orient  ; and that trickling show'r
 Piercing thro' every crystaline convex                 jj<j
Of clust'ring dew-drops to their flight oppos'd,
Recoil at length where  concave  all behind
 The internal surface of each glassy orb 
154             PLEASURES  OF        Book  H«
Repells their forward passage into air ;
That thence direCt they seeK the radiant goal           115
From which their course began ;  and, as they strike
In dilf'rent lines the gazer's obvious eye,
Assume a diff'rent lustre, thro' the brede
Of colours changing from the  splendid rose
To the pale violet's dejeCled hue.                      120

   Or shall  we touch that kind access of joy,
That springs to each fair object, while we trace,
Thro' all its fabric,  wisdom's artful aim
Disposing  every part, and gaining still
By mean's proportion'd her benignant end ?            125
Speak, ye, the pure uclight,  whose favour'd steps
The lamp of science thro' the jealous maze
Of nature guides, when haply you reveal
Her secret  honors ; whether in the sky,
The beauteous laws of light,  the central pow'rs        130
That wheel the pensile planets round the  year ;
Whether in wonders of the rolling deep,
Or smiling fruits of pleasure-pregnant earth,
Or hue adjusted springs of life and sense
You scan the counsels of their author's hand.          135

   What, when to rise the meditated scene,
The flame  of passion, thro'  the struggling soul
Deep kindled, shows across that sudden blaze
The objeCt of its rapture vast  of size,
With fiercer colors and a night of shade ?               149
What like  a storm from their capacious bed
The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might
Of these eruptions, working from the depth
Of man's strong apprehension,  shakes his frame
Ev'n to the base; from every  naked sense             14$
Of pain or pleasure dissipating all
Opinion's feeble cov'rings, and the veil
Spun from the cobweb-fashion of the times
To hide the feeling heart ? Then nature speak»
Her genuine language, and the words of men,         150
Big with the very motion of  their souls,
Declare with what accumulated force
The impetuous nerve of passion urges on
The native weight and energy of things.

   Yet more ; her honors where nor beauty claim,       155
Nor shows of good the thirsty sense allure, 
Book  II.        IMAGINATION.

From passion's power alone our nature holds
Essential pleasure.   Passion's fierce illapse
Rouses the mind's whole fabric ; with supplies
Of daily impulse keeps the elastic pow'rs
Intensely poiz'd, and polishes anew
By that collision all the fine machine ';
Else  rust would rise,  and foulness, by degrees
Incumb'ring,  choak at last what heaven design'd
For ceaseless motion and a round of toil;
But say, does every passion men endure
Thus minister delight ? That name indeed
Becomes the rosy breath of love ; becomes
The  radiant smiles of joy,  the applauding hand
Of admiration ; but the bitter show'r
That sorrow sheds upon a  brother's grave,
But the dumb palsy of noCturnal fear,
Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart
Of panting indignation, find we there
To move delight ? Then listen, while my tongue
The  unalter'd will of heav'n with faithful awe
Reveals ; what old Harmodious wont to teach
My early age ; Harmodious who had weigh'd
Within his learned mind whate'er the schools
Of wisdom, or thy lonely whispering voice,
O faithful nature ! dictate  of the laws
Which govern and support this mighty frame
Of universal being.  Ofrthe hours
From morn to eve have stole unmark'd away,
While  mute attention hung upon his lips,
As thus the sage his awful tale began.

  'Twas in the windings of  an ancient wood,.
When  spotless youth with solitude resigns
To sweet philosophy the studious day,
What time pale autumn shades the silent eve,
Musing I rov'd.  Of good  and evil much,
And much of Mortal man my thought revolv'd
When  starting full on fancy's gushing eye,
The  mournful image of Parthenia's fate,
That hour, O long belov'd and long deplor'd !
When  blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts
Nor  Hymen's honors gather'd for thy brow,
Nor  all thy lover's all thy father's tears
Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave ;
Thy  agonizing looks, thy last farewell
Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul-
                          i. 2- 
126             PLEASURES  OF       Book  II.

As with the hand of death.  At once the shade
More horrid nodded o'er me, and the winds
With hoarser murm'ring shook the branches,  Dark
As midnight storms, the scene of human things,        205
Appear'd before me ;  desarts, burning sands
Where the parch'd adder dies ; the frozen south,
And desolation blasting all the west
With rapine and with murder ; tyrant pow'r
Here sits inthron'd in blood ; the baleful charms.        210.
Of superstition there infeCtthe skies,
And turw the sun to horror  Gracious heaven 1
What is the life of man ?  Or cannot these,
Nor these portents thy awful wilt suffice ?
That propagated thus beyond their scope,.              .215,
They rise to aft their cruel.ies anew
In my affliCled bosom, thus decreed
The universal sensitive of pain,
The wretched heir of evils  not its own !

   Thus I, impatient; when at once effus'd,           220
A flashing torrent of celestial day
Burst through the shadowy void.   With slow descent
A purple cloud came floating through the sky,
And poiz'd at length within the circling trees,
 Hung obvious to my view ;  till opening  wide           225
 It's lucid orb, a more than human form
Emerging lean'd  majestic o'er my head,
 And instant thunder shook the conscious grove.
 Then melted into air the liquid cloud,
 And all the shining vision stood reveal'd,               230
 A wreath of palm his ample forehead bound,
 And o'er his shoulder, mantling to his knee,
 Flow'd the transparent robe, around his waist
 Collected with a radiant zone of gold
 Etherial;  there in mystic signs engrav'd               235
 I read his office high and sacred name,
 Genius of human kind.   Appall'd I gaz'd
 The godlike presence ; for athwart his brow
 Displeasure,  temper'd with a mild concern,
 Look'd down reluCtant on me, and his  words          240
 Like distant  thunders broke the murm'ring air.
 Vain are thy thoughts, O child of mortal birth,
 And impotent thy tongue.  Is thy  short span
 Capacious of this universal frame ?
 Thy w isdom all-sufficient ? Thou,  alas!               245
 Dost thou aspire to judge between the  Lo«J 
Book  II.       IMAGINATION.              127

Of nature and his works ? to lift thy voice
Against the sovereign order he decreed
All good and lovely ? To blaspheme the bands
Of tenderness innate and social  love,
Holiest of things ! by which the general orb
Of being,  as with adamantine links,
Was drawn to perfeCt union and sustain'd
From everlasting ? Hast thou felt the pangs
Of soft'ning sorrow, of indignant zeal
So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish
The  ties of nature broken from  thy frame ;
That so thy selfish,  unrelenting heart
May cease to mourn its lot, no longer then
The  wretched heir of evils not its own ?
0 fair benevolence of gen'rous minds !
Oman by nature form'd for all mankind !

  He spoke—ahash'd and silent I remain'd,
As conscious  of my lips' offence and aw'd
Before his presence,  though  my secret soul
Disdain'd the imputation.  On the ground
I fix'd my eyes ;  till from his airy couch
He stoop'd sublime,  and touching with his hand
My dazzling  forehead, Raise thy sight he cry'd,
And let thy sense convince thy erring tongue.

  I look'd, and lo !  the former  scene was ehang'd
For verdant valleys and surrounding trees,
A solitary prospeCt,  wide and wild,
Rush'd on my senses.  'Twas a horrid pile
Of hills with many a shaggy forest mix'd             275
With many a sable cliff and  glitt'ring stream.
Aloft recumbent o'er the hanging ridge,
The brown woods wav'd,. while ever trickling springs
Wash'd from the naked roots of oak and pine,
The crumbling soil ; and still at every fall             280
Down the steep windings of the channell'd rock,
Remurm'ring rush'd the congregated floods
With hoarser inundation ;  till at last
They reach'd a grassy plain, which from the skirts
Of that high desert spread her verdant lap,             285
And drank the gushing moisture, where confin'd
In one smooth current, o'er the lillied vale
Clearer than glass it flow'd.  Autumnal spoils
Luxuriant spreading to the rays of morn,
Blush'd o'er the cliffs, whose half incircling mounds,    290
250
255
260
265
570 
128              PLEASURES OF       Book  II.

As in a sylvan theatre enclos'd
That flow'ry level.  On the river's brink
I spy'd a fair pavillion, which diffus'd
Its floating umbrage  'mid the silver shade
Of osiers.  Now the western sun reveal'd
Between two parting cliffs his golden orb,
And pour'd across the shadow of the hills,
On rocks and floods,  a yellow stream of light
That cheer'd the solemn scene.  My list'ning pow'rs
Were aw'd, and every thought in silence hung,
And wondering expectation.   Then the voice
Of that celestial pow'r, the mystic show
Declaring, thus my deep attention call'd.

  Inhabitant of earth, to whom is giv'n
The gracious ways of Providence to learn,              305
Receive my sayings  with a stedfast ear--------
Know then, the sovereign spirit of the world,
Though self-colleCted from etherial time,
Within his own deep essence he beheld
The circling bounds  of happiness unite ;               310
Yet  by immense benignity inclin'd
To spread around him that primeval joy
Which fill'd himself, he rais'd his plastic arm,
And sounded through the hollow depth of space
The strong, creative mandate.  Strait arose            315
These heavenly orbs, the glad abodes of life
Effusive kindled by his breath divine
Thro' endless forms of being.   Each inhal'd
From him its portion of the vital flame,
In measure such, that from the wide complex           320
Of co-existent orders, one might rise,
One order, all  involving and entire.
He too beholding in  the sacred light
Of his essential reason, all the shapes
Of swift contingence,  all successive ties                325
 Of action propagated through the sum
 Of possible existence, he at once,
 Down the long series of eventful'time,
 So fix'd the dates of beings so dispos'd
To every living soul of every kind,                    330
The field of motion  and the hour of rest,
 That all conspir'd to his supreme design,
 To universal good;  with full accord,
 Answ'ring the mighty model he had chose,.
The best and fairest of unnumber'd worlds             335
295
300 
Book II.       IMAGINATION.               129

That lay from everlasting in the store
Of his divine conceptions.  Nor content
By one exertion of creating pow'r
His goodness to reveal j  thro' every age,
Thro' every moment up the tract of time,               840
His parent hand with ever new increase
Of happiness and virtue has adorn'd
The vast harmonious frame : his parent hand
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore,
To men, to angels, to celestial minds,                  345
Forever leads the generations on
To higher scenes of being ! while supplied
From day to day by his enliving breath,
Inferior orders in succession rise
To fill the void below.  As flame  ascends               350
As bodies to their proper centre move,
As the poiz'd ocean to the attracting moon
Obedient swells, and every headlong sueam
Devolves its winding waters to the main ;
So all things, which have life aspire to God            355
The sun'of being, boundless, unimpair'd,
Centre of  souls ! Nor does the faithful voice
Of nature cease to prompt their eager steps
Aright ; nor is the care of heaven withheld
From granting to the task proportion'd aid ;             360
That in their stations all may persevere
To climb the ascent of being, and approach
Forever nearer to the life divine.

  That rocky pile thou seest, that verdant lawn
Fresh water'd from the mountains,  Let the scene      365
Paint in thy fancy the primeval seat
Of man, and where the  will supreme ordain'd
His mansion, that pavilion fair diffus'd
Along the shady brink, in this recess
To wear the appointed season of his youth ;            370
Till riper hours  should open to his toil
The high communion of superior minds,
Of consecrated heroes and of gods.
Nor did the Sire omnipotent forget
His tender bloom to cherish ;  nor withheld             375
Celestial footsteps from  his green abode.
Oft from the radiant honours of his throne,
He sent whom most he lov'd, the sovereign fair,
The effluence of  his glory, whom he plac'd
Before his eyes for ever to behold ;                    380 
130            PLEASURES  OF       Book IL

The goddess from whose inspiration flows
The toil of patriots, the delight of friends ;
Without whose work divine, in heaven or earth,
Nought lovely, nought propitious comes to pass,
Nor hope, nor praise, nor honour.  Her the sire        385
Gave it in charge to rear the blooming mind,
The foldedpowers to open, to direCt
The growth luxuriant of his young desires,
And from the laws of this majestic world
To teach him what was good.  As thus the nymph     390
Her daily care attended, by her side
With constant steps her gay companion stay'd,
The fair Euphrosyne, the gentle queen
Of smiles, and graceful gladness, and delights
That cheer alike the hearts of mortal men              395
And powers immortal.   See the shining pair !
Behold, where from his dwelling now disclos'd,
They quit their youthful charge and seek the skies.
I look'd,  and on the flow'ry turf there stood,
Between two radiant forms, a smiling youth           400
Whose tender cheeks display'd the vernal flower
Of beauty ; sweetest innocence illum'd
His bashful eyes, and on his polished brow
Sat young simplicity.  With fond regard
He view'd the associates,  as their steps they mov'd ;   405
The younger chief his ardent eyes detain'd,
With  mild regret invoking her return.
Bright as the star of evening she appear'd
 Amid the dusky scene.  Eternal youth
 O'er all her form its glowing honors breath'd           410
 And smiles eternal,  from her candid eyes,
 Flow'd like the dewy lustre of the morn
 Effusive trembling on the placid waves.
 The spring of heaven had shed its blushing spoils
 To bind her sable tresses ;  full diffus'd                415
 Her yellow mantle floated on the breeze ;
 And in her hand she wav'd a living branch
 Rich with immortal fruits,  of power to calm
 The wrathful heart, and from the bright'ning eyes
 To chase the cloud of sadness.  More sublime         420
 The heav'nly partner mov'd.  The prime of a^e
 Compos'd her steps.   The presence *>f a god,
 High on the circle of her brow inthron'd,
 From each majestic motion darted awe,
 Devoted awe ! till cherished by her looks              425
 Benevolent and meek, confiding love 
Book II.       IMAGINATION.              131

To filial rapture softened all the soul.
Free in her graceful hand she poiz'd the sword
Of chaste dominion.   An heroic crown
Display'd the old simplicity of pomp
Around her honor'd head.  A matron's robe,
White as the sunshine streams thro' vernal clouds,
Her stately form invested.  Hand in hand
The immortal pair forsook the enamell'd green,
Ascending siowly.  Rays of limpid light
Gleam'd round their padr ;  celestial rounds were heard
And thro' the fragrant air setherial dews
Distill'd around them ;  till at  once the clouds
Disparting wide in midway sky, withdrew
Their airy veil,  and left a bright expanse
Of empyrean flame where spent and drown'd,
AffliCted vision plung'd in vain to scan
What objeCt it involv'd.  My feeble eyes
Indured not.  Bending down to earth I stood,
With dumb attention.   Soon a female voice,
As wat'ry murmurs sweet, or warbling shades
With sacred invocation thus began.

  Father of gods and mortals ! whose right arm           f
With reins eternal guides the moving heavens,
pend thy propitious ear.   Behold well pleas'd          459
I seek to finish thy divine decree.
With frequent steps I visit yonder seat
C.'.~ man, thy offspring/; from tender seeds
Of justice and of wisdom, to involve
The latent honors of his generous frame ;              455
Till thy conducting hand shall raise his lot
From earth's dim  scene to these setberial walks
The temple of thy glory.  But not me,
Not my directing voice he oft  requires,
Or hears delighted ; this inchanting maid,             460
The associate thou hast given me, her alone
He loves,  O father ! absent, her he craves ;
And but for her glad presence ever join'd,
Rejoices not in mine ;  that  all my hopes
This thy benignant purpose  to fulfil,                   465
I deem uncertain ; and my daily cares
Unfruitful all in vain, unless  by thee
Still farther aided in the work divine.
  She ceas'd ;  a voice more, awful thus reply'd,
0 thou !  in whom forever I delight,
470 
1S2             PLEASURES OF       Book II,

Fairer than all the inhabitants of heaven,
Best image of thy author! far from thee
Be disappointment,  or distaste,  or blame ;
Who soon or late shall every work fulfill.
And no resistance find.   If man refuse                 475
To hearken to thy dictates ; or allur'd
By meaner joys, to any other pow'r
Transfer the honors due to thee  alone ;
That joy which he pursues he ne'er shall taste,
That power in whom delighteth ne'er behold.          480
Go then once more, and happy be thy toil;
Go then '  but let  not this thy smiling friend
Partake thy footsteps.   In her stead, behold!
With thee the sons of Nemesis  I send ;
The fiend abhorr'd ! whose vengeance takes account    485
Of  sacred order's violated laws.
See where he calls thee, burning to begone,
Fierce  to exhaust the tempest of his wrath
On yon devoted head.  But  thou, my child,
Controul his cruel frenzy, and proteft                  490
Thy tender charge.  That when despair shall grasp
His agonizing bosom,  he may learn,
That he may learn to love the gracious hand
Alone sufficient in that hour of  ill,
To save his feeble spirit; then confess                 495
Thy genuine honours,  O excelling fair !
When all  the plagues that wait  the dearly will
Of this avenging demon, all the storms
Of night infernal, serve but to  display
The energy of thy superior charms,                    5.0Q
With mildest awe triumphant o'er his rage,
And shining clearer in the horrid gloom.

  Here ceas'd that awful voice,  and soon I felt
The cloudy curtain of refreshing eve
Was clos'd once more, from that immortal fire          505,
Shelt'ring my eye-lids   Looking up, I view'd
A vast gigantic speCtre striding  on
Thro' murm'ring thunders and a waste of clouds,
With dreadful aCtion,   Black as night his brow
Relentless frowns invok'd.   His savage limbs          510
With sharp impatience violent he writh'd
As thro' convulsive anguish ; and his hand
Arm'd with a scorpion lash, full oft he rais'd
In madness to his bosom ; while his eyes
Rain'd bitter tears,  and  bellowing loud he shook        515 
 Book II.         IMAGINATION.             133

 The void with horror.   Silent by his side
 The virgin came.  No discomposure stirr'd
 Her features.   From the glooms which hung around,
 No stain of darkness mingled with the beam
 Of her divine effulgence.  Now they stoop             520
 Upon the river bank ;  and now to hail
 His wonted guests with  eager steps advanced
 The unsuspecting inmate of the shade.

  As when a famish'd wolf that all night long
 Had rang'd the Alpine snows, by chance at morn
 Sees from a cliff incumbent o'er the smoke
 Of some lone village, a neglected kid
 That strays along the wild for herb or spring;
 Down from the winding ridge he sweeps amain,
 And thinks he tears him ;  so with tenfold rage,
 The monster sprung remorseless on his prey.
 Amaz'd the stripling stood !  with panting breast
 Feebly he pour'd the lamentable wail
 Of helpless consternation, struck at once,
 And rooted to the ground. The queen beheld
 His terror ; and with looks of tend'rest care
 Advanc'd to save him.   Soon the tyrant felt
 Her awful power.  His keen tempestuous arm
 Hung nerveless, nor descended where his rage
 Had aim'd the deadly blow ; then dumb  retir'd
 With sullen rancour.  Lo ! the sovereign maid
 Folds, with a mother's arms, the fainting boy,
 Till life rekindles in his rosy .cheek ;
 Then grasps his hand,  and cheers him with her tongue

  O wake thee, rouze thy spirit!  Shall the  spite       545
 Of yon tormentor thus appall thy heart,
 While I,  thy friend and  guardian am at hand
 To rescue and to heal ? O let thy soul
 Remember, what the will of heav'n ordains
 Is ever good for all ; and if for all,                     550
 Then good for thee.  Nor only by the warmth
 And soothing sunshine of delightful things,
 Do minds grow up and flourish.   Oft misled
 By that bland light, the  yo.ung unpraCtis'd views
 Of reason wander through a fatal road,                 555
 Far from  their native aim ; as if, to lie
 Inglorious in the fragrant shade, and wait
The soft access of ever circling joys,
 Were all  the end of being.  Ask thyself,
                          M
525
530
535
540 
134       PLEASURES OF              Book  II.

This pleasing error, did it ever lull                      560
Thy wishes ? Has thy constant heart refus'd
The silken fetters of delicious ease ?
Or when divine Euphrosyne appear'd
Within this dwelling, did not thy desires
Hang far below that measure of thy fate,                565
Which I reveal'd before thee ?  and thy eyes,
Impatient of my counsels, turn away
To drink the soft effusion  of her smiles ?
Know then, for this the everlasting sire
Deprives thee of her presence, and instead,            570
O wise and still benevolent! ordains
This horrid visage hither  to pursue
My steps ; that so thy nature may discern
Its real good, and what alone can save
Thy feeble spirit in this hour of ill                    575
From folly and despair.  O yet  belov'd !
Let not this headlong terror quite o'erwhelm
Thy scatter'd powers ; nor fatal deem the rage
 Of this tormentor,  nor his proud assault,
 While I am here to vindicate thy toil,                 580
 Above the generous question of thy arm.
 Brave by thy fears, and in thy weakness strong,
 This hour he triumphs ;  but confront his might,
 And dare him to the combat ; then with ease,
 Disarm d and quell'd, his fierceness he resigns         585
 To bondage and to scorn  ; while thus inur'd
 By watchful danger, by unceasing toil,
 The  immortal mind, superior to his fate,
 Amid the outrage of external things,
 Firm as the solid base of this great world,              590
 Rests on his own foundations.  Blow ye winds !
 Ye waves ! ye thunders ! roll your tempests on j
 Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky,
 Till  all its orbs, and all its worlds of  fire
 Be loosened from their seats ;  yet still serene,         595
 The unconquer'd mind looks down upon the wreck j
 And, everstr. "ger as the storms advance,
 Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
 Where nature calls him to the destin'd goal.

    So spake the goddess,  while through all her frame   600
 Celestial raptures  flow'd, in every word,
 In every motion kindling warmth divine
 To seize who listened.  Vehement and swift,
 As lightning fires the aromatic shade 
Book  II.
IMAGINATION.
135
In JEthiopean fields, the stripling felt                  605
Her inspiration catch his fervid soul,
And starting from his langour thus exclaim'd.

  Then let the trial come !  and witness thou,
If terror be upon me ; if I shrink
To meet  the storm, or falter in my strength,           610
When hardest it besets me.  Do not think
That I am fearful and infirm of soul,
As late thy eyes beheld ; for thou hast chang'd
My nature :  thy commanding voice has wak'd
My languid  powers to bear the boldly on,               615
Where'er the will divine my path ordains
Through toil or peril; only do not thou
Forsake me  ; O be thou forever near,
That I may  listen to thy sacred voice,
And guide by thy decrees my constant feet.            620
But  say,  for ever are my eyes bereft  ?
Say, shall the fair Euphrosyne not once
Appear again to charm me ! Thou,  in heaven !
O thou eternal arbiter of things !
Be thy great bidding done ;  for who am  I              625
To question thy appointment ? Let the frowns
 Of this avenger every morn o'ercast
 The cheerful dawn, and every evening damp,
 With double night, my dwelling ; I will learn
 To hail them both, and unrepining bear                630
 His hateful presence ; but permit my tongue
 One glad request,  and, if my deeds may find
 Thy awful eye propitious, O restore
 The rosy featur d maid, again to cheer
 This lonely seat,  and bless me with her smiles.         635
 He  spoke ;  when instant, through the sable glooms.
 With which that furious presence had involv'd
 The ambient air, a flood of radiance came
 Swit't as the lightning flash ; the melting clouds
 Flew diverse, and, amid the blue serene                640
 Euphrosyne appeard.  With sprightly step
 The nymph alighted on the irriguous lawn,
 And to  her wond'ring audience thus began.

   Lo ! I am here to answer to your vows,
  And be the meeting fortunate ; I come                645
  With joyful tidings : we shall part no more.
 Hark !  how the gentle Echo, from her cell
 Talks through the cliffs, and murm'ring o'er the stream, 
136             PLEASURES  OF        Book If.

Repeats the accent,  ' we shall part no more.'
O my delightful friends,  well pleas'd, or. high,          650
The father has beheld you, while the might
Of that stern foe with bitter trial prov'd
Your equal doings ; then forever spake
The high decree ; that thou, celestial maid,
Howe er that grisly phantom on thy steps               655
May sometimes dare intrude, yet never more
Shalt the u, descending to the abode of man,
Alone endure the rancour of  his arm,
Or leave thy lov'd Euphrosyne behind.
She ended ; and the whole romantic scene              660
Immediate vanish'd  ; rocks,  and woods, and rills
The mantling tent and each mysterious form
Flew like the pictures of a morning dream,
When sunshine fills  the bed.   A while I stood
Perplex'd and giddy, till the radiant power,             665
Who bade the visionary landscape rise.
As up to him I turn d with gentlest looks.
Preventing my enquiry,  thus began.

  There let thy soul acknowledge its complaint
How blind, how impious!  There behold the ways      670
Of  heaven's eternal destiny to man,
For ever just, benevolent and wise *
That virtue's awful steps, howe'er pursued
By vexing fortune and intrusive pain,
Should never be divided from her chaste,                675
Her fair attendant, pleasure.  Need I urge
Thy tardy thought thro' all the various round
Of this existence, that thy soft'ning soul
At length may learn, what energy the hand
Of virtue mingles in the bitter tide                     680
Of passions swelling with distress and pain,
To mitigate the sharp with gracious drops
Of cordial pleasure ? Ask the faithful youth,
Why the cold urn of her whom long he lov'd
So often fills his arms ; so often draws                  685
His lonely footsteps at the silent hour,
To  pay the mournful tribute of his tears ?
O !  he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
That sacred hour when stealing from the noise          690
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance sooths
With virtue's kindest looks, his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.  Ask the crowd 
Book  II.         IMAGINATION.             137

Which flies impatient from the village walk
To climb the neighb'ring cliffs, when far below         695
The cruel winds have hurl'd upon the coast
Some hapless bark; while sacred pity melts
The general eye, terror's icy hand
Smi-es their distorted limbs and horrent hair :
While every mother closer to her breast                700
Catches her child, and pointing where the waves
Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge,
As now another dash'd against the rocks,               705
Drops lifeless down ; O deemest thou indeed
No kind endearment here by nature given
To mutual terror and compassion's tears ?
No sweetly melting softness which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers            710
To this their proper action and their end ?
Ask thy own heart :  When,  at the midnight hour,
Slow through that studious gloom, thy pausing eye,
Led by the glimmering taper, moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead, the  songs            71o
Of Grecian bards, and records writ by fame
For Grecian heroes,  where the present pow'r
 Of heaven and earth  surveys the immortal soul
Ev'n as a father's blessing, while he reads
 The praises of his son.—If then thy page,             72Q
 Spurning the yoke of these inglorious days,
Mix in their deeds and kindle with their flame ;
Say, when the prospeCt blackens on thy view,
When rooted from the base,  heroic states
 Mourn in the dust and  tremble at the frown            725
 Of curst ambition ; when the pious band
Of youths, who fought for freedom and their  sires,
 Lie side by side in gore ; when ruffian pride
 Usurps the throne of justice, turns the pomp
 Of public power, the majesty of rule,                  730'
 The sword, the laurel,  and  the purple robe,.
 To slavish, empty pageants, to adorn
 A tyrant's walk, and glitter in the eyes
 Of such as bow the  knee ;  when honour'd urns
 Of patriots and of chiefs, the awful bust               735
 And storied arch, to glut the coward rage
 Of regal envy, strew the public way
 With  hallowed ruins ; when the muse's haunt
 The marble porch where wisdom wont to talk
                           M 2 
138    PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.
Book  II.
With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,               740
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks,
Or female superstition's midnight prayer ;
When ruthless rapine from the hand of time
Tears the destroying scythe, with surer blow
To sweep the works of glory from their base ;          745
Till desolation o'er the grass grown street
Expands his raven wings, and up the wall,
Where senates once the price of monarchs doom'd,
Hisses the gliding snake thro' hoary weeds
That clasp the mould'ring column ; thus defac'd,       750
Thus widely mournful when the prospect thrills
Thy beating bosom,  when the patriot's tear
Starts from thine eye, and thy extended arm
In fancy hurls the thunder bolt of Jove
To fire the impious wreath, on Philip's brow,          755
Or dash  OCtavius from the trophied car!—
Say, does thy secret soul repine to taste
The big distress ? Or would'st thou then exchange
Those heart ennobling sorrows, for the lot
Of him who sits amid the gaudy herd                 760
Of mute barbarians bending to his nod,
 And bears aloft his gold invested front,
 And says within himself, " I am king.
 " And wherefore should the clam'rous voice of woe
 " Intrude upon mine eai ?"  The baleful dregs         765
 Of these late ages, this inglorious draught
 Of servitude and folly, have not yet,
 Blest be the eternal  ruler of the world !
 Defil'd to such a depth of sordid shame
 The native honors of the human soul,                 770
 Nor so effac'd the image of its sire. 
 
ARGUMENT.
 XT LEASURE in observing  the tempers and
 manners  of men,  even where vicious or absurd.
 The origin of vice, from false representations of
 the fancy,  producing false  opinions concerning
 good and evil.   Inquiry into ridicule.  The gene-
 ral sources of ridicule, in  the minds and charac-
 ters of men, enumerated. Final cause of the sense
 of ridicule.  The resemblance of inanimate things
 to the sensations and properties of the mind.  The
 operations of the  mind in the productions of the
 works of imagination, described.   The secondary
 pleasure from imitation.  The benevolent order
 of the world illustrated in the arbitrary connection
 of these pleasures with the objects which excite
 them.   The nature and conduct of taste.   Con-
 cluding with an account of the natural and moral
 advantages resulting from a sensible and well in-'
formed imagination* 
book in,
 yV HAT wonder therefore, since the endearing tie*
Of passion link the universal kind
Of man so close, what wonder if to search
This common nature through the various change
Of sex, and age, and fortune and the frame
Of each peculiar draw the busy mind
With unresisted charms ? The spacious west,
And all the teeming regions of the south
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of knowledge half so tempting or so fair,
As man to man.   Nor only where the smiles
Of love invite ; nor only where the applause
Of cordial honour turns  the attentive eye
On virtue s graceful deeds.  For since the course
Of things external aCts in different ways
On human apprehensions, as the hand
Of nature temper'd to a  different frame
Peculiar minds ; so haply where the powers
Of fancy neither lessen  nor enlarge
The  images of things, but paint in all
Their genuine hues,  the features which they wore
In nature ; their opinion will be true, 
142           PLEASURES  OF        Book  III.

And action right.  For action treads the path
In which opinion says he follows good,
Or flies from evil j and opinion gives                    25
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by fancy, lovely or deformed.
Thus her report can never there be true,
Where fancy cheats the intellectual eye,
With glaring colours and distorted lines.                 30
Is there a man, who at the sound of death,
Sees ghastly shapes of  terror conjured up,
And black before him ; nought but death-bed groans,
And fearful prayers, and plunging from the brink
Of light and being,  down the gloomy air,               35
And unknown depth ? Alas ! in such a mind,
If no bright forms of excellence attend
The image of his country ;  nor the pomp
Of sacred senates,  nor the guardian voice
Of justice on her throne, nor ought that wakes          40
The conscious bosom with a patriot's  flame ;
Will not opinion tell him, that to die,
Or stand the hazard, is a greater ill
Than to betray his country ? And in act
Will not he chuse to be a wretch and  live ?              45
Here vice begins then.  From the enchanting cup
Which fancy holds to all, the unwary thirst
Of youth oft swallows a Circaan draught,
That sheds a baleful tincture o'er the eye
Of reason, till no longer he discerns,                  50
And only guides to err.  Then revel forth
A furious band that spure him from the throne ;
And all is uproar.   Thus ambition grasps
The empire of the soul; thus pale revenge
Unsheath's her murd'rous dagger;  and the hands        55
Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts,
Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws
That keeps them from their prey ; thus all the plagues
The wicked bear, or o'er the trembling scene
The tragic muse discloses, under shapes                 60
Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease or pomp,
Stole first into the mind.  Yet not by all
Those lying forms which fancy  in the braia
Engenders, are the kindling passions driven
To guilty deeds ;  nor reason bound in chains,           65
That vice alone may lord it; oft adorn'd
With solemn pageants, folly mounts  his throne,
And plays her ideot antics, like  a queen. 
Book  III.     IMAGINATION.               143

A thousand garbs she wares ; a thousand ways
She wheels her giddy impire.  Lo ! thus far             70
With bold adventure,  to the Mantuan lyre
I sing of nature's charms, and touch well pleas'd
A stricter note ; now haply trust my song
Unbend her serious  measure, and reveal
In lighter strains, how folly's awkard arts               75
Excite  impetuous laughter's gay rebuke ;
The sportive province of the comic muse.

  See in what crowds the uncouth forms advance ;
Each would outstrip the other, each prevent
Our careful search,  and offer to your gaze,               80
Unask'd, his motely features.   Wait awhile,
My curious friends  ! and let us first arrange
In proper orders your promiscuous throng.

  Behold the foremost band ; of  slender thought,
And easy faith ! whom flattering fancy sooths            85
With lying spectres, in themselves to view
Illustrious forms of  excellence and good,
That scorn the mansion.   With exulting hearts
They spread their spurious treasure to the sun ;
And bid the world admire !  but chief the glance          90
Of wishful envy draws their joy bright eyes,
And lifts with self applause each lordly brow.
In number boundless as the bloOm of spring,
Behold their glaring idols, empty shapes
By fancy gilded o'er, and then set up                    95
For adoration. Some  in learning's garb,
With formal band and sable cinCtur d gown
And rags of mouldy volumes.  Some elate
With martial splendour,  steely pikes and swords
Of costly frame, and gay Phoenician robes              100
Inwrought with flow'ry gold, assume the port
Of stately valour ;  list'ning by his side
There stands a female form ; to her, with looks
Of earnest import, pregnant with amaze,
He talks of deadly deeds, of breaches, storms,         105
And sulphrous mines, and ambush ; then at once
Breaks off, and smiles to see her look so pale,
And asks some wondering question of her fears,
Others of graver mein ; behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns,  how sublime they move,            110
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes,
Take homage of the simple minded throng; 
 144            PLEASURES OF       Book III,

 Ambassadors of heaven! Nor much unlike
 Is he whose visage, in the lazy mist
 That mantle every feature, hides a brood               11$
 Of politic conceits ;  of whispers, nods,
 And hint deep omen'd with unwieldy  schemes,
 And dark portents of state.  Ten thousand more.
 Prodigious habits and tumultuous tongues,
 Pour dauntless in and swell the boastful band.           130

   Then comes the second order ; all who seek
 The debt of praise, were watchful unbelief
 Darts through the thin pretence her squinting ejt
 On some retir'd appearance which belies
 The boasted virtue, or annuls the applause              131
 That justice else would pay.  Here side by side
 I see two leaders of the solemn train,
 Approaching ; one a female, eld and  grey,
 With eyes demure and wrinkled furrow d brow.
 Pule as the cheeks  of death;  yet still she stuns          130
 The sick'ning audience with a nauseous tale
 How many youths her myrte chains have worn,
 How many virgins at her triumphs pin'd!
 Yet how resolv d she guards her cautious heart j
 Such is her terror at  the risques of love,               135
 A man's seducing  tongue ! The other seems
 A bearded sage, ungentle in his mien
 And sordid  all his  habit;  peevish want
 Grins at his heels,  while down the gazing throng
 He stalks,  resounding in magnific phrase              140
 The vanity of riches, the contempt
 Of pomp and power.  Be prudent in  your zeal,
 Ye grave associates !  let the silent grace
 Of her who blushes at the fond regard
 Her charms inspire,  more eloquent unfold              145
 The praise of spotless honor; let the man
 Whose eye regards not his illustrious  pomp
 And ample store, but as indulgent streams
 To chear the barren soil and  spread the fruit*
 Of joy, let him  by  juster measure fix                   150
 The price of riches and the end of pow'r.

   Another tribe succeeds ; deluded long
By fancy's dazzling optics, these behold
The images of some peculiar things
With brighter hues resplendent, and  portray*d          155
With features nobler far than e'er adorn d 
   Book III.       IMAGINATION.              145

  Their genuine objeCts.  Hence thefever'd heart
  Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms ;
  Hence oft obtrusive on the eye of scorn,
  Untimely zeal her witless pride betrays ;                160
  And serious manhood, from the tow'ring aim
  Of wisdom,  stoops to emulate the boast
  Of childish toil.   Behold yon mystic form,
  Bedeck'd with feathers, insects, weeds, and shells!
  Not with intenser view the Samian sage                165
  Bent his fix'd eye on heaven's eternal fires,
  When first the order of that radiant scene
  Swell'd his exulting  thought, than this surveys
  A muckworm's entrails or a spider's fang.
  Next him a youth, with flowers and myrtles crown'd,   170
  Attends that virgin form, and blushing kneels,
  With  fondest gesture and a suppliant tongue,
  To win her coy regard.  Adieu, for him,
  The dull engagements  of the bustling world !
  Adieu the sick impertinence of praise !                 VT5
 And hope and action !  for with her alone,
 By streams and shades, to steal the sighing hours,
 Is all he asks, and all that fate can give !
 Thee too, facetious Momion, wandering here,
 Thee,  dreaded censor ! oft have I beheld               18S
 Bewildered unawares.  Alas ! too long,
 Flush'd with thy comic triumphs and the spoils
  Of sly derision !  till  on every side
 Hurling thy random bolts, offended truth
 Assign'd thee here' thy station  with the slayes           1p j,
 Of folly.  Thy once formidable name
 Shall grace her humbler records,  and be heard
 In scoffs and mockery bandied from the lips
 Of all the vengeful brotherhood around,
 So oft  the patient victims of thy scorn.                  1^

   But now, ye gay !  to whom  indulgent fate,
 Of all the muses empire hath assign'd
 The fields of folly, hither each advance
 Your sickles ; here the teeming soil affords
 Its richest growth.  A fav'rite brood appears ;          195
 In whom the  demon, with a mother's joy,
 Views all her charms  reflected,  all her cares
 At full  repaid. Ye most illustrious band !
 Who,  scorning reason's tame,  pedantic rules,
And orders vulgar bondage, never meant                306
For souls sublime as yours, with generous zeal 
146             PLEASURES OF      Book III.

Pay vice the reverence virtue long usurp'd,
And yield deformity the fond applause
Which beauty wont to claim ; forgive my song,
That for the blushing diffidence of youth,               205
It shuns the unequal province of your praise.

  Thus far triumphant in the pleasing guile
Of bland imagination, folly's train
Have dar'd our search ; but now a dastard kind
Advance reluCtant, and with faltering feet,             210
Shrink from the gazer's eye ;  enfeebled hearts
Whom fancy chills with visionary fears,
Or  bends to servile tameness with conceits
Of  shame,  of evil, or of base defect,
Fantastic and delusive.   Here the slave               215
Who droops abash'd when sullen pomp surveys
His humbler habit ; here the trembling wretch
Unnerv'd and struck with terror's icy bolts,
Spent in weak wailings,  drown'd in shameful tears,
At  every dream of danger; here subdued              220
By  frontless laughter and the hardy scorn
Of old, unfeeling vice, the abject soul
Who blushing half resigns the candid praise
Of temperance and honour; half disowns
A freeman's hatred of tyrannic pride ;                 225
And hears with  sickly smiles the venal mouth
With foulest licence mock the patriot's name.

  Last of the motley bands on whom the power
Of gay derision bends her hostile aim,
Is that  where shameful ignorance presides.             230
Beneath hersordid banners, lo !  they march,
Like blind and lame.  Whate'er their doubtful hands
Attempt, confusion straight appears behind,
And troubles all the work.  Through many amaze
Perplex'd they struggle,  changing every path,         235
O'erturning every purpose ; then at last
Sit down dismay'd, and leave the entangled scene
For scorn to sport with.    Such then is the abode
Of folly in the mind; and such  the shapes
In which she governs her obsequious train.             240
Through every scene of  ridicule in things
To  lead the tenour of my devious lay ;
Through every swift occasion which the hand
Of  laughter points at, when the mirthful string
Distends her sallying nerves and chokes her tongue ;    245 
Book  III.       IMAGINATION.              147

What were it but to count each crystal drop
Which morning's dewy fingers on the blooms
Of May distil ?  Su.fice  it to have said,
Where'er the power of  ridicule displays
Her quaint ey'd visage,  some incongruous form,         250
Some stubborn dissonance of things combin'd,
Strikes on the quick observer ; whether p*omp,
Or praise, or beauty, mix their partial claim
Where sordid fashions,  where ignoble deeds,
Where foul deformity are wont to dwell j               255
Or whether these with violation loath'd
Invade resplendent pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of beauty,  or the  boast of praise.

   Ask we for what fair end the almighty sire
In mortal bosoms wakes this gay contempt,              260
The grateful stings of laughter,  from disgust
Educing pleasure >  Wherefore, but to aid
The tardy steps of reason, and at once
By this prompt impulse  urge us to depress
The giddy aims of folly ? Though the light             265
Of truth slow dawning  on the enquiring mind,
At length unfolds,  through many a subtle tie,
How these uncouth disorders end at  last
In public evil; yet benignant heaven,
Conscious how dim the  dawn  of truth appears          270
To thousands ;  conscious what a scanty pause
From labours and from  care, the wider lot
Of humble life affords for studious thought
To scan the maze of nature ;  therefore stampt
The glaring scenes with characters of scorn,            275
As broad, as obvious,  to the passing clown,
As to the letter'd sage's curious eye.

   Such are the various  aspects of the mind
Some heavenly genius,   whose unclouded thoughts
Attain that secret harmony which blends               280
 The ethereal spirit with its mould of clay ;
0 !  teach me to reveal  the grateful charm
That searchless nature o'er the sense of  man
Diffuses,  to behold, in lifeless things,
The inexpressive semblance of himself,                285
Of thought and passion.  Mark the sable woods
That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow ;
 With what religious awe the solemn scene
 Commands your steps  ! as if the reverend form 
 148             PLEASURES  OF       Book  III.

 Of Minos or of Numa should forsake                  290
 Th' Elysian seats, and down the embowering glade
 Move to your pausing eye !  Behold th' expanse
 Of yon gay landscape, where the silver clouds
 Flit o'er the heavens before the sprightly breeze ;
 Now their gay cinCtuie skirts the doubtful sun :         295
 Now streams cf splendour, thro' their opening veil
 Effulgent,  sweep from off the gilded lawn
 The aerial shadows ;  on the curling brook,
 And on the shady margin's quivering leaves
 With quickest lustre glancing ; while you view          300
 The prospeCt, say, within your cheerful breast
 Plays not the lively sense of winning mirth
 With clouds and sunshine chequered, while the round
 Of social converse, to the inspiring tongue
 Of some gay nymph amid her subject train,             305
 Moves all obsequious ? Whence is this effeCt,
 This kindred power of such discordant things 1
 Or flows that semblance from the mystic tone
 To which the new born mind's harmonious powers
 At first were strung ?  Or rather from the links          310
 Which artful custom twines around her frame ?

   For when  the diff'rent images of things
 By chance  combin'd,  have struck the attentive soul
 With deeper impulse, or, connected long,
 Have drawn  her frequent eye ; howe'er distinCt          315'
 The external scenes,  yet oft the ideas gain
 From that conjunction an eternal tie,
 And sympathy unbroken.  Let the mind
 Recall one partner of the various league,
 Immediate, lo !  the firm confederates  rise,             320
 And each his former station straight resumes ;
 One movement governs the consenting throng,
 And all at once with rosy pleasure shine,
 Or all are sadden'd with the glooms of care.
 'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold,           3J5
 Two faithful needles, from the informing touch
 Of the same parent  stone, together drew
 Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd
 With fatal  impulse quivering to the pole.
Then, though disjoin'd by  kingdoms, through the main   330
Roll'd its broad surge betwixt, and diff'rent stars
Beheld their wakeful  motions, yet preserv'd
The former friendship, and remember'd still
The alliance of their birth :  whate'er the line 
   Book III.       IMAGINATION.             149

  Which one possess'd, nor pause, nor quiet knew        335
  The sure associate,  ere with trembling speed
  He found its path and fix'd unerring there.
  Such is the secret union, when we feel
  A song, a flower, a name, at once restore
  Those long-conneCted scenes, where first they mov'd    340
  The attention ; backward through her mazy walks
  Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
  To temples,  courts, or fields ; with all the bands
  Of painted forms,  of passions and designs
'   Attendant ;  Whence, if pleasing in itself,            345
  The prospeCt from the sweet accessions gains
  Redoubled influence o'er the  listening mind.

     By these mysterious ties the busy power
   Of memory her ideal train preserves
   Intire ; or when they would  elude her watch,          ^5C
  Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste
  Of dark oblivion ;  thus collecting all
   The various forms of being to present,
   Before the curious  aim of mimic art,
   Their largest choice ; tike spring's unfolded blooms    355
  Exhaling sweetness, that the skilful bee
   May taste at will,  from their selected spoils
   To work her dulcet food.  For not the expanse
   Of living lakes, in summer's noontide calm,
   Reflects the bordering shade  and sun bright heavens    360
   With fairer semblance ; not the sculptur'd gold.
   More faithful keeps the  graver's lively trace,
   Than he whose birth the sister powers of art
   Propitious view'd, and from his genial star
  Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind;             365
  Than his attemper'd bosom must preserve
  The  seal of nature.  There alone unchang'd
   Her form remains.  The balmy walks of May
   There breathe perennial sweets ; the trembling chord
  Resounds forever in the abstracted ear                 370
  Melodious ;  and the virgin's radiant eye,
  Superior  to disease, to grief, and time,
  Shines with unbating lustre.  Thus at length
  Endow'd with all that nature can bestow,
  The child of fancy oft in silence bends                375
  O'er these mix'd treasures of his pregnant breast,
  With conscious pride.  From them he oft resolves
  To frame he knows not what excelling things ;
   And win he knows not what sublime reward
                             n  2 
150             PLEASURES OF      Book  III.

Of praise a~d wonder.  By degrees the mind           380
Feels her young nerves dilate j  the plastic powers
Labour for aCtion  ; blind emotions heave
His bosom ; and with loveliest phrenzy caught,
From earth to heaven he rolls his daring eye,
From heaven to earth.  Anon ten  thousand shapes,     385
Like speCtres trooping to the wizard's call,
Flit swift before him.  From the womb of earth,
From ocean's bed they come ;  the eternal heavens
Disclose their splendours, and the dark abyss
Pcv.-s out her births unknown.   With fixed gaze       330
He marks the rising phantoms.   Now compares
Their different forms ; now blends them, now divides,
Enlarges and extenuates by turns  ;
Opposes,  ranges  in fantastic bands,
And infinitely varies.  Hither now,                   395
Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim
With endless choice perplex'd.  At length his plan
Begi.is to open.   Lucid order dawns ;
 And as from Chaos old the jarring seeds
 Of nature at the voice divine repair'd                 400
 Each to its place, till rosy earth unvea'd
 Her fragrant bosom,  and the joyful sun
 Sprung up the blue serene ; by twift degrees
 Thus disentangled, his entire design
 Emerges, colours mingle,  features join,                405
 And lines converge ;  the fainter parts retire ;
 The fairer, eminent in light, advance ;
 And every image on its neighbour smiles.
 Awhile he stands, and with a fa-her'a joy
 Contemplates.  Then, with Promethean art,           410
 Into its proper vehicle he breathes
 The fair conception ; which embodied thus,
 And permanent,  becomes to t) es ';r ears
 An objeCt ascertain'd ; while thus inform'd,
 The various organs of his mimic  skill,                 415
 The consonance of sounds, the featur'd rock,
 The r.hadowy picture and impassioned verse,
 Beyond their proper powers attract the soul
 By that expressive semblance, while in sight
 Of nature's great original we scan                     420
 The lively child of art ; while line by line,
 And feature after feature we refer
 To that sublime exemplar whence it stole
 Those animating charms.  Thus  beauty's palm-
Betwixt them wavering hangs: applauding love         425 
Book  III.      IMAGINATION.
151
 Doubts where to choose ; and mortal man aspires
 To tempt creative praise.  As when a cloud
 Of gathering hail with limpid crusts of ice
 Inclos'd and obvious to the beaming sun,
 Collects  his large effulgence ; strait the heav'ns         430
 With equal flames present on either hand
 The radiant visage :  Persia stands at gaze,
 Appall'd ;  and on the brink of Ganges doubts
 The snowy vested seer,  in Mirtha's name, '
 To which the fragrance of the south shall burn,         435
 To.which his warbled orisons ascend.

   Such various bliss the well tun'd heart enjoys,
 Favour'd of heaven !  While, plung'd in sordid cares,
 The unfeeling vulgar mocks the boon divine ;
 And harsh austerity, from whose rebuke                410
 Young love and smiling wonder shrink away,
 Abash'd and chill of heart, with  sager frowns
 Condemns  the fair enchantment.   On my strain
 Perhaps  ev'n now some cold, fastidious judge
 Casts a disdainful eye ; and calls  my toils              445
 And calls the love and beauty which I sing-,
 The dream of folly.   Thou, grave censor ! say,
 Is beauty then a dream, because  the glooms
 Of dullness hang  too heavy on thy sense
 To let her shine upon  thee ? So the man                450
 Whose eye ne'er opened to the light of heaven,
 Might smile with scorn while raptur'd vision tells
 Of the gay colour'd radiance flushing bright
 O'er all creation.  From the wise be far
 Such gross unhallow'd pride ; nor needs my song       455
 Descend  so low ; but rather now  unfold,
 If human thought could reach, or words unfold,
 By what  mysterious fabric of the mind,
 The deep-felt joys and harmony of sound
 Result from airy motion ; and from shape              46Q
 The lovely phantom of sublime and fair.
 Bv what fine ties hath  Good connected things
 When present in the mind,  which in themselves
 Have no  connexion ? Sure the rising sun
 O'er the cerulean convex of the sea,                   465
 With equal brightness and with equal warmth
 Might roll his fiery orb ; nor yet the soul
Thus feel her frame expanded,  and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds ;
 Like a young conqueror moving thro' the pomp        470 
152             PLEASURES OF      Book III.

Of some triumphal day.   When, join'd at eve,
Soft murm'ring streams and gales of gentlest breath
Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man's  discerning ear
Thro' all its tones the symphony pursue,               475
Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy
Steal through his veins and fan the awakened heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song .'

  But were not nature still  endow'd at large
With all which life requires,  though unador'd          480
With such enchantment ? wherefore then her form
So  exquisitely fair ? her breath prefum'd
With such ethereal sweetness ? Whence her voice
Inform'd at will to raise-or to depress
The impassion'd soul ? and whence the robes of light   585
Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp
Than fancy can describe ? Whence but from thee,
O source divine of ever flowing love,
And thy unmeasur'd goodness ?  Not content
With every food of life to  nourish man,               490
By kind illusions of the wondering sense
Thou mak'st all nature beauty to his eye,
Or music to his ear : well pleas'd he scans
The goodly prospeft ; and  with inward smiles
Treads the gay verdure of  the painted plain ;          495
Beholds the azure canopy of heaven,
 And living lamps that over-arch his head
With more than regal splendour ; bends his ears
To the full choir of water, air, and earth ;
Nor heeds the pleasing error of his thought,            500
 Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch,
 Nor questions more the music's mingling sounds
 Than space, or motion, or eternal time ;
 So sweet he feels their influence to attract
 The fixed soul; to brighten the dull glooms            505
 Of care, and make the destin'd road of life
 Delightful to his feet.   So fables tell.
 The adventerous hero, bound on hard exploits,
 Beholds with glad surprize, by secret spells
 Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,            510
 A  visionary paradise disclosed
 Amid the dubious wild ; with streams and shades,
 And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles,
 Cheers his long labours and renews his frame. 
Book  III.      IMAGINATION.             153

  What then is taste, but these internal pow'rs         515
ACtive, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse ? a discerning sense
Of descent and sublime, with quick disgust,
From things deformed, or disarrang'd, or gross
In species > This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,        520
Nor purple state,  nor culture can bestow ;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He,  mighty Parent ! wise and just in all,
Fiee as the vital breeze  or light of heav'n,              525
Reveals the charms of nature.  Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due  repose,  he loiters to behold
The  sunshine gleaming  as thro' amber clouds,          5oO
O'er all the  western sky; full soon,  I weenr
His rude expression and untutored airs,
Beyond the  power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely ! how commanding !  But though heaven   535
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair culture's kind parental aidf
Without enlivening suns,  and genial showers
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope            540
The tender plant should  rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promls'd in its spring,
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's  labour ; or attend
His will obsequious, whether to produce                545
The olive or the laurel.  Different minds
Incline to different objects  ; one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild ;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty.  Hence when lightning fires,      550
The  arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground,
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean,  groaning from his lowest bed
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky ;
Amid the mighty uproar,  while below                  *55
The  nations tremble, Shakespear looks abroad
From some  high  cliff, superior, and enjoys
The  elemental war.  But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flowery stream,
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool             50U 
154
PLEASURES OF      Book III.
Of plantane shades, and to the listening deer,
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound soft warbling all the live-long day :
Consenting Zephyr sighs;  the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious ; mu.e the groves ;       565
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.

  Oh !  blest of heav'n, whom not the languid  songs
Of luxury,  the Siren ! not the bribes
Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy  spoils              570
Of pageant honour, can seduce to ieave
Those ever blooming sweets, which from the store
Of nature fair imagination culls
To charm the enliven'd soul! What though not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights             575
Of envied  life ;  though only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state ;
 Yet nature's care, to all her children just,
 With richer treasures and an ampler state
 Endows at large whatever happy man                580
 Will deign to use them.   His the city's pomp,
 The rural  honours his.  Whate'er adorns
 The princely dome, the column and the arch;
 The breathing marbles and the sculptur'd gold,
 Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,           585
 His tuneful breast enjoys.  For him, the spring
 Distils her dews, and from the silken gem '
 Its lucid leaves unfolds ; for him, the hand
 Of autumn tinges every fertile branch
 With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.         590
 Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ;
 And still new beauties meet his lonely walk;
 And loves unfelt attract him.  Not a breeze
 Flies o'er the meadows, not a cloud imbibes
 The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain              595
  From all the tenants of the warbling shade
 Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
 Fresh pleasure, unreprov'd.  Nor  thence partakes
 Fresh pleasure only ; for the attentive mind,
  By this harmonious aCtion on her pow'rs,              600
 Becomes  herself harmonious ; wont so oft
 In outward things to meditate the  charm
  Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
 To find a kindred order, to exert
 Within herself this elegance of love,                  605 
Book  III.      IMAGINATION.             1S5

This fair inspir'd delight: her temper'd pow'rs
Refine at length,  and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler pr .speCls, if to gaze
On nature's form,  where, negligent of all              610
These lesser graces,  she assumes the port
Of that eternal Majesty that weigh'd
The world's foundations,  if to these the mind
Exalt her daring eye ; then mightier far
Will be  <-he change,  and nobler.  Would the forms     615
Of servile custom cramp her generous pow'rs >
Would sordid policies, the batbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine,  bow her  down
To tame pursuits,  to indolence and fear !
Lo ! she appeals to nature, to the winds               620
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons : all declare
For what th' eternal  Maker has ordain'd
The pow'rs of man:  we feel within ourselves
His energy divine ; he tells the heart;                 625
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being ; to be great like  him.
Beneficent and active.  Thus the men
Whom nature's works can charm,  with God himself    630
Hold converse ; grow familiar,  day by day
With his conceptions ; act upon his plan;
And form to his, the relish of their souls. 
i 
THE
T     ASK,
A  POEM
IN  SIX  BOOKS
  BY WILLIAM COWPER,

OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE,   ESQ^
With England's bard, with Cowper, who shall vie ?
Original in strength and dignity ;
With more than painter's fancy blest,  with lays-
Holy, as saints, to heaven, expiring raise.
                  Pxirsults of Literature, dial.  4. prop, fn. 
 ARGUMENT  OF THE FIRST BOOK.

Historical deduction of seats, from the stool to the
  Sofa.—A School-boy^s ramble.—A walk in the
  country.— The scene described.—Rural sounds
  as well as sights delightful.—Another  walk.—
  Mistake concerning the charms of solitude cor-
  rected.—Colonnades commended.—Alcove, and
  the  view from  it.— The  wilderness.—The
  grove.—The thresher.—The necessity and the
  benefits  of exercise.—The works  of nature
  superior to, and in some instances inimitable by,
  art.—The wearisomeness of what is commonly
  called a life of pleasure.—Change of scene some-
  times expedient.—A common described, and the
  character of crazij Kate introduced.—Gipsies.
  —The blessings  of civilized life.—That state
  most favourable to virtue.—The South  Sea
  islanders compassionated, but chief y  Omai.—
   His present state of mind supposed.—Civilized
   life friendly to virtue,  but  not great  cities.—
   Great cities,  and London in particular, allowed
   their due praise, but  censured.—Fete champe-
   tre.—The book concludes with a reftbTion on the
  fatal effects of dissipation and effeminacy upon
   our public measures. 
■»•    I1__u:
The   Task.
<»
BOOK  I.
              THE   SOFA.



     |_ SING the Sota.   I, who lately sang
Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touch'd with awe
The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,
Escap'd with pain from that adventurous flight,
Now seek repose upon an humbler theme ;                5
The theme though humble, yet august and proud
Th' occasion—for the fair commands the song.

  Time was,  when clothing sumptuous or  for use,
Save their own painted skins, our sires had none.
As yet black breeches were not; satin smooth,          10
Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile ;
The hardy chief upon the rugged rock
Wash'd by the sea, or on the. gravely bank
Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud,
Fearless of wrong, repos'dhis weary strength.          15
Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next
The birth-day of invention ; weak at first,
Dull in design, and clumsy to perform.
Joint-stools were then created ;  on three legs
Upborn they stood.  Three legs upholding firm          20
A massy slab, in fashion square or round.
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat,
And sway'd the sceptre of his infant realms :
And such, in ancient halls and mansions drear,
Miy still be seen ; but perforated sore,.                 25 
160
THE TASK.
Book  I.
And dril'd in holes, the solid oak is found,
By worms voracious eating through and through.

  At length a generation more refin'd
Improv'd the simple plan ; made three legs four,
Gave them a twisted form vermicular,                  30
And o'er the seat, with plenteous wadding stuff'd,
Induc'd a splendid cover, green and blue,
Yellow and red, of tap'stry richly wrought
And woven close,  or needle  work sublime.
There might ye see the piony spread wide,              35
The full-blown  rose, the  shepherd  and his lass,
Lap-dog and lambkin with black staring eyes,
And parrots with twin cherries in  their beak.

  Now came the cane from  India, smooth and bright
With Nature's  varnish ;  sever'd into stripes             40
That interlac'd each other, these supplied
Of texture firm a lattice-work, that brac'd
The new mach'me, and it became a chair.
But restless was the chair ;  the back ereCt
Distress'd the weary loins, that felt no ease  ;           45
The slippery seat betray'd the sliding part
That press'd if, and the feet hung  dangling down,
Anxious in vain to find the distant floor.
These for the rich : the rest, whom fate had plac'd
In modest mediocrity,  content                         50
With base materials,  sat on well-tann'd hides,
Obdurate and unyielding, glassy smooth,
With here and  there a tuft of crimson yarn,
Or scarlet crewel, in the cushion fixt;
If cushion might be call'd what harder seem'd           55
Than the firm oak of which the frame was form'd.
No want of timber then was felt or fear'd
In Albion's happy isle.   The umber stood
Ponderous and fixt by its own  massy weight.
But elbows still were wanting ; these, some  say,        60
An alderman of Cripplegate contriv'd ;
And some ascribe th' invention to a priest
Burly and big,  and studious of his ease.
But, rude at first,  and not with easy slope
Receding wide, they press'd against the ribs, •           65
And bruis'd the side ; and, elevated high,
Taught the rais'd shoulders  to invade the ears.
Long time elaps'd or e'er our rugged sires
Complain'd,  though incommodiously pent in, 
 Book I.           THE SOFA.

And ill at ease behind.  The ladies first
'Gan murmur, as became  the softer sex.
Ingenious fancy, never better pleas'd
Than when employ'd to accommodate the fair,
Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devis'd
The soft settee ; one elbow at each end,
And in the midst an elbow it receiv'd,
United yet divided, twain at once.
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne ;
And so two citizens who  take the air,
Close pack'd,  and smiling in a chaise and one.
But relaxation of the languid frame,
Bv soft recumbency of outstretch'd limbs,
VYas bliss reserv'd for happier days.   So slow
The growth of what is excellent; so hard
To attain perfection in this nether world.
Thus first necessi'y invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs,
And luxury the acxnmplish'd sofa last.

  The nurse sleeps sweetly, hir'd to watch the sic
Whom snoring she disturbs.  As sweetly he
Who quits the coach-box  at the midnight hour
To sleep within the carriage more secure,
His legs depending at the open door.
Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk,
The tedious reCtor drawling o'er his head j
And sweet the clerk below.  But neither sleep
Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead,
Nor his who quits the box at midnight hour
To slumber in the carriage more secure,
Nor sleep enjoy'd by curate in his desk,
Nor yet the dozings of the clerk, are sweet,
Compar'd with the repose the  sofa yields.

  Oh may I live exempted  (while I live
Guiltless  of pamper'd appetite obscene)
From pangs arthritic, that infest the toe
Of libertine excess.  Tlv; sofa suits
The  gouty limbv 'tis true ; but gouty limb,
Though on a sofa, may I never feel :
For 1 have lov'd the rural walk through lanes
Of grassy swarth, close cropt by nibbling sheep,
And skirted thick with intertexture firm
Of thorny boughs ; have  lov'd the rural walk
O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink, 
162                THE  TASK.            Book  L
E'er since a truant boy I pass'd my bounds
To enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames ;           115
And sail remember, ncr without regret
Of hours that sorrow since has much endear'J,
How oft,  my slice of pocket-store consumed,
Still hung'ring, pennyless and far from home,
I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws,                   120
Or blushing crabs, or berries that imboss
The bramble, black as jet,  or sloes austere.
Hard fare ! but such as boyish appetite
Disdains not; nor the palate, undeprav'd
By culinary arts, unsavoury deems.                    125
No sofa then awaited my return ;
Nor sofa then I needed.  Youth repairs
His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil
Incurring short fatigue ; and, though cur years
As life declines speed rapidly away,                   130
.And not a year but pilfers as  he goes
Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep ;
A tooth cr auburn lock, and by degrees
Their length and colour from the locks they spare -t
Th' elastic spring of an unwearied foot                135
That mounts the stile with east:,  or leaps the fence,
That play of lungs, inhaling  and again
Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes
 Swift pace or steep ascent no toil to me,
 Mine have not pilfer'd yet; nor yet impair'd            140
 My relish of fair prospect; scenes that sooth'd
Or charm'd me young, no longer young, I find
 Still soothing,  and of pow'r  to charm me still.
 And witness, dear companion of my walks,
 Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive           145.
 Fast lock'd in mine, with pleasure such as love,
 Confirm'd by long experience cf thy worth
 And well-tried virtues,  could alone inspire—
 Witness a joy  that thou hast doubled long;
 Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere,        150
 And that my raptures are not conjur'd up
 To serve occasions of poetic  pomp,
 But genuine, and art partner of them all.
 How  oft, upon yon eminence, our pace
 Has slacken'dto a pause, and we have born            155
 The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
 While admiration,  feeding at the eye,
 And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
 Thence with what pleasure  have we just discern'd. 
Book  I.           THE SOFA.                 163

The distant plough slow moving, and beside            160
His lab'ring team, that swerV'd not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminish'd to a boy !
HereOuse, slow winding through a ievel plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
ConduCts the eye along his sinuous course               155
Delighted.  There,  fast rooted in their bank,
Stand,  never overlook'd, our favourite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream
1'hat, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,             170
The sloping land recedes into the clouds -r
Displaying, on its varied side, the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square  tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,                    175
Groves, heaths,  and smoking villages,  remote.
Scenes must be beautiful which,  daily view'd,
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
Praise justly due to those that I describe.                180

  Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,.
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid Nature.   Mighty winds,.
That sweep the  skirt of some far-spreading wood
Of ancient growth,  make music not unlike              185-
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ;
Unnumber'd branches waving in the blast,
And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once-
Nor less composure waits upon the roar                 190
Of distant floods, or on the softer voice
Of neighbouring fountain,  or of rills that slip
Through the cleft rock,  and chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length
In matted grass, that with a livelier green              195
Betrays the secret of their silent course.
Nature inanimate, employs sweet sounds,
But animated nature sweeter still,
To sooth and satisfy the human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and;  one           200
The live-long night: nor these alone, whose notes
Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles,  screaming loud, 
164                THE TASK.            Book I.
The jay, the pye, and even the boding owl
That hails the rising moon,  have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake.

  Peace to the artist, whose ingenious thought
Devis'd the weather-house,  that useful toy !
Fearless of humid air and gathering rains,
Forth steps the man—an emblem of myself!
More delicate, his timorous mate retires.
When Winter soaks the fields, and  female feet,
Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay,
Or ford the rivulets, are best at home,
The task of new discoveries falls on me.
At such a season, and with such a charge,
Once went I forth ; and found, till  then unknown,     220
A cottage, whither oft we since repair :
'Tis perch'd upon the green-hill top, but close
Environ'd with a ring of branching elms
That overhang the thatch,  itself unseen
Peeps at the vale below ; so thick beset                225
With foliage of such dark redundant growth,
I call'd the low-roof'd lodge the peasant's nest.
 And, hidden as it is,  and far remote
 From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear
 In village or in town, the bay of curs                  230
 Incessant clinking hammers, grinding wheels,
 And infants clamorous whether pleas'd or pain'd,
 Oft have I wish'd the peaceful covert mine.
 Here, I have said, at least I should possess
 The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge              235
 The dreams of fancy,  tranquil and secure.
 Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat
 Dearly obtains the refuge it affords.
 Its elevated site forbids the wretch
 To drink sweet waters of the crystal well j              240
 He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch,
 Ana, heavy-laden, brings his beverage home,
 Far fetch'd and little worth ; nor seldom waits,
 Dependent on the baker's punctual call,
 To hear his creaking panniers at the door,              245
 Angry  and sad, and his last crust consum'd.
 So farewel envy of the peasant's nest!
 If solitude make scant the means of life,
 Society for me!—thou seeming sweet,
210 
Book  I.           THE  SOFA.
165
Be still a pleasing objeCt in my view ;                  250
My visit still, but never mine abode.

  Not distant far, a length of colonnade
Invites us.   Monument of ancient taste,
Now scorn'd, but worthy of a better fate.
Our fathers knew the value of a screen                  255
From sultry suns ; and, in their shaded walks
And long-protraCted bowers, enjoy'd at noon
The gloom and coolness of declining day.
We bear our shades about us; self-depriv'd
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,              260
And range an Indian waste without  a tree.
Thanks to * Benevolus—he spares me yet
These chesnuts rang'd in corresponding lines ;
And, though himself so polish'd, still reprieves
The obsolete prolixity of shade.                       265

  Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast)
A sudden steep, upon a rustic  bridge
We pass a gulph, in which the willows dip
Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.
Hence, ancle-deep in moss and flowery thyme,         270'
We mount again and feel at every step
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green  and soft,
Raised by the mole,  the miner of the soil.
He, not unlike the great ones of mankind,
Disfigures earth ; and, plotting in the dark,            275
Toils much to earn a monumental pile,
That may record the mischiefs he has done.

  The summit gain'd,  behold the proud alcove
That crowns it! yet not all its pride secures
The grand retreat from injuries impress'd              280
By rural carvers, who with knives deface
The pannels, leaving an obscure, rude name,
In characters uncouth,  and spelt amiss.
So strong the zeal to immortalize himself
Beats in the breast of man, that even a few            285
From transient years, won from the  abyss abhorr'd
Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize,
And even to a clown.  Now roves the eye ;
And, posted on this  speculative height,
Exults in its command.  The sheep-fold here           290

  * John Courtney Throckmorton,  Esq. of Weston Under-
vood. 
166               THE  TASK.            Book  I.
Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.
At first, progressive as a stream,  they seek
The middle field;  but, scatter'd by degrees,
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the Land.
There, from the sun-burnt hay-field,  homeward creeps  295
The loaded wain ; while, lighten'd of its charge,
The wain that meets it passes swiftly by ;
The boorish driver leaning o'er his team
Vociferous, and impatient of delay.
Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,              300
Diversified with trees of every growth,
Alike, yet various.   Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,
Within the twilight  of their distant  shades;
There, lost behind a rising ground,  the wood          305
Seems sunk,  and shorten d to its top-most boughs.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue  peculiar ; paler some
And of a wannish gray ;  the willow  such,
 And poplar,  that with silver lines his leaf,             31§
 And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm;
 Of deeper green  the elm ; and deeper still,
 Lord of the woods,  the long-surviving oak.
 Some glossy-leav'd,  and shining in the sun,
 The maple, and the beech of oily nuts                 315
 Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
 Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass
 The sycamore, capricious in  attire,
 Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet
 Have chang'd  the woods, in scarlet honours bright.
 O'er these, but far beyond (a spacious map
 Of hill and valley interpos'd between),
 The Ouse, dividing the well-water'd land,
 Now glitters in the sun,  and now retires,
 As bashful, yet impatient to be seen.

    Hence the declivity is sharp and short,
 And such the re-ascent; between them weeps
 A little naiad her impoverish d urn
 AH summer long, which winter fills again.
 The folded  gates would bar my progress now,
 But that the * lord of this inclosd demesne,,
 Communicative of the good he owns,
 Admits me to a share: the guiltless eye
 Commits no wrong,  nor wastes what it enjoys.
320
323
330
* See the foregoing note 
Book  I.           THE  SOFA.
167
Refreshing change !  where now the blazing sun ?        335
By short transition we have lost his glare,
And stepp'd  at once into a cooler clime.
Ye fallen avenues ! once more I mourn
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice
That yet a remnant of your race survives.               340
How airy and how light the graceful arch,
Yet awful as the consecrated roof
Reechoing pious anthems ? while beneath
The chequer d earth  seems restless as a flood
Brush d by the wind.  So sportive is the light           345
Shot through the boughs,  it dances as they dance,
Shadow and  sunshine intermingling quick,
And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves
Play wanton, every  moment, every spot.

  And now,  with nerves new-brac'd and spirits cheer'd, 350
We tread the wilderness, whose well-roU'd walks,
With curvature of slow and easy sweep—
Deception innocent—give  ample space
To narrow bounds.   The grove receives us next;
Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms           355
We may discern the thresher at his task.
Thump after thump resounds the constant flail,
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls
Full on the destind ear.  Wide flies the  chaff.
The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist             360
Of  atoms, sparkling in the noon-day beam.
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down,
And sleep not: see him sweating o'er his bread
Before he  eats it.—'Tis the primal curse,
But soften'd into mercy ;  made the pledge             365
 Of cheerful  days, and nights without a groan.

  By ceasless aCtion all that is  subsists.
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel
That nature rides upon maintains her health,
Her beauty,  her  fertility.  She dreads                370
An instant's pause,  and lives but while  she moves.
Its  own revolvency  upholds the world.
Winds from all quarters agitate the air,
And fit the limpid element for use,
Else noxious: oceans,  rivers,  lakes, and streams,      375
All feel the  freshening impulse,  and are cleans'd.
By restless undulation : even the oak
Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm: 
168               THE TASK.            Book I.

He seems indeed indignant, and to feel
The impression of the blast with proud disdain,         380
Frowning,  as if in his unconscious arm
He held the thunder: but the monarch owes
His firm stability to  what he scorns—
More fixed below, the more disturb'd above.
The law, by which all creatures else are bound,          385
Binds man, the lord of all.   Himself derives
No mean advantage from a kindred cause,
From strenuous toil  his hours of sweetest ease.
The sedentary stretch their lazy length
When custom bids,  but no refreshment find,            390
For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek
Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk,
And wither'd muscle, and the vapid soul,
Reproach their owner with that love of rest
To which he forfeits even  the rest he loves.             395
Not such the alert and active.   Measure life
By its true worth, the comforts it affords,
And their's alone seems worthy of the name.
Good health, and,  its associate in most,
Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake,             400
And not soon spent, though in an arduous task;
The pow'rs of fancy and strong thought are their's;
Even age itself seems privileg'd in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front              405
The veteran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave
Sprightly,  and old almost without decay.

   Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Farthest retires—an idol,  at whose shrine              410
Who oftenest sacrifice are favour'd least.
The love of nature  and the scenes she draws,
Is nature's dictate.   Strange !  there should be found,
Who, self-imprison'd in their proud saloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field                  415
For the unscented fictions of the loom;
Who, satisfied with only pencil'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God
The  inferior wonders of an artist's hand !
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;                 420
But Nature's works far lovelier.  I admire—
None more admires—the painter's magic skill,
Who shows me that which I shaU never see. 
 Book I.            THE  SOFA.                 169

Conveys  a distant country into mine,
And throws Italian light on English walls :            425
But imitative strokes can do no more
Than please the eye—sweet Nature every sense.
The  air salubrious of her lofty hills,
The  cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And music  of her woods—no  works of man            430
May rival these ; these all bespeak a power
Peculiar,  and exclusively her  own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;
'Tjs  free  to all—'tis every day renew'd;
Who scorns it starves deservedly at home.             435
He does not scorn it, who, imprison'd long  ,
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To sallow sickness,  which the vapours; dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:                    440
His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue ;              ;
His eye relumines its extinguished fires ;
He walks, he leaps, he runs—is wing'd with joy,
And riots in the sweets of every breeze.
He does not scorn it who has  long endur'd             445
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam'd
With acrid  salts ;  his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possess'd          450
With visions prompted by intense desire :               •
Fair  fields appear below, such as he left
Far distant,  such as he would die to find—
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.
                                                     \
  The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ;        455
The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown,
And  sullen sadness,  that o'ershad'e,  distort,
And  mar, the face of beauty,  when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears ;
These Flora banishes,  and gives the fair               460
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
It is  the constant revolution,  stale
And  tasteless,  of the same repeated joys,
That palls and satiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down.           465
Health suffers, and the spirits ebb ; the heart
Recoils from its own choice—at the full feast
Is famish'd—finds no music in the song,
                            P 
170
THE TASK.
Book  I.
 No-smartness in the jest;  and wonders why.
 Yet thousands still desire to journey on,                470
 Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.
 The paralytic, who can hold her cards,
 But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand
 To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort,
 Her mingled suits and sequences  ; and sits,             475
 Spectatress both and speftacle, a  sad
 And silent cipher,  while her proxy plays.
 Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
 Between supporters ; and, once seated, sit,
 Through downright inability to rise,                   48Q
 Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again.
 These speak a loud memento.  Yet even these
 Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
 That overhangs a torrent, to a twig.
 They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die,             485
 Yet scorn the purposes for which they live.
 Then wherefore not renounce them ?  No—the dread
 The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds
 Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,
 And their inveterate habits, all forbid.                490

   Whom call we gay ? That honour has been long
 The boast of mere pretenders to the name.
 The innocent are gay—the lark is gay,
 That dries his feathers, saturate  with dew,
 Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams           495
 Pf day-spring overshoot his humble nest.
 The peasant too, a witness of his song,
 Himself a songster, is as gay as he.
 But save me from the gaiety of those
 Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed ;        500
. And save me too from their's whose haggard eyes
 Flash desperation,  and betray their pangs
 For property stripp'd off by cruel chance ;
 From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,
 The mouth with blasphemy, the heart wi'th  woe.       <505

   The. earth was made so various,  that the mind
 Of desultory man, studious of change,
 And pleas'd with ncvelty,  might be indulr'd
 **?.*?**?' however lovely, may be seen
 i ill half their beauties fade ;  the weary sight,          MO
 Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off
 Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes 
Book I.           THE SOFA.                 171

Then snug enclosures in the shelter'd vale,
Where frequent hedges intercept the eye,
Delight us ;  happy to renounce awhile,                515
Not senseless of its charms, what still we love,
That such short absence may endear it more.
Then  forests, or the savage rock,  may please,
That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts
Above the reach of man.   His hoary head,            520
Conspicuous many a league,  the mariner,
Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with  three cheers exulting.   At his waist
A girdle of half-wither'd shrubs he shows,
And at his feet the baffled billows die.                 525
The common,  overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that,  shapeless and  deform'd,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its  bloom
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleasing ramble ; there the  turf           530
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets.

   There often wanders one, whom better days
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd              535
With lace, and hat with splendid ribband  bound.
A serving maid was she,  and fell  in love
With one who left her,  went to sea, and died.
Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves
To distant shores ; and she would sit and weep          540
 At what a sailor suffers ;  fancy, too,
 Delusive most where warmest wishes are,
 Would oft anticipate his glad return,
 And dream  of transports she was not to  know.
 She heard the doleful tidings of his death—            545
 And never smil'd again !  And now she  roams
The dreary waste ; there spends the livelong day.
 And  there,  unless when charity forbids,
 Th- K-,oio~s ~;sk„.   .A.c__.'a_r---i.ij__,
 Worn as the cloak,  and hardly hides, a gowu          55Q
 More tatter'd still ; and both but  ill conceal
 A bosom heav'd with never-ceasing sighs.
 She begs an idle pin of all she meets,
 And hoards them in her sleeve ;  V»ut needful food,
 Though press'd with hunger oft,  or coi nelier cloth,      55&
 Tho' pinch'd with cold, asks never.—Kate is craz'd! 
172
THE TASK.
Book  I.
  I see a column of slow rising smoke
O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal.  A kettle, slung                560
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel—flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermine,  or, at best, of cock purloin'd
From his accustom'd perch.  Hard-faring race !
They pick their fuel out of every hedge,                565
Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquench'd
The spark  of life.  The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shews a tawny skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.
Great skill  have they in palmistry, and more           570
To conjure clean away the gold they touch,
Conveying worthless dross into its place;
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal.
Strange! that a creature rational, and cast
In human mould, should brutalize by choice           575
His nature ;  and, though capable of arts
By which the world might profit, and himself,
Self-banish'd from society,  prefer
Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!
Yet even these, though, feigning sickness oft,          580
They swathe the forehead,  drag the limping limb,
And vex their flesh with artificial sores,
Can change their whine into a mirthful note
When safe occasion  offers ; and, with dance,
And music of the bladder and the bag,                585
Beguile their woes,  and make the woods resound.
Such health  and gaiety of heart enjoy
The houseless rovers of the sylvan world ;
And, breathing wholesome air,  and wand'ring much,
Need other physic none to heal th' effects             590
Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

   Elest he,  though undistinguished from the croud
By_w£alth-^ti^0HX'**r- -»»»i".J.u^Jlc c*hmh-*».
Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside
His fierceness; having learnt, though slow to learn,     595
The manners and the arts of civil life.
His wants, indeed,  are many ; but supply
Is obvious, plac'd within the easy reach
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands.
Here virtue thrives,  as in her proper soil;             600
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns. 
Book  I.            THE SOFA.
173
And terrible to sight,  as when she springs
(If e'er she springs spontaneous) in remote
And barbarous climes, where violence prevails,
And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind,           605
By culture tam'd,  by liberty refresh'd,
And all her fruits  by radiant truth matur'd.
War and the chase engross the savage whole ;
War follow'd for revenge,  or to supplant
The envied tenants of some happier spot:              610
The chase for sustenance,  precarious trust !
His hard condition with severe constraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learr.s
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,                   615
Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside.
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north,
And thus the rangers of the western world,
Where it advances far into the deep,
Towards the antarCtic.  Even the favour'd isles,        620
So lately found, although the constant sun
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile,
Can boast hut little virtue ; and, inert,
Through plenty, lose in morals,  what they gain
In manners—victims of luxurious ease.                 625
These, therefore,  I can pity, plac'd remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or inspirarion teaches ; and enclosed
In boundless oceans,  never to be pass'd
By navigators uninformed as they ;                     630
Or plough'd perhaps by British bark again :
But, far beyond the rest, and with most cause,
Thee, gentle* savage ! whom no love of thee
Or thine, but curiosity, perhaps,
Or else vain glory, prompted us to draw                635
Forth from thy navive bowers to shew thee here
With what superior skill we can abuse
The gifts of Providence, and squander life.
The dream is past;  and thou hast found again           _
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,              640
And homestall thatch'd with leaves.  But hast thou found
Their former charms ? And,  having seen our State,
Our palaces,  our ladies, and our pomp
Of equipage, our gardens,  and our  sports,
And heard our music ;  are thy simple friends,           045
* Omai.
  p 2 
174
THE TASK.            Book  I.
Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights,
As dear to thee as once .' And have thy joys
Lost nothing by comparison with our's ?
Rude as thou art, (for we return'd thee rude
And ignorant, except of outward show)               650
I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart
And spiritless, as never to regret
Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known.
Methinks I  see thee straying on the beach,
And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot           655
If ever it has wash'd our distant shore.
I- see thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
A patriot's for his country : thou art sad
At thought of her forlorn and abjeCt state,
From which no power of thine can raise her up.         660
Thus fancy paints thee,  and, though apt to err,
Perhaps errs little when she paints  thee thus.
She tells me, too,  that duly every morn
Thou climb.'st the mountain top, with eager eye
Exploring far and wide the watery  waste              665
For sight of ship from England.  Every speck
Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale
With conflict of contending hopes and fears.
But comes at last the dull and dusky eve,
And sends thee to thy cabin,  well prepar'd             670
To dream all night of what the day denied.
Alas ' expeCt it not.   We found no bait
To tempt us in thy country.   Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.
We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought;           675
And must be brib'd, to  compass earth again,
By other hopes, and richer fruits, than your's.

   But, though true worth and virtue in the mild
And genial soil  of cultivated life
Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there ;      680
Yet not in cities oft:  in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities.  Thither flow,
As to a common and  most noisome sewer,
The  dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on most minds                  685
Begets its likeness.  Rank abundance breeds
In gross and pamper'd cities sloth and lust,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is  hidden with most ease,
Or seen with least reproach ; and virtue, taught       690 
Book I.           THE  SOFA.                 175

By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond the atchievement of successful flight.
I do confess them nurseries of the arts,
In which they flourish most;  where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye              695
Of public note,  they reach their perfect size.
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd
The fairest capital of all the world;
By riot and incontinence the  worst.
There, touch'd by Reynolds,  a dull blank becomes      700
A lucid mirror,  in which Nature sees
All her reflected features.  Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble  lips.
Nor does the chissel occupv alone                     705
The powers of sculpture, but the style as much ;
Each  province of her art her equal care.
With nice incision of her guided steel
She ploughs a brazen field, and cloathes a soil
So sterile with what  charms  so'er she will,             716
The richest scenery and the lovliest forms.
Where finds philosophy her eagle eye,
With which she gazes at yon burning disk
Undazzled, and detects and counts his  spots ?
In London: where her implements exaCt,              715
With which she calculates, computes,  and scans,
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now
Measures an atom, and now  girds a  world ?
In London.  Where has commerce such a mart,
So rich, so throng'd,  so drain'd, and so supplied,       720
As London—opulent, enlarg'd,  and still
Increasing London ?  Babylon of old
Not more the  glory of the earth  than she,
A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now.

  She has her praise.   Now  mark a spot or two,        725-
That  so much beauty would do well to purge ;
And show this queen of cities,  that so fair
May yet be foul ; so witty, yet not wise.
It is not seemly, nor  of good report,
That she is slack in discipline ;  more prompt           730
To avenge, than to prevent,  the breach of law j
That  she is rigid in denouncing death
On petty robbers, and indulges life
And liberty, and oft-times honour too,
To peculators of the public gold;                      73S 
176                THE  TASK.            Book  1.

That thieves at home must hang ;  hut he, that puts
Into his overgorg'd and bloated purse
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor it is well, nor can it come to  good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ,  she has presum'dto  annul
And abrogate, as roundly as she may,
The total ordinance and will of God ;
Advancing fashion to the post of truth,
And centering all authority in modes
And customs  of her own, till sabbath rites
Have dwindled into unrespeCted forms,
And knees and hassocs are well-nigh divorc'd.

 '  God made the country, and man made the town.
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts         750
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound,
And least be threaten'd, in the fields and groves >
Possess ye, therefore, ye, who, borne about
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue               755
But that of idleness,  and taste no  scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only can ye shine ;
There only minds like your's can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon             760
The pensive wanderer in their shades.   At eve
The moon-beam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish;
Birds warbling all the music.  We can spare
The splendour of your lamps; they bir eclipse          765
Our softer satellite.  Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the  thrush departs
Scar'd, and the offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth ;
It plagues your country.  Folly such as your's,          770
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire,  stedfast but-for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall.
740
745 
 
ARGUMENT  OF THE SECOND BOOK\

Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the for-
  mer book.—Peace among  the  nations  recom-
  mended, on the ground of their common fellow-
  ship in sorrow.—Prodigies enumerated.—Sici-
  lian earthquakes.—Man  rendered obnoxious to
  these calamitses by sin.—God the agent in them.
  —The philosophy that stops at secondary causes
  reproved.—Our own late miscarriages account-
  ed for.—Satirical notice taken of our trips to
  Fountainbleau.—But the pulpit, not satire, the
  proper engine of reformation.— The Reverend
  Advertiser of engraved sermons.—Petit-maitre
  parson.—The good preacher.—Pictures of a
  theatrical clerical coxcomb.   Story-tellers and
  jesters in the pulpit reproved.—Apostrophe to
  popidar applause.—Retailers of ancient philoso-
  phy expostulated-with.—Sum of the whole mat-
   ter.—Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement on
   the laity.—Their folly and extravagance.—
   The mischief9 of profusion.—Profusion itself,
   with all its consequent ev':ls,  ascribed,  as to its
   principal cause, to the want of discipline in the
   universities. 
*
BOOK  II.
             THE  TIME-PIECE.



    \^/H for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless continuity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.   My ear is pain'd,           5
My soul is sick, with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage, with which earth.is fill'd.
There is.no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It dees not feel for man ; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax                    1Q
That falls asunder at the touch of fire,
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own ; and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.               15
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other.  Mountains interpos'd
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops,  been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ;             20
And,  worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and  exaCts his sweat
With stripes,  that mercy,  with a bleeding heart,
Weeps, when t»he sees inflicted on a beast.              Q5 
180               THE  TASK.          Book II.

Then what is man ?  And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings,  does not blush,
And hang his head,  to think himself a man ?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me,  to fan  me while 1 sleep,                   30
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought  and sold have ever earn'd.
No : dear as freedom is,  and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above  all price,
I had much rather be myself the  slave,                  35
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home.—Then why abroad ?
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and  loos'd.
Slaves cannot breathe in England ;  if their lungs        40
Receive our air,  that moment they are free ;
They touch our country,  and their  shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks  a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing.   Spread it then,
 And let it circulate  through  every vein                  45
Of all your empire ; that, where Britain's pow'r
Is felt,  mankind may feel her mercy too.

   Sure there is need of social intercourse,
 Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid,
Between the nations,  in a world that seems             50
To toll the death-bell of its own decease,
 And by the voice of all its elements
 To preach the general doom*. When were the winds
 Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ?
 When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap              55
 Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ?
 Fires from beneath, and mefeorsf  from above,
 Portentous,  unexampled, unexplain'd,
 Have kindled beacons in the skies ; and the old
 And crazy earth has had her shaking fits                60
 More frequent,  and foregone her usual rest.
 Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
 And pillars of our planet seem to fail,
 And Nature ^ with a dim and sickly eye,
 To wait the close of all ! But grant her end             65
 More distant, and  that prophecy demands

   * Alluding to the calamities at Jamaica.
   + August  18, 1783.
   ^ Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Asia
^uring the whole summer of 1783. 
Book  II.     THE  TIME-PIECE.            181

A longer respite, unaccomplish'd yet;
Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak
Displeasure in his breast who smites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.                70
And 'tis but seemly, that,  where all deserve
And stand expos'd by  common peccancy
To what no few have felt,  there should be peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.

  Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now                 75
Lie scatter'd where the shapely column stood.
Her palaces are dust.  In all her streets
The voice of singing and the sprightly chord
Are silent.  Revelry,  and dance, and show
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause ;                    ' 80
While God performs,  upon the trembling stage
Of his own works, his dreadful part, alone.
flow does the earth receive him ?—With what signs
Of gratulation and delight, her king ?
Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad,             85
Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums,
Disclosing paradise  where'er he treads ?
She quakes at his approach.   Her hollow womb,
Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps,
And fiery caverns, roars beneath his feet.               90
The hills move lightly, and the mountains  smoke,
For he has touch'd them.   From the extremest point
Of elevation, down into the abyss
His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt.
The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rise,            95
The rivers die into offensive pools,
And charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a gross
And mortal nuisance into all the air.
What solid was, by  transformation strange,
Grows fluid ; and the fixt and rooted earth,            109
Tormented into billows,  heaves and swells,
Or, with vortiginous and hideous whirl,
Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
And agonies of human and of brute                    10S
Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry side,
And fugitive in vain.  The sylvan scene
Migrates uplifted ;  and, with  all its soil
Alighting in far distant fields,  finds out
A new possessor, and survives the change.            Hi
Ocean has caught the  frenzy, and, upwrought 
182                THE  TASK.          Book II.

To an enormous and o'erbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Resistless.   Never such a sudden flood,                115
Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge,
Possess'd an inland scene.   Where now the throng
That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart,
Look'dto the sea for safety ?  They are £<me,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep—            120
A prince with half his people!  Ancient towers,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes
Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume
Life in the unproductive shades of death,
Fall prone:  the pale inhabitants come forth,            125
And, happy in  their unforeseen release
From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day that sets them free.
Who, then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast,
Freedom ! whom they that lose thee so regret,          130
That even a judgment, making way for thee,
Seems, in their eyes, a mercy, for thy sake.

   Such evil sin hath wrought; and such a flame
Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth,
And, in  the furious inquest that it makes               135
On God's behalf,  lays waste his fairest  works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minister of man, to serve his  wants,
Conspire against him.  With his breath he draws
A plague into his blood ; and cannot use               140
Life's necessary means, but he must die.
Storms rise to o'erwhelm him:  or,  if stormy  winds
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And,  needing none assistance of the storm,
Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there.       145
The earth shall  shake him  out of all his holds,
Or make his house his grave :  nor so content,
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulphs.
What then !—were they the wicked above all,          150
And we the righteous,  whose fast anchcr'd isle
"aov'J not, while their's was rock'd,  like a light skiff,
The sport of ev'ry wave ? No : none are clear,
And none than we more guilty.  Buv where all
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts          155
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark: 
Book  II.     THE  TIME-PIECE.

May punish, if he please, the less, to warn
The more malignant.  If he spar'd not them,
Tremble and be amaz'd at thine escape,
Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee !

  Happy the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good  a.;d ill that chequer life !
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold  results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things,  a.id intend
The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate ) ; could chance
Find place in his  dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to ihwart his plan ;
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his  affairs.
This truth philosophy, though eagle-ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ;
And, having found his instrument, forgets,
Or disregards,  or more presumptuous still,
Denies the power that wields it.  God proclaims
His hot displeasure  against foolish men,
That live an atheist life : involves the heaven          180
In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury ;  bids a plague
Kindle a fiery  boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the  breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine,  and the meagre fiend              185
Blows mildew  from between his shriveled lips,
And taints the golden ear.   He springs his mines,
And desolates  a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs                190
And principles ;  of causes, how they work,
By necessary laws,  their sure effeCts ;
Of aCtion and re-aClion.   He has found
The source of the disease  that nature  feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.         195
Thou fool!  will thy discovery of the cause
Suspend the effect,  or heal it ?  Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world ?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it ?  What is his creation less                200
Than a capacious reservoir of means
160
165
170 
184                THE TASK.           Book  II.

Form'd for his use, and ready at his will ?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.        205

  England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
My country !  and,  while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee.   Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year  most part deform'd              210
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange  thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.              215
To shake thy senate, and, from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence, to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task :
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart             229
As any thunderer there.  And I can feel
Thy follies,  too ; and, with a just disdain,
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the land  I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,             225
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl,  all essenc'd o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight ; when such as these   23ft
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause ?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born uer children.  Praise enough       235
To fill th' ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell, with them,
The hope of such hereafter ! They have fallen,          24ft
Each in his field of glory ;  one in arms,
And one in council—Wolfe, upon the lap
Of smiling victory that  moment won,
And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame !
They made us many soldiers.  Chatham, still           245
Consulting England's happiness at home, 
 Book II.      i'HE  TIME-PIECE.            185

 Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown,
 If any wrong'd her.  Wolfe, where'er he fought,
 Put so much of his heart into his act,
 That his  example had a magnet's force,                250
 And all were swift to follow whom  all lov'd.
 Those suns are set.   Oh, rise some other such !
 Or all that we  have left is empty talk
 Of old achievements, and despair of new.

  Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float         255
 Upon  the wanton breezes.  Strew the deck
 With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets,
 That no rude savour maritime invade
 The nose of nice ncbility ! Breathe soft,
 Ye clarionets ;  and softer still, ye flutes ;               260
 That winds and waters, lull'd by magic sounds,
 May bear us smoothly to the  Gallic  shore !
 True, we have lost an empire—let it pass.
 True we may thank the perfidy of France,
 That pick"d the jewel out of England's crown,         265
 Wich  all the cunning of an envious shrew.
 And let that pass—'twas but  a trick of state !
 A brave man knows no malice, but  at once
 Forgets in peace the injuries of war,
 And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace.            270
 And,  shain'd as we have been, to the very beard,
 Brav'd and defied,  and in our own sea prov'd
 Too weak for those decisive blows that once
 t'.nsur'd us mastery there, we yet retain
 Some small pre-eminence ;  we justly boas,t             275
 At least superior jockeyship,  and claim
 The honours of the turf as all our own \
 Go, then, well worthy of the praise ye seek,
 And show the  shame ye might conceal at home
 In foreign eyes  !—be grooms, and win the plate         230
 Where once  your nobler fathers won a crown !—
 'Tis generous to communicate your skill
To those that need it.  Folly  is soon learn'd :
 And, under such preceptors,  who can fail !

  There is a pleasure in poetic pains                   585
W!rch only poets know.  The shifts and turns,
The expedients and inventions multiform,
To which the mind resorts, in chase of term3
Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to wia—
To an est the fleeting images  that fill                   £9*
                          a* 
136                THE TASK.          Book  II.

The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,
Aad force them sit till he has pencil'd off
A faithful likeness of the forms he views ;
Then to dispose his copies with such art,
That  each may find its most propitious light,            295
And shine by situation, hardly less
Than by the labour and the skill it cost;
Are occupations of the poet's mind
So  pleasing, and that steal away the thought
With such address from themes of sad import,          300
That, lost in his own musings, happy man !
 He feels the anxieties of life,  denied
 Their wonted entertainment, all retire.
 Such joys has  he that sings.  But ah ! not such,
 Or seldom such,  the hearers of his song.               305
 Fastidious, or else listless,  or perhaps
 Aware of nothing arduous in a task
 They never undertook, ihey little note
 His dangers or escapes, and haply find
 There least amusement where he found the most.        310
 But  is amusement all ? studious of song,
 And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,
 I would not trifle merely, though the world
 Be loudest in their praise who do no more.
 Yet  what can  satire, whether grave or gay ?             315
 It may correCt a foible, may chastise
 The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,
  Retrench a sword-blade,  or displace a patch ;
  But where are its sublimer trophies found ?
  What vice has it subdu'd ?  whose heart reclaim'd       320
  By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform ?
  Alas !  Leviathan is not  so tam'd :
  Laughed at,  he laughs again ; and, stricken hard,
  Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
  That fear no discipline of human hands.               325

    The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd
  With solemn awe,  that bids me well beware
  With what intent I touch that holy thing)—
  The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
  Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,            330
  Spent all his force and made no proselyte)—
  I say the pulpit  (in the  sober use
  Of its legitimate, peculiar powers)
  Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand,
  The most important and effectual guard,               335 
Book  II.      THE TIME-PIECE.             187

Support,  and ornament, of virtue's cause.
There stands the messenger of truth : there stands
The legate of the skies !—His theme divine,
His office sacred, his credentials clear.
By him the violated law speaks out                     340
Its thunders ; and by him, in strains as sweet
As angels use, the gospel whispers peace.
He  stablishes the strong, restores the weak,
Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,
And,  arm'd himself in panoply complete               345
Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms,
Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule
Of holy discipline, to glorious war,
The sacramental host of God's eleCt!
 Are all such teachers ?—would to heav'n all were !      350
But hark !  the doctor's voice !—fast wedg'd between
Two empirics he stands, and with swoln cheeks
Inspires the news, his trumpet.  Keener far
Than all invective is his bold harangue,
While through that public organ of report              355
He hails the clergy ; and,  defying  shame,
 Announces to the world his own and their's !
 He teaches those to read, whom schools dismiss'd,
 And colleges, untaught; sells accent,  tone,
 And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer            360
 The adagio and andante it  demands.
 He grinds divinity of other days
 Down into modern use ; transforms old print
 To zig-zag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
 Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.                  365
 Are there who purchase of the doctor's ware ?
 Oh, name  it not in Gath !—it cannot be,
 That grave and learned clerks should need such aid.
 He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll,
 Assuming thus a rank unknown before—               370
 Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church  !

   I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
 Whose hands are pure, whose doCtrine and whose life,
 Coincident, exhibit lucid  proof
 That he is honest in the sacred cause.                  375
 To such I  render more than mere respect,
 Whose actions say that they respeCt themselves.
 But, loose in morals, and in manners vain,
 In conversation frivolous, in dress
 Extreme,  at once rapacious and profuse ;               380 
183                THE TASK.           Book  IT.

Frequent in park with lady at his side,
Ambling and pratling scandal as he goes ;
But rare at home, and never at his books,
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls  a card ;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round                385
Of ladyships—a stranger to the poor;
Ambitious of preferment for its gold,
And well prepar'd, by ignorance and sloth,
By infidelity and love of the world,
To make God's work a sinecure ;  a slave               390
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride :—
From such, apostles,  oh, ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church ! and lay not careless hands
On sculls that cannot teach, and will not learn.

  Would I describe a preacher,  such as Paul,          395
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own—
Paul should himself direCt me.  I would trace
His master strokes,  and draw from his  design.
I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doCtrine uncorrupt; in language plain,               40Q
And plain in manner; decent, solemn,  chaste,
And natural in gesture ; much impress'd
Himself,  as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the fleck he feeds
May feel it too ; affectionate in look,                    405
And tender in address,  as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty men.
Behold the picture !—Is it like ?—Like whom ?'•
The things that mount the rostrum with a  skip,
And then skip down- again ; pronounce a text ;         410
Cry—hem; and, reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene !

   In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers                  415
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affeCtation   'Tis my perfect scorn ;
ObjeCt of my implacable disgust.
What!—will a man play tricks,  will he indulge
A silly fond conceit of his fair form,                    420
And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face,  in presence of his God ?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,. 
Book II.      THE TIME-PIECE.
189
 And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,             425
 When I am hungry for the bread of life ?
 He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shamca
 His noble office, and,  instead of truth,
 Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock !
 Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare,                430
 And start theatric, practised at the glass !
 I seek divine simplicity in him
 Who handles things divine ;  and all besides,
 Though learn'd with labour, and though much admir'd
 By curious eyes and judgments ill-inform'd,             435
 To me is odious as the nasal twang
 Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
 Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
 Through the prest nostril, speCtacle-bestrid.
 Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,          440
 That task perform'd,  relapse into themselves ;
 And, having spoken wisely,  at  the close
 Grow wanton,  and give proof to ev'ry eye—
 Whoe'er  was edified,  themselves were  not !
 Forth comes the pocket mirror.—First we stroke        445
 An eye-brow ;  next,  compose a strangling lock ;
 Then with an air most gracefully perform'd,
 Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,
 And lay it at its ease with gentle care,
 With handkerchief in hand depending low :            45Q
 The better hand, more busy, gives the  nose
 Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye
 With opera glass,  to watch the  moving scene,
 And recognize  the slow-retiring fair.—
 Now this is fulsome ;  and offends me more             455
 Than in a churchman  slovenly negleCt
 And rustic coarseness  would.  An  heavenly mind
 May be indifferent to her house of clay,
 And slight the hovel as beneath  her care ;
 But how a body so phantasnc, trim,                   460
 And quaint, in its deportment and attire,
 Can lodge an heavenly mind—demands a doubt.

  He that negociates between God and  man,
 As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware              465
Of lightness in his r.peech.   'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;
To break  a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation;  and to address 
19
THE TASK.          Book  II.
The skittish fancy with facetious tales,                470
When sent with God's commission to the heart!
So did net Paul.  DireCt me to a quip
Or merry  turn in all he ever wrote,
And I consent you take it for your text,
Your only one,  till sides and benches fail.              375
No: he was serious in a  serious cause,
And understood too well the weighty terms
That he had ta'en in charge.   He would not stoop
To conquer those by jocular exploits,
Whom truth and soberness assail'd in vain.            480

  Oh, popular applause ! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet  seducing charms  ?
The wis'est and the best  feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales ;
But,  swell'd into a gust—who then, alas !             485
With all  his canvass set, and inexpert,
And therefore heedless,  can withstand thy power!
Praise from the shrivel'd Dps of toothless, bald
Decrip'tude ;  and in the looks of lean
And craving poverty ; and in the bow                490
RespeCtful of the smutch'd artificer ;
Is oft too welcome, and  may much  disturb
The bias  of the purpose.  How much more,
Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite,
In language soft  as adoration breathes ?                495
 Ah,  spare your idol! think him human still.
 Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!
 Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.

   All truth is from the sempiternal source
 Of light divine.  But Egypt, Greece, and Rome,      500
 Drew from the stream below.  More favour'd, we
 Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.
 To them it flow'd much mingled and defil'd
With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams
Illusive of philosophy, so call'd,                       505
But falsely.  Sages after sages strove
 In vain to filtre off a crystal draught
 Pure from the lees, which often more enhane'd
The  thirst than slak'd it, and not seldom bred
Intoxication and delirium wild.                        510
In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth
 And spring-time ofjthe world; ask'd, Whence is man!
 Why form'd at all ? and wherefore  as he is ? 
Book  II.      THE TIME-PIECE.             191

Where must he find his Maker ? with what rites
Adore him ? Will he hear,  accept, and bless.'          515
Or does he sit regardless of his works ?
Has man within him an immortal  seed ?
Or does the tomb take all ? If he survive
His ashes, where ? and in what weal or woe ?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone                 520
A deity could solve.  Their answers, vague.
And all at random, fabulous, and dark,
Left them as dark themselves.   Their rules of life,
Defective and unsanCtion'd, prov'd too weak
To bind the roving appetite, and lead                 525
Blind nature to  a God not yet reveal'd.
'Tis revelation satisfies all doubts,
Explains all mysteries, except her  own,
And so illuminates,  the path of life,
That fools discover it, and stray no more.              530
Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,
My man of morals, nurtur'd in the shades
Of Academus—is this false  or true ?
Is Christ the abler teacher,  or the  schools ?
If Christ, then  why resort at every turn                535
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occasions, when in him reside
Grace,  knowledge, comfort—an unfathom'd store ?
How oft, when Paul has  serv'd us with a text,
Has EpiCtetus,  Plato, Tully, preach'd!                540
Men that, if now  alive, would sit content
And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,
Preach it who might.  Such was their love  of truth,
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too!

  And thus it is.—The pastor, either vain             545
By nature, or by flattery made so, taught
To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt
Absurdly, not his  office, but himself;
Or unenlighten'd,  and too proud to learn ;
Or vicious,  and not therefore apt to teach ;             550
Perverting often, by the stress of lewd
And loose example, whom he should instruCt ;
Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace,
The noblest function, and discredits much
The brightest truths that  man has ever seen.           555
For ghostly council; if it either fall
Below  the exigence, or be not back'd
With show of love, at least with hopeful proof 
192                THE  TASK.          Book II.

Of some sincerity on the giver's part;
Or be dishonour'd, in the exterior form                560
And mode of its conveyance, by such tricks
As  move derision, or by foppish airs
And histrionic mummery,  that let down
The pulpit to the level of the stage ;
Drops from the lips a disregarded thing.               565
The weak perhaps are mov'd,  but are not taught,
While prejudice in men of stronger minds
Takes deeper root,  confirm'd by what they see.
A relaxation of religion's hold
Upon the roving and untutor'd heart                  570
Soon follows, and the curb of conscience snapt,
The laity run wild.—But do they now ?
Note their extravagance, and be convinc'd.

  As nations ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one,  so we, no longer taught               575
By monitors that mother church supplies,
Now make our own.  Posterity will ask
(If e'er posterity see verse of mine)
Some fifty or an hundred lustrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days ?                580
My very gentle  reader, yet unborn,
Of whom I needs must augur better things,
Since heaven would sure grow weary of a world
 Productive only of a race like our^,
 A  monitor is wood—plank shaven thin.                £85
 We wear it at our backs.   There,  closely brac'd
 And neatly fitted, it compresses hard
 The prominent  and most unsightly bones,
 And binds the shoulders flat.  We prove its use
 Sovereign and most effectual to secure                  590
 A  form not now gymnastic as of yore,
 From rickets and distortion, else our lot.
 But, thus  admonish'd, we can walk ereCt
 One proof at least of manhood ! while the friend
 Sticks close, a  Mentor worthy of his charge.           595
 Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore,
 And by caprice as multiplied as his,
 Just please us while the fashion is at full,
 But change with every moon.   The sycophant,
 Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date ;           600
 Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye ;
 Finds one ill made, another obsolete,
 This fits not nicely, that is ill conceiv'd ; 
Book  II.     THE  TIME-PIECE.             193

And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.                 605
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.   We have run
Through every change that fancy, at the loom
Exhausted, has had genius to supply ;
And, studious of mutation still, discard                610
A real elegance, a little us'd,
For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.
We sacrifice to dress,  till household joys
And comforts cease.   Dress drains our cellar dry.
And keeps our larder lean ; puts out our fires ;          615
And introduces hunger,  frost, and wo,
Where peace and hospitality  might reign.
What man that lives,  and that knows how to live,
Would fail to exhibit at  the public shows
A form as splendid as the proudest there,               620
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost ?
A man o' th' town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecast and dispatch,
To  insure a  side-box station at half price.
You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress,              625
His daily fare as delicae.   Alas !
He  picks clean teeth,  and,  busy  as he seems
With an old tavem quill, is hungry yet.!
The rout is foil..'s circle, which she draws
With magic wand.  So  potent is the spell,             630
That none,  decoy'd into that fa'al ring,
Unless by hea -en's peculiar grace, escape ;
Tii'-re we grow early gray,  but never wise ;
There form  connexions, but acquire no friend ;
Solicit  pleasure, hopeless of success ;                   63$
W.ijte youth in occupations only fit
For second childhood, and devote old age
To sports which only  childhood could excuse.
There they are happiest who  dissemble best
Their weariness ;  and they the most polite,              640
Who squander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own destruction.  She, that asks
Her dear live hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming.  They (what can they less ?)
Make just reprisals ;  and,  with cringe and shrug,       645
And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy,  downward from her grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,
 And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, 
194                 THE TASK.           Book  II.

To her who, frugal only that her thrift                 650
May feed excesses she can ill afford,
Is hackney'd home unlacquey'd ;  who, in haste
Alighting, turns the key in her own door,
And,  at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.                  655
Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives,
On fortune's velvet altar offering up
Their last poor pittance—fortune, most severe
Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far
Than all that held  their routs in Juno's heaven.—       660
So fare we in this  prison-house,  the world.
And 'tis a fearful  spectacle to see
So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast,
With eyes of anguish,  execrate their lot,               665
Then shake them in despair, and dance  again !

  Now basket up  the family of plagues
That waste our vitals ;  peculation, sale
Of honour, perjury, corruption,  frauds
By forgery, by subterfuge of law,                      670
By tricks and lies  as numerous and as keen
As the necessities their authors feel;
Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat
At the right door.  Profusion is the sire.
Profusion unrestrain'd, with all  that's base             675
In character, has litter'd all the land,
And bred, within  the memory of no few,
A priesthood such as Baal's was of old,
A people such as never was till now.
It is a hungry vice :—it eats up all                     680
That gives society its beauty, strength,
Convenience, and security,  and  use :
?4akes men mere vermine,  worthy to be trapp'd
And gibbeted as fast as catchpole claws
Can seize the slippery prey : unties the knot           685
Of union, and converts the sacred band,
That holds mankind together, to a scourge.
Profusion, deluging a  state with lusts
Of grossest nature and of worst effeCts,
Prepares it for its ruin: hardens, blinds,              690
And warps, the consciences of public men,
Till they can laugh at virtue ; mock the fools
That trust them ;  and,  in the end, disclose a face
That would have shock'd credulity herself, 
Book II.      THE  TIME-PIECE.             195

Unmask'd,  vouchsafing this their sole excuse—         695
Since all alike are selfish, why not they ?
This does profusion, and the  accursed cause
Of such deep mischief, has itself a cause.

  In colleges and halls,  in ancient days,
When learning,  virtue,  piety, and truth               703
Were precious, and inculcated with care,
There dwelt a sage  call'd Discipline.   His head,
N<>r yet by  time completely silver'd o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong  for service still, and unimpair'd.             705
His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile
Play'd on his lips ;  and  in his speech was  heard
Paternal sweetness, dignity,  and love.
The occupation dearest to his heart
Was to encourage goodness.  He would stroke          710
The head of modest and ingenious  worth,
That blush'd at its own  praise ; and press  the youth
Close to his aide that pleas'd  him.   Learning grew
Beneath his care, a thriving vigorous plant ;
The mind was well  inform'd,  the passions held          715
Subordinate, and diligence was choice.
If e'er it chane'd, as sometimes chance it must,
That one, among so many, overleap'd
The limits  of controul, his gentle eye
Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke :               720
His frown  was full  of terror,  and his voice
Shook the  delinquent with such  fits of awe
As left him not, till penitence had won
Lost favour back again, and  clos'd the breach.
But Discipline,  a faithful servant  long,                725
Declin'd at length into the vale of  years :
A palsy struck his arm ; his sparkling eye
Was quench'd in rheums of age  ; his voice,  unstrung,
Grew tremulous, and mov'd derision more
Than reverence in perverse rebellious youth.            730
So colleges and halls negleCted much
Their good old friend ;  and Discipline at length,
O'erlook'd  and unemploy'd, fell sick and died.
Then study languish'd,  emulation  slept,
And virtue fled.  The schools became a scene          735
Of solemn  farce, where Ignorance, in stilts,
His cap well lin'd with logic not his own,
With parrot tongue perform'd the  scholar's part,
Proceeding soon a  graduated dunce. 
 196                THE  TASK.          Book II.

Then compromise had place,  and scrutiny              740
Became stone-blind ; precedence went in truck,
And he was competent whose purse was so.
A dissolution of all bonds ensued ;
The curbs, invented for the mulish mouth
Of head-strong youth, were broken ; bars and bolts     745
Grew rusty by disuse ;  and massy gates
Forgot their office,  opening with a touch ;
' fill gowjif at length are found mere masquerade,
The tassell'd cap, and the spruce band, a jest,
A mockery of the World ! What need of these          750
For gamesters, jockeys,  brotheliers impure,
Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, ottener seen
With belted waist,  and pointers at their heels,
Than in the bounds of duty ?  What was learn'd,
If aught was learn'd, in childhood, is  forgot;           755
And such expence as pinches parents blue,
And mcrtif ■ es the liberal hand of love,
Is squander'd in pursuit of idle sports,
And vicious pleasures ; buys the boy a name,
That sits a stigma on his father's house,                760
And cleaves, through life, inseparably close
To him that wears it.  What can after-games
Of riper joys, and commerce with the world,
The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon,
Add to such erudition,  thus acquir'd                    761
Where science and  where virtue are profess'd ?
They may confirm his habits, rivet fast
His folly; but to spoil him is a task
That bids defiance to the united powers
Of fashion,  dissipation,  taverns,  stews.                770
Now, blame we most the nurslings or the nurse ?
The children, crook'd, and twisted, anddeform'd,
Through want of care ;  or her, whose winking eye,
And slumbering oscitancy, mars the brood ?
The nurse no doubt.  Regardless of her charge,        775
She needs herself correction ; needs to learn
That it is dangerous sporting with the world,
With things so sacred as a nation's trust,
The nurture of her  youth, her dearest pledge.

  All are not such.   I had a brother once—            780
Peace to the  memory of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too !
Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,
When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles. 
 Book II.     THE  TIME-PIECE.            197

He grac'd a college *, in which order yet               785
Was sacred ; and was honour'd, lov'd, and wept,
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mixt
With such ingredients of good sense, and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst                790
With such a zeal to be what they approve,
That no restraints can circumscribe them more,
Than they themselves, by choice, for wisdom's sake ;
Nor can example hurt them.   What  they see
Of vice in others, but enhancing more                  795
The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
If such escape contagion,  and  emerge
Pure, from so foul a pool, to shine abroad,
And give the world their talents and themselves,
Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth         800
Expos'd their inexperience to the snare,
And left them to an undirected choice.

  See,  then, the quiver broken and decay'd,
In which are kept our arrows ! Rusting there
In wild disorder,  and unfit for use,
What wonder if,  discharg'd into the  world,
They shame their shooters with a random flight,
Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine !
Well may the church wage unsuccessful war,
With such artillery arm'd.  Vice parries wide
The undreaded volley, with a sword of straw,
And stands an impudent and fearless  mark.

  Have we not track'd the felon home, and found
His birth-place and his dam ? The country mourns—
Mourns, because every plague that can infest           815
Society, and that saps and worms the base
Of the edifice that policy has rais'd,
Swarms in all quarters ; meets the eye, the ear,
And suffocates  the breath at every turn.
Profusion breeds them;  and the cause itself            820
Of that calamitous mischief has been found :
Found, too, where most offensive, in the skirts
Of the  rob'd pedagogue !  Else, let the arraign'd
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge.
So,  when the Jewish leader stretch'd his arm,          *25
And wav'd his rod divine, a race obscene,

               * Bennet Coll. Cambridge.
                          k 2
805
810 
!98               THE TASK.          Book II.

Spawn'd in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth,
Polluting Egypt: gardens,  fields,  and plains,
Were cover'd with the pest; the streets were fill'd ;
The croaking nuisance lurk'd in every nook ;           830
Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scap'd ;
And the land stank—so numerous was the fry. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD BOOK.

Self-recollection and reproof.—Address to  domes-
  tic happiness.—Some account of myself.—The
  vanity of many of their pursuits who are re-
  puted wise.—fustification  of my censures.—
  Divine illumination  necessary to  the most ex-
  pert philosopher.—The question, What is truth}
  answered by other questions.—Domestic happi-
  ness addressed again.—Few lovers of the coun-
  try.—My tame hare.—Occupations of a retired
  gentleman in  his  garden.—Pruning.—Fram-
  ing. —— Greenhouse.—Sowing of flower-seeds.
  —The country preferable to the town even in
  the winter.—Reasons why it is deserted at that
  season.—Ruinous effects of gaming and of ex-
  pensive improvement.—Book concludes with an
  apostrophe to  the metropolis, 
■a
BOOK  III.
           THE   GARDEN.


    _/V_S one who, long in thickets and in brakes
Entangled, winds now this way and now that
His devious course uncertain, seeking home ;
Or, having long in miry ways been foil'd
And sore discomfited, from slough to slough              5
Plunging, and half despairing of escape ;
If chance at length he find a green-sward smooth
And faithful to the foot,  his spirits rise ;
He chirrups brisk his ear-ereCting steed,
And winds his way with pleasure and with ease ;        10
So I, designing other themes, and call'd
To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due,
To tell its slumbers, and to paint its dreams,
Have rambled wide.   In country, city, seat
Of academic fame (howe'er deserv'd),                  15
Long held, and scarcely  disengag'd at last.
But now, with pleasant pace, a cleanlier road
I mean to tread.   I feel myself at large,
Courageous,  and refresh'd for future toil,
If toil await me,  or if dangers new.                     20

  Since pulpits fail,  and sounding-boards reflect
Most part an empty ineffectual sound,
What chance that I, to fame so little known,
Nor conversant with men or manners much,
Should speak to purpose, or with better hope            25
Crack the satiric  thong ? 'Twere wiser far
For me,  enamour'd of sequesterd scenes,
And charm'd with rural beauty, to repose* 
202                THE  TASK.         Book III.

Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine,
My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains ;       30
Or, when rough winter rages, on the soft
And shelter'd sofa, while the nitrous air
Feeds a blue flame,  and makes a cheerful hearth ;
There, undisturb'd by folly,  and appriz'd
How great the danger of disturbing her,                35
To muse in silence,  or at least confine
Remarks that gatl so many,  to the few
My partners in retreat.  Disgust conceal'd
Is Oft-times proof of wisdom, when the fault
Is obstinate,  and cure beyond our reach.                40

   Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has surviv'd the fall !
Though few now taste thee  unimpair'd and pure,
Or, tasting,  long enjoy thee ; too infirm,
Or too incautious, to preserve thy sweets              45
Unmixt with  drops of bitter, which neglect,
Or temper, sheds into thy crystal cup.
Thou art the nurse of virtue—in thine arms
 She smiles, appearing, as in truth she  is,
 Heaven-born, and destin'd to the skies again.           50
Thou art not known where  pleasure is  ador'd,
 That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist
 And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm
 Of novelty, her fickle, frail support ;
 For thou art meek and constant, hating change,         55
 And finding,  in the calm of truth-tied love,
 Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.
 Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made
 Of honour, dignity, and  fair renown !
 Till prostitution elbows us aside                        60
 In all our crowded streets ;  and senates seem
 Conven'd for purposes of empire less
 Than to release the adultress from  her bond.
 The adultress !  what a theme for angry verse!
 What provocation to the indignant heart               65
 That f^eels for injur'd love !  but I disdain
 The nauseous task  to paint her as she is,
 Ctuel, abondon'd, glorying in her shame !
 No;—let her pass,  and,  charioted along
 In guilty splendour, shake  the public ways ;             70
 The frequency  of crimes has wash'd them white
 And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch,
 Whom matrons now, of character unsmirch'd, 
Book  III.       THE  GARDEN.              203

And chaste themselves, are not asham'd to own.
Virtue  and vice had boundaries in old time,              75
Not to  be pass'd :  and she,  that had renounc'd
Her sex's honour,  was renounc'd herself
By all that priz'd it;  not for prudery's sake,
But dignity's, resentful of the wrong.
'Twas  hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif,         80
Desirous to return, and not receiv'd;
But was an wholesome rigour in the main,
And taught the unblemish'd to preserve with care
That purity, whose loss was loss of all.
Men, too, were nice in honour in those days,           85
And judg'd offenders well.  Then he that sharp'd,
And pocketted a prize by fraud obtain'd,
Was mark'd and shunn'd as odious.   He that sold
His country, or was slack when she requir'd
His every nerve in action and at stretch,                90
Paid,  with the blood that he had basely spar'd,
The price of his default.  But now—yes, now,
We are become so candid and so fair,
So liberal in construction, and so rich
In Christian charity, (good-natur'd age !)               95
That they are safe, sinners of either sex,
Transgress what laws they may.   Weil dress'd, well bred,
Well equipag'd, is ticket good enough
To pass us readily through every door.
Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,                     100
(And no man's hatred ever wrong'd her yet)
May claim this merit still—that she admits
The worth of what she mimics with such care,
And thus gives virtue indirect applause ;
But she has burnt her mask, not needed-here,          105
Where vice has such allowance,  that her shifts
And specious semblances have lost their use.

  I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt
My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew        110
To seek  a tranquil death in distant shades.
There  was I found by  one who had himself
Been hurt by the  archers.   In his side he bore,
And in his hands and  feet,  the cruel scars.
With  gentle force soliciting the darts,                 115
He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.
Since  then, with few associates, in remote
And silent woods I wander, far from those 
204                THE  TASK.         Book III.

My former partners of the peopled scene ;
Vvrith few associates, and  not wishing more.           120
Here much I ruminate, as much I may,
With other views of men and manners now
Than once,  and others of a life to come.
I see that all are wanderers,  gone astray
Each in his  own delusions ; they are lost               125
In chase of fancied happiness, still wood
And never won.  Dream after dream ensues ;
And still they  dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed.  Rings the  world
With the vain stir.   I sum up half mankind,           130
And add two thirds of the remaining half,
And find the total of their hopes and fears
Dreams, empty dreams.   The million flit as gay
As if created only like the fly,
That spreads his motly wings in the eye of noon,       135
To sport their season, and be seen no more.
The rest are sober dreamers,  grave and wise,
And pregnant  with discoveries new and rare.
Some write  a narrative of wars,  and feats
Of heroes little known; and call the rant              140
An history : describe the  man, of whom
His  own coevals took but little note  ;
And paint his  person, character, and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
They disentangle  from the puzzled skein,              145
In which obscurity has wrapped them up,
The threads of politic and shrewd design,
That ran through all his purposes, and  charge
His mind with meanings that he never  had,
Or,  having, kept conceal'd.   Some drill and bore       150
The solid earth, and from the strata there
ExtraCt a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
To Moses, was mistaken in  its age.
Some, more acute, and more industrious still,          155
Contrive creation ; travel nature up
To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,
And tell us whence the stars ; why some are fix'd,
And planetary some ; what gave them first
Rotation, from what fountain flow d their light.        160
Great contest follows,  and much learned dust
Involves the combatants ;  each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both.   And thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp, 
Book  III.       THE  GARDEN.               205

In playing tricks with nature, giving laws             165
To distant worlds,  and trifling in their own.
Is 't not a pity, now, that tickling rheums
Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight
Of oracles like these ? Great pity too,
That, having wielded the elements, and built          170
A thousand systems, each in his own way,
They should go out in fume, and be forgot ?
Ah ! what is life thus spent ? and what are they,
But frantic, who thus spend it ?  all for smoke—
Eternity for bubbles, proves at last                     175
A senseless bargain.  When I see such games
Play'd by the creatures of a power who swears
That he will judge  the earth, and call the fooj
To a sharp reckoning that has liv'd in vain ;
And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well,          180
And prove it, in the infallible result,
So hollow and so false—I feel my heart
Dissolve  in pity, and account the learn'd,
If this be learning, most of all deceiv'd.
Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps         185
While thoughtful man is plausibly amus'd.
Defend me,  therefore, common sense, say I,
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up !              190

  'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound,
Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose,
And overbuilt with most impending brows,
'Twere well, could you permit  the world to live
As the world pleases.  What's the world to you'?—     195
Much.  I was born of woman, and drew milk
As sweet as charity,  from human breasts.
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a  man.
How then should I and any man that lives              200
Be strangers to each other ? Pierce my vein,
Take of the crimson stream meandering there,
And carechise it well ; apply thy glass,
 Search it, and prove, now, if it be not blood
C '.igenial with  thine own : and, if it be,              205
 Whai edge of subtlety canst thou suppose
 Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art,
To cut the link of brotherhood, by which
One common Maker bound me to the kind ?
                            S 
206                THE  TASK.         Book III.

True ;  I am no proficient, I  confess,                  210
In arts like \ cur's.  I cannot call the swift
And perilous lightnirgs from the angry clouds,
And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath ;
I cannot analyze the air,  nor catch
The parallax of yonder luminous point,                215
That seems half quench'd in the immense abyss ;
Such powers I boast not—neither can I rest
A silent witness of ihe headlong rage
Or headless  folly,  by which thousands die,
Bone of my  bone, and kindred souls to mine.           220

   Gcd never meant that  man should scale the heavens
By strides of human wisdom.  In his works
T hough wonderous, he commands us in his word
To seek him rather, where his  mercy shines.
The mind indeed, enlighten'd from above,             225
Views him in all ; ascribes to the grand cause
The grand effeCt;  acknowledges, with joy,
His manner, and  with rapture tastes his style.
But never yet did philosophic tube,
That brings the planets home into the eye              230
Qf observation, and discovers,  else
Not visible,  his family of worlds,
Discover him that rules them ;  such a veil
Hangs  over mortal eyes,  blind from the birth,
And dark in things divine.   Full often, too,           235
Our wayward intellect, the more we learn
Or" nature, overlooks her author more ;
From instrumental causes, prcud to draw
Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake.
But, if his word once teach  us, shoot a ray            240
Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal
Truths undiscern'd but by that holy light,
Then all is plain.   Philosophy, baptiz'd
In the pure fountain of eternal love,
Hase>es indeed ; and, viewing all she sees            245
A? meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has born such fruit in other days
On all her branches :  piety has  found
Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer      25C
Has flow'd frcm lips wet with Castalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage !
Sagacious reader  of the works of God,
And in his word sagacious.  Such too thine, 
Book  III.       THE  GARDEN.              207

Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,              255
And fed on m.iuua ! And such thine, in whom
Our British l'nemts gloried with just cause,
Immortal Hale ! for deep discernment prais'd,
Aud sound integrity, not more than fam'd
For sanctity of manners underd'd.                     260

  All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades
Like the fair riower dishevell'u in the wind ;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream:
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him, ignoble graves.             265
Nothing is proof against the genet al >;urse
Of vanity, that seizes all below.
The only aramamhine llovver on earth
Is vir:ue ; the only lasting treasure,, truth.
But what is truth >  'twas Pilate's question, put         270
To Truth itself, that deign'd liim no reply.
And wherefore ? will not God impart his light
To them that  ask  it ?—Freely—Ms his joy,
His glory, and his nature,  to impart.
But to the pruud,  uncandid,  insincere,                 275
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.
What's that which brings contempt upon a book,
And him who writes it;  though the style be neat,
The method clear,  and argument exaCt ?
That makes a minister in holy things                  280
The joy of many,  and the dread of more,
His name a theme for praise and for reproach ?—
That, while it gives us worth in God's account,
Depreciates and undoes us in our own ?
What pearl is't that rich men cannot buy,               285
That learning is too proud to gather up ;
But which the poor, and the despis'd of all,
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought ?
Tell me—and I will tell  thee what is truth.

   O, friendly to the best pursuits of man,               290
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd !
Fe,v know thy value, and few taste thy sweets ;
Though many boast thy favours,  and affeCt
To understand and choose thee for their own.           295
But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss,
Even as his first progenitor,  and quits,
Though placed in paradise,  (for earth has still 
20S                THE  TASK.         Book III.

Some traces cf her youthful beauty left)
Substantial happiness for transient joy.                300
Scenes form'd lcr contemplation, and to nurse
The growing seeds of wisdom ; that suggest,
By every pleasing image they present,
Reflections such as meliorate the heart,
Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;            305
Scenes such as these 'tis his supreme delight
To fill with not, and defile with blood.
Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes
We persecute, annihilate the tribes
That draw the sportsmen over hill and dale,            310
Fearless, and wrapt away from all his cares;
Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again,
Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;
Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song,
Be qut U'd in all our summer-months' retreats;          315
How many self-deluded nymphs and swains,
Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,
Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,
And crowd  the roads,  impatient for the town '
They love the country, and  none else, who seek,       320
For their own sake, its silence and its shade.
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible  of pity, or a  mind
Cultur'd and capable of sober thought,
For all the savage din of the swift pack,              3*5
And clamours of the field ?—Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endu'd
With eloquence, that agonies inspire,                 330
Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs ?
Vain tears,  alas,  and sighs that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls !
Well—one at least is safe.  One shelter'd hare
Has never heard the sanguinary yell                   335
Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.
Innocent partner of my peaceful home,
Whom ten long years' experience of my care
Has made at last familiar; she has lost
Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,                 340
Not needful  here, beneath a roof like mine.
Yes—thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand
That feeds thee ;  thou mayst frolic on the floor
At evening, and at night retire secure 
 Book  III.      THE  GARDEN.               209

 To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm'd ;           345
 For I have gain'd thy confidence, have pledg'd
 All that is human in me to proteCt
 Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
 If I survive thee I will dig thy grave ;
 And, when I place thee in it, sighing,  say,            350
 I knew at least one hare that had a friend.

   How various his employments, whom the world
 Calls idle ;  and who justly, in return,
 Esteems that busy world an idler too !
 Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,         355
 Delightful  industry enjoy'd at home,
 And nature in her cultivated trim
 Dress'd to  his taste, inviting him abroad—
 Can he want occupation who has these ?
 Will  he be idle who has much to enjoy ?                360
 Me, therefore,  studious of laborious ease,
 Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,
 Not waste  it;  and aware that human life
 Is but a loan to be repaid with use,
 When He  shall call his  debtors to account              365
 From whom are all our  blessings ;  business finds
 Even  here: while sedulous I seek to  improve,
 At least neglect not, or  leave unemploy'd,
 The mind he gave me;  driving it, though slack
 Too oft, and much impeded in its work                 370
 By causes not to be divulg'd in vain,
 To its just point—the service of mankind.
 He that attends to his interior self,
 That  has a heart, and keeps it;  has a mind
 1'hat  hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks          3"*
 A social, not a dissipated life,
 Has business;  feels himself engag'd to achieve
 No unimportant,  though a silent, task.
 A life all turbulence and noise may seem,
 To him that leads it, wise, and to be prais'd;           380
 But wisdom is a pearl with most success
 Sought  in still water,  and beneath clear skies.
 He that is ever occupied in storms,
 Or dives not for it,  or brings up instead,
 Vainly industrious,  a disgraceful prize.                 ">i '*

  The morning finds the selfsequester'd man
Fresh for his task, intend what task he may.
Whether inclement seasons recommend
                           s  2 
210                THE TASK.          Book  III.

His warm but simple home, where he enjoys,
With her who shares his pleasures and his heart,       390
Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph
Which neatly she prepares ; then to his book,
Well chosen, and not sullenly perus'd
In selfish silence, but imparted oft
 As aught occurs that she may smile to  hear,           395
 Or turn to nourishment,  digested well:
 Or,  if the garden with its many  cares,
 All well repaid, demand him, he attends
 The welcome call, conscious how much the hand
 Of lubbard labour needs his watchful eye,             400
 Oft loitering lazily, if not o'erseen.
 Or misapplying its unskilful strength.
 Nor does he govern only, or direCt,
 But much performs himself. No works indeed
 That ask robust, tough sinews, bred to toil,            405
 Servile  employ; but such as may amuse,
 Not tire, demanding rather skill than force.
 Proud of his well-spread walls,  he views his trees
 That meet (no barren interval between)
 With pleasure more than even their fruits afford,       410
 Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel:
 These,  therefore, are his own peculiar charge ;
 No meaner hand may discipline  the shoots,
 None but his steel approach them.   What is weak,
 Distemper'd, or has lost prolific powers,
 Impair'd by age, his unrelenting hand
 Dooms to the knife :  nor does he spare the soft
 And succulent, that feeds its giant growth,
 But barren,  at the expence of neighbouring twigs
 Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick
 With hopeful gems.   The rest,  no portion left
 That may disgrace his ait, or disappoint
 Large expectation, he disposes  neat
 At measur'd distances, that air  and sun,
 Admitted freely, may afford their aid,
 And ventilate  and warm the swelling  buds.
 Hence  summer has her riches, autumn hence,
 And hence even winter fills his  wither'd hand
 With blushing fruits, and plenty, not his own*.
 Fair recompense of labour well bestow'd,
 And wise precaution ; which a  clime so rude
 Makes needful still, whose spring is but the child
 Of Churlish winter,  in her froward moods
428
4:5
430'
Miraturque novos fruCtus ct non sua poma.
VrRC 
Book III.       THE GARDEN.              211

Discovering much the temper of her sire.
For oft, as if in her the stream of mild                 435
Maternal nature had revers'd its course,
She brings her  infants forth with many  smiles ;
But, once deliver'd,  kills them with a frown.
He, therefore,  timely warn'd, himself supplies
Her want of care,  screening and keeping warm         440
The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweep
His garlands  from the boughs.  Again,  as oft
As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild,
The fence withdrawn, he gives them  every beam,
And spreads  his hopes before the blaze of day.         445

   To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd,
So grateful to the palate, and when rare
So coveted, else base and disesteem'd—
Food  for the  vulgar merely—is an art
That  toiling ages have but just matur'd,
And at this moment unassay'd in song.
Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice, long sinee,
Their eulogy ; those sang the Mantuan bard,
And these the Grecian,  in ennobling strains %
And in thy numbers, Phillips, shines for aye
The solitary shilling.  Pardon then,
Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame,
The ambition of one, meaner far, whose powers,
Presuming an attempt not less sublime,
Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste
Of critic appetite,  no sordid fare,
A cucumber,  while costly yet and scarce.

  The stablf  yields a stercoraceous heap,
Impregnated  with quick fermenting salts,
And potent to resist the freezing blast:                 465
For,  ere the beech and elm have cast their leaf
Deciduous, when now November dark
Checks vegetation in the torpid plant
Expos'd to his cold breath, the task begins.
Warily, therefore, and with prudent heed,              470
He seeks a favour'd spot; that, where he builds
The agglomerated pile, his frame may front
The sun's meridian disk, and at the back
Enjov close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedge
Impervious to the wind.  First he bids spread          475,
Dry fern or litter'd hay,  that may imbibe
The ascending damps ; then leisurely impose,
450
455
460 
2 12                THE TASK.         Book III.

And lightly,  shaking it with agile hand
From the full fork, the saturated straw.
What longest binds the closest, forms secure            480
The shapely side, that as it rises takes,
By just degrees, an overhanging breadth.
Sheltering the base with its projected eaves :
The uplifted frame, compaCt at every joint,
And overlaid with clear, translucent glass,              435
He settles next upon the sloping mount,
Whose sharp declivity shoots off secure
From the dash'd pane, the deluge as it falls.
He shuts it close, and the first labour ends.
Thrice must the voluble and restless earth              490
Spin round upon her axle, ere  the warmth,
Slow gathering in the midst, through the square mass
Diffus'd, attain the surface : when, behold!
A pestilent and most corrosive steam,
Like a gross fog Boeotian,  rising fast,                 495
And fast condens'd upon the dewy sash,
Asks egress ; which obtain'd,  the over-charg'd
And drench'd conservatory breathes abroad,
In volumes wheeling slow,  the vapour dank ;
And purified, rejoices to have lost                     500
Its foul inhabitant.   But to assuage
The impatient fervour which it first conceives
Within its reeking bosom, threatening death
To his young hopes,  requires discreet delay.
Experience,  slow preceptress, teaching oft             505
The way to glory by miscarriage foul,
Must prompt him, and admonish how to catch
The auspicious moment,  when the temper'd heat,
Friendly to vital motion,  may afford
Soft fomentation, and invite the seed.                 510
The seed, selected wisely, plump, and smooth,
And glossy, he commits to pots of size
Diminutive,  well fill'd with well-prepar'd
And fruitful  soil, that has been treasur'd long,
And drunk no moisture from the dripping clouds :       515
These on the warm and genial earth, that hides
The smoking manure and o'erspreads it all,
He places lightly, and, as time subdues
The rage of fermentation, plunges deep
In the soft medium, till they stand  immers'd.           520
Then rise the tender germs, upstarting quick,
And spreading wide their spongy lobes ;  at first
Pale, wan, and livid ;  but assuming soon, 
Book  III.       THE  GARDEN.              213

If fann'd by balmy and nutritious air,
Strain'd through the friendly mats, a vivid green.       525
Two leaves produc'd, two rough indented leaves,
Cautious he pinches from the second stalk
A pimple, that portends a future sprout,
And interdicts its growth.   Thence straight succeed
The branches, sturdy to his utmost wish ;              530
Prolific all, and harbingers of more.
The crowded roots demand enlargement now,
And transplantation in an ampler space.
Indulg'd in what they wish, they soon supply
Large foliage, overshadowing golden flowers,           535
Blown on the summit of the apparent fruit.
These have their sexes ; and,  when summer shines,
The bee transports the  fertilizing meal
From flower to flower,  and even the breathing air
Wafts the rich prize to its  appointed use.               540
Not so when winter scowls.  Assistant art
Then aCts in nature's office, brings to pass
The glad espousals, and ensures the crop.

  Grudge not, ye rich, (since luxury must have
His dainties, and  the world's more numerous half      545
Lives by contriving delicates for you)
Grudge  not the cost.   Ye little know the cares,
The vigilance, the labour,  and the skill,
That day and night are exercis d, and hang
Upon the ticklish balance of suspense,                 550
That ye may garnish your profuse regales
With summer fruits brought forth by wintry suns.
Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwart
The process.  Heat and cold,  and wind, and steam,
Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming flies, 555
Minute  as dust, and numberless,  oft work
Dire disappointment,  that admits no  cure,
And which no care can obviate.  It were long,
Too long, to tell the expedients and the shifts
Which he that fights a season so severe                560
Devises, while he guards his tender trust;
And oft, at last, in vain.   The learn'd and  wise
Sarcastic would exclaim, and  judge the song
Cold as  its theme,  and, like its theme, the fruit
Of  too much labour, worthless when produc d.          565

  Who loves a garden  loves, a green-house  too.
Unconscious of a less propitious clime, 
214                THE TASK.          Book  III.

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug.
While the winds whistle and the snows descend.
The spiry myrtle,  with unwithering leaf,                570
Shines there, and flourishes.  The golden boast
Of Portugal and western India there,
The ruddier orange, and the paler lime,
Peep through their polish'd fidiage at the storm,
And seem to smile at what they need not fear.           575
The amomum there with intermingling flowers
And cherries, hangs her twigs.  Geranium boasts
Her crimson honours, and the spangled beau,
Ficoides, glitters bright the wimer  long.  •
All plants, of every leaf that can endure               580
The winters frown, if screen'd from his shrewd bite,
Live there,  and prosper.   Those Ausonia claims,
Levantine regions these ; the Azores send
Their jessamine,  her jessamine remote
Caffraia : foreigners from many lands,                  f 85
They form one social shade, as if conven'd
By  magic summons of the Orphean lyre.
Yet just  arrangement, rarely brought to pass
But by a master's hand, disposing well
The gay diversities of leaf and flow'r,                  590
Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms,
And dress the regular, yet various scene.
Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van
The dwarfish, in the rear retir'd, but still
Sublime  above the rest, the statelier stand.              59*
So once were rang'd the sons of ancient Rome,
A noble  show ! while Roscius trod the stage ;
And so,  while  Garrick, as renown d as he,
The sons of Albion ; fearing each to lose
Some note of Nature's music from his lips,              60ft
And covetous of Shakespeare's beauty, seen
In every flash of his far-beaming eye.
Nor taste alone, and well-contriv'd display,
Suffice to give the marshall'd ranks the grace
Of their complete effect.  Much yet remains            60
Unsung, and many cares are yet behind,
And more laborious ; cares on which depend,
Their vigour,  injur'd soon, not soon restor'd.
The soil  must be renew'd. which often wash'd,
Loses its treasure of salubrious salts,                   61"
And disappoints the roots ; the slender roots
Close interwoven, where they meet the vase,
Must smooth be shorn away ; the sapless branch 
Book  III.       THE GARDEN.
215
Must fly before the knife ; the wither'd leaf
Must be detach d, and where it strews the floor
Swept  with a woman s neatness, breeding else
Con agiou, and disseminating death.
Discharge but these kind offices, (and who
Would spare,  that loves them,  offices like these !)
Well they reward the toil.  The sight is pleas'd,
The scent regal'd, each odoriferous leaf,
Each opening  blossom,  freely breathes abroad
It's gratitude,  and thanks him with its sweets.

   So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
 All healthful,  are the employs of rural life,
 Reiterated as  the wheel of time
 Runs round ; still ending, and  beginning still.
 Nor are these all.  To deck the shapely knell,
 That,  softly swell'd and gaily dress'd,  appears
 A flowery island, from the dark green lawn
 Emerging, must be deem'd a labour due
 To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste.
 Here also grateful mixture of well-match'd
 And sorted hues (each giving each relief,
 And by contrasted beauty shining more)
 f. needful.  Strength may w ield the ponderous spade,
 May turn the clod, and wheel the cempost home ;
 But elegance, chief grace the garden shows,
 And most attractive, is the fair result
 Of thought, the creature of a polish d mind.            640
 Without it all is Gothic as the scene
 To which the insipid citizen resorts
 Near yonder heath ; where industry mispent,
 But proud of his uncouth,  ill-chosen task,
 Has made a heaven on earth : with suns and moons    645
 Of close-ramm'd stones has  charg'd the encumber'd soil,
 And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust.
 He, therefore,  who would see his flowers dispos'd
 Sightly, and in just order, ere he gives
 The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds,             650
 Forecasts the future whole ; that, when the scene
 Shall break into its preconceiv'd display,
  Each for itself, and all as with one voice
  Conspiring,  mav attest his bright design.
  Nor even then, dismissing as perform d                «55
  His pleasant work, may he suppose it done.
  Few  self-supported flowers endure the wind
  Uninjur'd, but exped the upholding aid
615
620
625
630
635 
216                THE TASK.         Book III.

Of the smooth-shaven prop, and, neatly tied,
Are wedded thus, like beauty to old age,               660
For interest sake, the living to the dead.
Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffus'd
And lowly creeping,  modest and yet fair,
Like virtue, thriving most  where little seen :
Some, more aspiring^ catch the neighbour shrub        665
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch,
Else unadorn'd, with many a gay festoon
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well
The strength they borrow, with the grace they lend.
All hate the rank society of weeds,                     670
Noisome, and ever greedy  to exhaust
The impoverhh'd earth ; an overbearing race,
That, like the multitude mt.de faCtion-mad,
Disturb good order,  and degrade true worth.

   Oh,  blest seclusion from a jarring world,             675
Which he,  thus occupied, enjoys ! Retreat
Cannot indeed to guilty man restore
Lost innocence, or cancel fr liiespast ;
But it has peace, and much secures the  mind
Fr m all assaults of evil;  proving still                 680
 A faithful barrier, not o'erleap'd with ease
By vicious custom, raging uncomroul'd
Abroad,  and desolating public life.
When fierce temptation, seconded within
By traitor appetite,  and arm'd with darn              685
 Temper'd with hell, invades the throbbing breast,
 To combat may be glorious,  and success
 Perhaps may crown us ;  but to fly is safe.
 Had I the choice of sublunary good,
 What could I wish, that I possess not here ?           690
 Health, leisure,  means to improve it, friendship, peace
 No loose or wanton, though a wandering muse,
 And constant occupation without care.
 Thus blest, I draw  a picture of that bliss ;
 Hopeless, indeed, that dissipated minds,               695
 And profligate abusers cf a world
 Created fair so much in vain for them,
 Should seek the the guiltless joys that I describe,
 Allur'd by my report: but sure no less,
 That,  self-condemn'd they must negleCt the prize,       700
 And what they will not taste must yet approve.
 What we admire we praise ;  and,  when we  praise,
 Advance it into notice, that, its worth 
 Book III.       THE  GARDEN.               217

 Acknowledg'd,  others may admire it too.
 I therefore recommend, though at the risk             705
 Of popular disgust, yet boldly still,
 The cause of piety and sacred truth,
 And virtue, and those scenes which God ordain'd
 Should best secure them and promote them most;
 Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive            7lg
 Forsaken, or through folly not enjoy'd.
 Purs is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles,
 And chaste, though unconfin'd, whom I extoi.
 Not as the prince in Shushan, when he call'd,
 Vain glorious of her charms, his  Vashti forth          715
 To grace the full pavilion.   His design
 Was but to boast his own peculiar good,
 Which all might view with envy, none partake.
 My charmer is not mine alone ; my sweets,
 And she that sweetens all my bitters too,               720
 Nature, enchanting Nature, in  whose form
 And lineaments divine I trace a hand
 That errs not,  and find raptures still renew'd,
 Is free to all men—universal prize.
 Strange, that so fair a creature should yet want         72'
 Admirers, and be destin'd to divide,
 With meaner objeCts, even  the few she finds !
 Stripp'd of her ornaments,  her leaves and flowers,
 She loses all her influence.   Cities then
 Attract us, and neglected Nature pines,                 739
 Abandon'd, as unworthy of our love.
 But are not wholesome airs, though unperfum'd
 By roses ;  and clear suns, though  scarcely felt;
 And groves, if unharmonioiu, yet secure
 From clamour, and whose very silence charms ;         7S5
 To be preferr'd to smoke, to the eclipse
 That Metropolitan volcanoes make,
 Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day Long ;
 And to the stir of commerce, driving slow,
 And thundering loud, with  his ten thousand wheels ?    740
 They would be, were not madness in the head,
 And folly in the heart ;  were England now,
 What England was, plain,  hospitable, kind.
And undebauch'd.  But we have bid fare wed
To all the virtues of those better days,                  745
And all their honest pleasures.  Mansions once
Knew their own masters ;  and laborious hinds,
Who had  surviv'd the father, serv'd the son.
Now the legitimate and rightful lord 
218                THE  TASK.         Book

Is but a transient guest, newly arriv'd,
And soon to be supplanted.   He that saw
His patrimonial timber cast its leaf,
Sells  the last scantling, and transfers the price
To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again.
Estates are landscapes, gaz'd upon a while,
Then advertis d,  and auctioneer'd away.
 Ihe country starves,  and they  that feed the o'ercharg
And  surfeited lewd town with her fair dues,
By a  just judgment strip and starve themselves.
The wings that waft our riches out of sight
Grow on the gamester's elbows ;  and the alert
And  nimble motion of those restless joints,
That never tire, soon fans them all away.
Improvement too, the idol of the age,
 Is fed with many a victim.  Lo,  he comes !
 The  omnipotent magician, Brown, appears !
 Down falls the venerable pile, the abode
 Of our forefathers—a grave whisker'd race,
 But tasteless.  Springs a palace in its stead,
 But in a distant spot  ; where,  more expos'd,
 It may enjoy the advantage of the north,
 And aguish east, till time shall have trausform'd
 Tho?e naked acres to a sheltering grove.
 He speaks.  The lake in front becomes a lawn ;
 Woods vanish, hiiis subside, and vallies rise ;
 And streams, as if created for his use,
 Pursue the track of his directing wand,
 Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,
 Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades—
 Even as he bids ! The enraptur'd owner smiles.
 'Tis  finish'd,  and yet,  finish'd as it seems,
 Still  wants a grace, the loveliest it could shew,
 A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.
 Drain'd to the last poor item of his wealth,
 He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplish'd plan
 That he has touch'd, retouch'd,  many a long day
 Labour'd, and many a night pursu'd in dreams,
 Just  when it meets his hopes,  and proves the heaven
 He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy !
 And now  perhaps the glorious  hour is come,
 When, having no stake left, no pledge to endear
 Her  interests, or that gives  her sacred cause
 A moment's operation on his love,
 He burns  with most intense and flagrant zeal
 To serve his country.  Ministerial grace 
Book  III.       THE GARDEN.              219

Deals him out money from the public chest ;
Or, if that mine be shut, some private ptirsj
Supplies his need with a usurious loan,
To be refunded duly, when his vote,
V/ell-manag'd, shall have earn'd i:s worthy price.       800
Oh innocent, compar'd with arts like there,
Crape, and cock'd pistol,  and the whistling ball
Sent through the traveller's temples !  lie that finds
One drop of heaven's sweet mercy in his cup,
Can dig, beg, rot,  and perish, well content,            805
So he may wrap himself in honest rags,
At his last gasp ; bat could not fcr a world
Fish up his dirty and dependent biead
From pools and ditches of the commonwealth,
 Soidid', and  sickening at his own success.             810

   Ambition, avarice,  penury incurr'd
 By endless riot, vanity, the lust
 Of pleasure and variety, dispatch,
 As duly as the swallows disappear,
 The world of wandering knights and squires to town.   815
 London ingulphs them all ! The shark is there,
 And the shark's prey ; the spendthrift, and the leech
 That sucks him.  There the sycophant, and he
 Who, with bareheaded and obsequious bows,
 Begs a warm office, doom'd to a cold jail              820
 And groat per diem, if his patron frown,
 The levee swarms, as if,  in golden pomp,
 Were charaCter'd on every statesman's door,
 " Batter'd and bankrupt fortunes mended here."
 These are the charms that sully and  eclipse             825
 Tne charms of nature.  'Tis the cruel gripe
 That  lean, hard-handed poverty, inflicts,
 The hope of better things, the chance to win,
 The wish to shine, the thirst to be amus'd,
 That,  at the sound of winter's hoary wing,             830
 Unpeople all our counties of such herds
 Of fluttering, loitering,  cringing, begging, loose
 And wanton vagrants, as  make London, vast
  And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

    Oh thou  resort and mart of all the earth,             835
 Chequer'd  with all corn lexions of mankind,
  And  spotted with all crimes ; in whom I see
  Mtuh that 1 love, and more than I  admire,
  And all that I «i:oov; thou freckled fair, 
~~*>               THE TASK.         Book  III.

That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh           840
And 1 can v. eep, can hope,  ard can despond,
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee !
Ten righteous would have stv'd a city ence,
And thcu hast many righteous.—Well for thee—
That salt preserves thee ; more  corrupted else,          845
And therefore more obr.c,\ious,  at this hour
Than Sodom in her day had power to be,
For whom God heard his Ahr'sm  plead in vain. 
 
 ARGUMENT OF  THE  FOURTH BOOK.

The post comes in.—The news-paper is read.—•
  The world contemplated at a distance.-^Address
  to Winter.—The rural amusements of a winter
  evening compared with the fashionable ones.—
  Address to evening.—A brown study.—Fall of
  snow in the evening.—The "waggoner.—A poor
  family-piece.—The rural thief.—Public houses.
  —The multitude of them censured.—-The farm-
  ers daughter : what she was—what she is.—
   The simplicity  of country manners almost lost.
  —Causes of  the  change.—Desertion  of the
  country  by  the rich.—Neglect of magistrates.
  —The militia principally in fault.—The new
  recruit and his transformation.—Reflection on
   bodies corporate.—The love of rural objects na-
   tural to all,  and never to be totally extinguished. 
BOOK  IV,
        THE  WINTER  EVENING.


    llARK ! 'tis the twanging horn ! o'er yonder bridge,,
That, wuh its wearisome but needful length,
Bestrides the wintry flood,  in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright ;—
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,                  5
With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist,  and frozen locks ;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge,  the close-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one  concern
Is to conduCt it to the destin'd inn ;                     10
And, having dropp'd the expeCted bag, pass oil.
He whistles as he goes,  light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful:  messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.                 15
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths,  and marriages, epistles wet
With tears,  that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
6r charg'd with amorous sighs of absent Swains,        20
Or nymphs reponsive, equally afFeCt
His horse and him,  unconscious of them all.
But oh the important budget!  usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music,  who can say
What are its tidings ! have our troops awak'd ?         25
Or do they still, as if with opium drugg'd,
Snore to  the murmurs of the atlantic wave ?
Is India free ? and does she wear her plum'd
And jewel'd turban with a  smile of  peace,
Or do we grind her stili ? The grand debate,            30 
224                THE  TASK.         Book IV.
The popular harangue,  the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh—I long to know them all;
I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.           35

  Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast.
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
"Throws up a steamy column,  and the cups,
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,             40
So  let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Not such his evening, who, with shining  face,
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeez'd
And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,
Out-scolds the ranting aftor on the stage :              45
Nor his,  who patient stands till his feet throb,
And his head thumps,  to feed upon the breath
Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage,
Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work !                  50
Which not even critics criticise ; that holds
 Inquisitive attention, while I read,
 Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
 Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ;
 What is it,  but a map of busy life,                     55
 Its fluctuations,  and its vast concerns ?
 Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge
 That tempts ambition.  On the summit, see !
 The seals of office glitter  in his eyes ;
 He climbs,  he pants, he grasps them !  At his heels,     60
 Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,
 And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down.
 And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
 Here rills of oily eloquence, in  soft
 Meanders, lubricate the course  they take ;               65
 The modest speaker is  asham'd and griev'd
 To engross a moment's notice,  and yet begs,
 Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,
 However trivial all that he conceives.
 Sweet bashfulness ! it claims at least this praise ;        70
 The dearth of information and good sense
 That it foretells us always comes to pass.
 CataraCts of declamation  thunder here ;
 There forests of no meaning spread the page,
 In which all comprehension wanders lost;               75 
Book IV.   THE  WINTER EVENING.    225

While fields of pleasantry amuse us there
With merry descants on a nation s woes.
The rest appears a wilderness of strange
But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks,
And lilies for the brows of faded age,
Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,
Heaven, earth, and ocean,  plundered of their sweets,
NeCtareous essences, Olympian dews,
Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs,
^Ethereal journies,  submarine exploits,
And Katterfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.

  'Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat
To peep at such a world ; to see  the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ;            90
To hear the  roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the d)ing sound
Falls, a soft  murmur, on the uninjur'd ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying, thus at ease,
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanc'd,            95
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all.
It turns, submitted  to my view, turns round
With all its generations ; I behold
The tumult,  and am still.  The sound of war           10©
Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me ;
Grieves, but alarms me not.  I mourn the pride
And avarice that make man a wolf to man ;
Hear the  faint echo of those brazen throats
By which he speaks the language of his heart,          105
And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.
He travels and expatiates, as the bee
From flower to flower,  so he from land to land ;
The manners,  customs, policy, of all,
Pay contribution to the store he gleans;                110
He sucks intelligence in every clime,
And spreads the honey of his deep research,
At his return—a rich repast for me.
He travels, and I too-  I tread his deck,
Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes          115
Discover countries, with a kindred heart
Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes ;
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit,  and is still at home.
m
85 
"26                THE  TASK.         Book  IV.

  Oh Winter, ruler Of the inverted year,               120
Thy scatter'd hair, with sleet-like ashes, fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring'd with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and  thy throne           125
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slippery way,
I lcve thee,  all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold'st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning east,                  130
Shortening his journey between mom and noon,
And hurrying him,  impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,                 135
And gathering,  at short notice, in  one group,
The family dispers'd, and fixing thought,
Not less dispers'd by day-light and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,            140
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
No rattling  wheels stop short before these gates ;
No powder'd, pert proficient in the art                 145
Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors
Till the street rings ; no stationary steeds
Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound,
The silent circle fan themselves, and quake :
But here the needle plies its busy task,                  150
The pattern grows, the well-depiCted flower,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its bosom ; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,
And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos'd,
Follow the nimble finger of the fair ;                   155
A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that  blew
With most success when  all besides decay.
The poet's or historian's page, by one
Made vocal for the amusement of the rest;
The sprightly lyre,  whose treasure of sweet sounds     160
The touch, from many a trembling  chor.1, shakes out ;
And the clear voice, symphonious,  yet distinct,
And in the charming strife triumphant still  ;
Beguile the  night,  and set a keener edge      '
On female industry : the threaded steel                 165 
Book  IV.   THE WINTER  EVENING.    227

Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds,
The volume clos d, the customary rites
Of the  last meal commence.   A roman meal;
Such as the mistress of the world once found
Delicious, when her patriots of high note,              170
Perhaps i>/ moonlight, at their humble doors,
And under an cl 1 oak s domestic shade,
Enjoy'd—spare feast!—a radish and an egg !
Disourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,
Nor such as, with a frown, forbids the play              175
Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth :
Nor do we madly, like an impious world,
Who deem religion frenzy, and the God
That made them an intruder on their joys,
Start at his awful name,  or deem his praise              180
A jarring note.   Themes of a graver tone,
Exciting oft our gratitude and love,
While we re"race with memory's pointing wand,
That calls the past to our exaCt review,
The dangers we have 'scap d, the broken snare,         185
The disappointed foe, deliverance found
Unlook d for, life preserv'd and peace restor'd—
Fruits of omnipotent eternal love.
Oh, evenings worthy of the gods ! exclaim'd
The sabine bard.  Oh, evenings, I reply,               190
More to be priz'd and coveted than yours,
As more illumin'd, and with nobler truths,
That I, and mine, and those we love,  enjoy.

  Is winter hideous in a garb like  this ?
Needs he the tragic fur,  the smoke of lamps,            195
The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng,
To thaw him into feeling ; or the smart
And snappish dialogue,  that flippant wits
Call comedy, to prompt  him  with a smile ?
The self-complacent aCtor, when he views              2QQ
(Stealing a side-long glance at a full house)
The slope of faces,  from the floor to the roof,
(As if one master-spring controul'd them all)
Relax'd into an universal grin,               •>
Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joy          305
Half so refin'd  or so sincere as our's.
Cards were superfluous here,  with all the tricki
That idleness has ever yet contriv'd
To  fill the void of an unfurnish'd brain,
To  palliate dulness,  and give time a shove.             210 
228               THE  TASK.          Book  IV.

Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and cf a silken scund ;
But the world's time is time in masquerade !
Theirs, should I paint him,  lias his pinions fledg'd
With motley plumes ;  and, where the peacock shows   215
His azure eyes, is tinCtur'd black and red
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguin d hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.
What should be, and what was, an hour-glass once,      220
Becomes a dice-box ;  and a billiard mast
Well does the work of his destructive scythe.
Thus deck'd, he charms a  world whom fashion blinds
To his true worth, most pleas'd when idle most ;
Whose only happy, aie their wasted, hours.            225
Even misses, at whose age their mother's wore
The back-string and the bib, assume the dress
Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school
Of card-devoted time, and, night by night,
Placed at some vacant corner of the board,             230
Learn every trick, and soon play all the game.
But truce with censure.  Roving as  I rove,
Where shall I find an  end,  or how proceed .'
As he that travels far  oft turns aside
To view some rugged reck or mouldering tower,        235
Which  seen, delights him not; then, coming home,
Describes and prints it,  that the world may know
How far he went for what  was nothing worth ;
So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread,
With colours mix'd fcr a far different use,              240
Paint cards and dolls,  and every idle thing
That fancy finds in her excursive flights.

   Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ;
Return, sweet Evening, and continue long !
Mathinks I see thee in the streaky west,              245
With matron step slow-moving, while the night
Treads on thy sweeping train; one  hand employ'd
In letting fall the curtain of repose
On bird and beast, the other charged for man
With sweet oblivion  of the cares of day :              250
Not sumptuously adcrn'd,  nor needing aid,
Like homely featured night, of clustering gems ;
A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow,
Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine
No less than her's, not worn indeed on high           255 
Book  IV.   THE  WINTER EVENING.   229

With ostentatious pageantry, but set
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,
Resplendent less,  but of an ampler round.
Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,
Or make me so.   Composure is thy giftc               263
And, whether I devote thy gentle hours
To books, to music, or the poet's toil;
To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit;
Or twining silken threads round ivory reels,
When they command whom man was born to please ;   265
I slight thee not,  but make thee welcome still.

  Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze
With lights, by clear reflection multiplied
From many a mirror, in which he of Gath,
Goliah,  might have seen his giant bulk                270
Whole,  without stooping,  towering crest and all,
My pleasures, too, begin.   But me, perhaps,
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile
With faint illumination, that uplifts
The shadow to the ceiling, there by fits                275
Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.
Not undelightful is an hour to me
So spent in parlour twilight: such a gloom
Suits well the thoughtful, or unthinking mind,
The mind contemplative, with  some new theme        280
Pregnant, or indispos'd alike to all.
Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers,
That never feel a stupor, know no pause,
Nor need one ; I am conscious, and confess,
Fearless, a soul that does not always think.             285
Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild,
Sooth'd with a waking dream of houses, towers,
Trees, churches,  and strange visages, express'd
In the red cinders, while with  poring eye
I gaz'd, myself creating what  I saw.                  290
Nor less amus'd,  have I, quiescent, watch'd
The sooty films that play upon the bars,
Pendulous, and foreboding,—in the view
Of superstition,  prophecying still,
Though still deceiv'd,—some stranger's near approach. 295
'Tis thus the understanding takes repose
In indolent vacuity of thought,
And sleeps and is refresh'd.  Meanwhile the face
Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask
Of deep deliberation, as the man                     di-t 
230
THE TASK.
Book IV.
Were task'd to his full strength,  absorb'd and lost.
Thus oft, reclin'd at ease, I lose an hour
At evening, till at length the freezing blast,
That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home
The recollected powers ; and, snapping short           305
T'he glassy threads, with which the fancy weaves
Her brittle toys, restores me to myself.  .
How calm is my recess ; and how the frost,
Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear
The silence and the warmth enjoy'd within !           318
I baw the woods and fields,  at close of day,
A variegated show ; the meadows green,
Though faded ; and the lands, where lately wav'd
The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
Upturn'd so lately by the forceful share.               315
I saw far off the weedy fallows smile
With verdure not unprofitable, graz'd
By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each
His favourite herb ;  while all the leafless groves,
That skirt the horizon, wore a sable hue,             320
Scarce notic'd in the kindred dusk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change !
Which even now, though silently perform'd,
And slowly, and by most unfelt,  the i  :e
Of universal nature undergoes.                       S25
Fast falls a fleecy shower :  the downy flakes
Descending,  and with never-ceasing lapse,
Softly alighting upon all below,
Assimilate all objects.  Earth receives,
Gladly, the thickening mantle ; and the green          330
And tender blade, that fear'd the chilling blast,
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

   In such a world so thorny, and where none
Finds happpiness unblighted ; or, if found,
Without some thistly sorrow at its side ;              3o5
It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguish'd than ourselves ; that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathize with others,  suffering more.           S40
III fares the traveller now, and he that stalks
In ponderous boots beside his reeking team.
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore
By congregated loads adhering ctose
To the clogg'd wheels; and, in its sluggish pace,       "45 
Book  IV.  THE  WINTER EVENING.    231

Noiseless, appears a moving hill of snow.
The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,
While every breath, by respiration strong
Forc'd downward,  is consolidated soon
Upon their jutting chests.   He, form'd to bear         350
The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,
With half-shut eyes, an 1 pucker'd cheeks, and teeth
Presented bare against the storm, plods on.
One hand secures his hat,  save when with both
He brandishes his pliant length of whip,               355
Resounding oft,  and never heard in vain.
Oh happy ; and, in my account, denied
That sensibility of pain with which
Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou !
Thy frame robust and hardy, feels indeed              360
The piercing cold, but feels it unimpair'd.
The learned finger never needs explore
Thy vigorous pulse ; and the unhealthful east,
That breathes the spleen, and searches every bona
Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee.               365
Thy days roll on exempt from household care ;
Thy waggon is thy wife; and the poor beasts,
That drag the dull companion  to and fro,
Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.
Ah, treat them kindly ! rude as thou appear'st,        270
Yet show that thou hast mercy ! which the great,
With needless hurry whirl'd from place to place,
 Humane as they would seem,  not always show.

   Poor,  yet  industrious, modest, quiet, neat;
 Such claim compassion in a night like this,             375
 And have a friend in every feeling heart.
 Warm'd, while it lasts,  by labour, all day long
 They brave the season,  and yet find at eve,
 111 clad, and  fed but sparely, time to cool.
 The frugal housewife trembles when she light*         380
 Her scanty stock of brush-wood, blazing clear,
 But dying soon, like  all terrestrial joys.
 The few small embers left she nurses well;
 And, Avhile  her infant race, with outspread hands
 And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks,      385
 Retires,  content to quake, so they be warm'd.
 The man feels least, as more inur'd than she
 To winter,  and the current in his veins
 More briskly mov'd by his severer toil;
 Yet he, too, finds his own distress in their's.           S9# 
232                THE TASK.          Book  IV.

The taper soon extinguish'd, which I saw
Dangled along at the cold finger's end,
Just when the day declin'd, and the brown loaf
Lodg'd on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauce
Of savoury cheese,  or butter, costlier still;             395
Sleep seems their only refuge : for,  alas,
Where penury is felt, the thought is chain'd,
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few !
With all this thrift  they thrive not.   All the care
Ingenious parsimony takes, but just                   400
Saves the small inventory, bed, and stool,
Skillet, and oldcr.rv'd chest, from public sale.
They live, and live  without extorted alms
From grudging hands ; but other boast have none
To sooth their honest pride, that scorns to beg,        405
No comfort else, but in their mutual love.
I praise you much,  ye meek and patient pair,
For ye are worthy ;  choosing rather far
A dry but independent crust, hard earn'd,
And eaten with a sigh, than to endure                410
The rugged frowns  and insolent rebuffs
Of knaves in office, partial in the work
Of distribution ; liberal of their aid
To clamorous importunity in rags,
But oft-times deaf to suppliants, who would blush     415
To wear a tatter'd garb however coarse ;
Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth :
These ask with  painful shyness, and refus'd
Because deserving,  silently retire !
But be ye of good courage ! Time itself               420
Shall much befriend you.   Time shall give increase ;
And all your numerous progeny, well train'd,
But helpless, in few years  shall find their hands,
And labcurtoo.  Meanwhile ye shall not want
What, conscious of your virtues,  we can spare,        425
Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send.
I mean the man, who, when the  distant poor
Need help, denies them nothing but his name.

   But poverty, with most who whimper forth
Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe ;           430
The effeCt of laziness or sottish waste.
Now  goes the nightly thief prowling abroad
For plunder ; much solicitous how best
He may compensate for a day of sloth,
By works of darkness and noCturnal wrong.            435 
 Book  IV.   THE  WINTER  EVENING.   233

 Woe to the gardner's pale, the farmer's hedge,
 Plash'd neatly, and secur'd with driven stakes
 Deep in the loamy bank.  Uptorn by strength,
 Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame
 To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil—              446
 An ass's burden—and, when laden most
 And heaviest, light of foot, steals fast away.
 Nor does the boarded hovel better guard
 The well-stack'd pile of riven  logs and roots
 From his pernicious force.  Nor will  he leave          445
 Unwrench'd the door, however well secur'd,
 Where chanticleer, amidst his haram, sleeps
 In unsuspecting pomp.   Twitch'd from the perch,
 He gives the princely bird, with  all his wives,
 To his voracious bag, struggling in vain,              450
 And loudly wondering  at the sudden  change.—
 Nor this to feed his own !  'Twere some excuse,
 Did pity of their sufferings warp  aside
 His principle,  and tempt him into sin
 For their support, so destitute.—But  they              455
 Neglected pine at home, themselves,  as more
 Expos'd than others, with less scruple made
 His victims, robb'd of  their defenceless all.
 Cruel is all  he does.   'Tis quenchless  thirst
 Of ruinous ebriety that prompts                       460
 His every aCtion, and imbrutes the man.
 Oh for a law to noose the villain's neck
 AVho starves his own ;  who persecutes the  blood
 He gave them, in his children's veins, and hates
 And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love !          465

  Pass where we may,  through city or through town,
 Village, or hamlet, of this merry land,
 Though lean and beggar'd, every twentieth pace
 ConduCts the unguarded nose to such  a  whiff
 Of stale debauch,  forth-issuing from  the styes          479
 That law has licens'd, as makes temperance reel.
 There sit, involv'd and lost in curling clouds
 Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep,  the boor,
 The lackey, and the groom : the craftsman there
 Takes a Lethean leave of all his  toil ;                 475
 Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies  the shears,
And he that kneads the dough ; all loud alike,
All learned, and all drunk !  The fiddle screams
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail'd
 P.i, wasted tones and harmony unheard :                480
                           v  2 
234
THE TASK.         Book IV.
Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme;  while she,
Fell discord, arbitress of such debate,
Pejch'd on-the sign-post, holds with even hand,
Her undecisive scales.  In this she lays
A weight of ignorance ;  in that, of pride ;              485
And smiles, delighted with the eternal poise.
Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound,
The cheek-distending oath ;  not to be prais'd
As ornamental, musical, polite,
Like those which modern senators employ,             490
Whose oath is rhetoric,  and who swear for fame !
Behold the schools in which plebeian minds,
Once simple, are initiated in arts,
Which some may practise with politer grace,
But none with readier skill !—'tis here they learn       495
The road that, leads,  from competence and peace,
To indigence and rapine.;  till at last
Society grown weary of the load,
Shakes her encumber'd lap, and casts them out.
But censure profits little :  vain the attempt            500
To advertise, in verse, a public pest,
That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds
His hungry acres,  stinks, and  is of use.
The excise is fatten'd with the rich result
Of all this riot;  and ten thousand  casks,               6Q5
For ever dribbling out their base contents,.
Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state.
Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.
Drink, and be mad,  then ; 'ts your country bids !
Gloriously drunk, obey the important eall!             519
Her cause demands the assistance of your throats ;—
Ye all can swallow, and she asks  no more.

  Would I had fallen upon those happier days
That poets celebrate  ; those golden times,
And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings,          515
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
Nymphs were Dianas then,  and swains had hearts
That felt their virtues :  innocence,  it seems,
From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves.
The footsteps of simplicity,  impress'd                 520
Upon the yielding herbage, (so they sing)
Then were not all effae'd :  then speech profane,
And manners profligate, were rarely found ;
Observ'd as prodigies, and soon reclaim'd.
V*in wish ! those days  were never ; airy dreams        52i 
Book IV.   THE WINTER EVENING,   S35

Sat for the picture ; and the poet's hand,
Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Impos'd a gay delirium for a truth.
Grant it:—I still must envy them an age
That favour'd such a dream ;  in days like these         £30
Impossible, when virtue is so scarce,
That to suppose a scene where she presides,
Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief.
No : we are polish'd now ! The rural lass,
Whom once her virgin modesty and grace,              535
Her artless manners,  and her neat attire,
So dignified,  that she was hardly less
Than the fair shepherdess of old romance,
Is seen no more.  The character is lost!
Her head, adorn'd with lappets pinn'd aloft,           540
And ribbands streaming gay, superbly rais'd,
And magnified beyond all human size,
Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand
For more than half the tresses it sustains ;
Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form              545
111 propp'd upon French heels; she might be deem'd
(But that the basket dangling on her arm
Interprets her more truly) of a rank
Too proud for daily work, or sale of eggs.
ExpeCt her soon with foot-boy at her heels,             550
No longer blushing for her awkward load,.
Her train and her umbrella all her care !

  The town has ting'd the country ; and the stain
Appears a spot upon  a vestal's robe,
The worse for what it soils.  The fashion runs         555.
Down into scenes still rural ; but, alas,
Scenes rarely grac'd with rural manners now !
Time was when, in the pastoral retreat,
The unguarded door was  safe ;  men did not watch
To invade another's right, or guard their own.          560*
Then sleep was undisturb'd by  fear,  unscar'd
By drunken howlings ; and the chilling tale
Of midnight murder was a wonder, heard
With doubtful credit,  told to frighten babes.
But farewell now to unsuspicious nights,              565
And slumbers unalarm'd ! Now, ere you sleep,
See that your polish'd arms be prim'd with care,
And drop the night-bolt ;—ruffians are abroad ;
And the first larum of the cock's shrill throat
May prove a trumpet, summoning your car             57Q> 
236
THE TASK.          Book  IV.
To horrid sounds of hostile feet within.
Even daylight has its dangers ; and the walk
Thro' pathless wastes and woods, unconscious once
Of other tenants than melodious birds,
Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold.              575
Lamented change ! to which full many a cause
Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires.
The course of human things from good to  ill,
From ill to worse, is fatal-,  never fails.
Increase of power begets increase of wealth ;           580
Wealth luxury, and luxury  excess ;
Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague
That seizes first the opulent,  descends
To the next rank contagious,  and in time
Taints downward all the graduated scale                585
Of order, from the chariot to the plough.
The rich, and they that have  an arm to check
The license of the lowest in degree,
Desert their office ; and themselves, intent
On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus                590
To all the violer.ce of lawless hands
Resign the scenes their presence might protect.
Authority herself not seldom sleeps,
Though resident, and witness of the wrong.
The plump convivial parson often bears                 595
The magisterial sword in vain, and lays
His reverence and his worship both to rest
On the same cushion of habitual sloth.
Perhaps timidity restrains his arm ;
When he should strike  he trembles, and  sets free,      600
Himself enslav'd by terror of the band,
The audacious conviCt,  whom he dares not bind.
Perhaps, though by  profession ghostly pure,
He too may have his vice,  and sometimes prove
Less dainty than becomes his grave outside            605
In lucrative concerns.   Examine well
His milk-white hand ; the  palm is hardly clean—
But here and there an ugly smutch appears.
Foh ! 'twas a bribe that left it:  he  has touch'd
Corruption ! Whoso seeks  an audit here                610
Propitious, pays his tribute, game  or fish,
Wild-fowl or venison;  and his errand speeds.

   But faster far, and more than all the rest,
 A noble cause, which none who bears a  spark
 Of public virtue, ever wish'd remov'd,                 615 
Book  IV.   THE  WINTER  EVENING.   2 37

Works the deplor'd and mischievous effect.
'Tis universal  soldiership has stabb'd
The heart of merit in the meaner class.
Arms,  through the vanity and brainless rage
Of those that bear them, in whatever cause,           §2ft
Seem most at variance with all moral good,
And incompatible with serious thought.
The clown, the child of nature, without guile,
Blest with an infant's ignorance of all
But his own simple  pleasures,—no-w and then          625
A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair,—
Is ballotted, and trembles at the news :
Slieepish he doffs his hat, and, mumbling, swears
A bible-oath to be whate'er they please,
To do he knows not what!  The task perform'd,        639
That instant he becomes the Serjeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment,  and his jest.
His awkward gait,  his introverted toes,
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curse.   By slow degrees,          635
Unapt to learn, and form'd of stubborn stuff,
He yet by slow degrees puts off himself,
Grows conscious of a change, and likes  it well:
He stands ereCt; his slouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his  air,             946
His form,  and movement:  is as smart above
As meal and larded locks can make him ; wears
His hat, or his plum'd helmet, with a grace ;
And, his  three years of heroship expir'd,
Returns indignant to the slighted plough.              641
He hates  the field,  in which no fife or drum
Attends him;  drives his cattle to a march ;
And sighs for the smart comrades he has left.
 'Twere well if his exterior change were all—
But with  his clumsy port the wretch has lost            658
 His ignorance, and harmless manners too !
To swear, to  game, to drink ; to show  at home,
By lewdness,  idleness, and sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends;           955
To break some maiden's and his mother's heart;
 To be a pest where he was useful once;
 Are his sole aim, and all his glory, now !

   Man, in society, is like a flower
 Blown in its native bed:  'tis there alone               660 
23«                THE TASK.          Book IV*

His faculties expanded in full bloom,
Shine out;  there only reach their proper use.
But man, associated and leagu'd with man
By regal warrant, or self-join'd by bond,
For interest-sake, or swarming into clans              665
Beneath one head, for purposes of war,
Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound
And bundled close to fill some crowded vase,
Fades rapidly, and,  by  compression marr'd,
Contracts defilement not to be  endur'd.                  67#
Hence charter'd boroughs are  such public plagues ;
And burghers,  men immaculate, perhaps,
In all their private  functions,  once combin'd,
Become a loathsome body,  only fit
For dissolution, hurtful to the main.                   675
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin
Against the charities of domestic life,
Incorporated, seem at once to lose
Their nature ; and, disclaiming all regard
For mercy and the common rights of man,             680
Build factories with blood, conducting trade
At the sword's point, and dyeing the  white rofce
Of innocent commercial justice red.
Hence,  too, the field of glory, as the  world
Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,              688
With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp,
Enchanting music  and  immortal wreaths,
Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught
 On principle, where foppery  atones
 For folly, gallantry for every v ice.                     690

   But,  slighted as it is, and  by the great
 Abandon'd,  and,  which still I more regret,
 InfeCted with the manners and the modes
 It knew not once,  the country wins me still.
 I never fram'd a wish, or form'd  a plan,              695
 That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss,
 But there  I laid the scene.  There early stray'd
 My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice
 Had found me, or the hope of being free.
 My very dreams were rural;  rural,  too,                70G
 The first born efforts of my youthful muse,
 Sportive,  and jingling her poetic bells
 Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers.
 No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd
 To Nature's praises.  Heroes and their feats           705 
Book IV.   THE WINTER EVENING.   23g

Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe
Of Tytirus, assembling, as he sang,
The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech.
Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms :
New to my taste, his Paradise surpass'd                710
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue
To speak its excellence.  I danced for joy.
I marvelled much that, at so ripe an age
As twice seven years, his beauties had  then first
Engag'd my wonder, and,  admiring still,               715
And still admiring,  with regret suppos'd
The joy half lost because not sooner found.
Thee,  too,  enamour'd of the life I lov  d,
Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit
Determin'd, and possessing it at last                   720
With transports such as favour'd lovers feel,
I studied, priz'd, and wish'd that I had known,
Ingenious Cowley '.  and, though now,  reclaim'd
By modern lights from an erroneous taste,
I cannot but lament thy splendid wit                   725
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools,
I still revere thee, courtly though retir'd ;
Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers,
Not unemploy'd ; and finding rich amends
For a lost world, in solitude and verse.                 730
'Tis born with all: The love of Nature's works
Is an ingredient  in the compound man,
Infus'd at the creation of the kind.
And, though the Almighty Maker has, throughout,
Discriminated each from each, by strokes               735
And touches of his hand, with so much art
Diversified,  that two were never found
Twins at all points—yet this obtains in all,
That all discern a beauty in his works,
And all can taste them : minds that have been form'd    740
And tutor'd. with a relish more exact;
But none without some relish, none unmov'd.
It is a flame that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it, neither business, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city-life,                       745
Whatever else they smother of true worth
Iu human bosoms, quench it, or abate.
The villa's with which London stands begirt,
Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,
Prove it.  A breath of unadulterate air,                759
The glimpse of a green pasture,—how they cheer 
340                THE  TASK.          Book  IV.

The citizen, and brace his languid frame !
Even  in the stifling bosom of the town,
A garden,  in which nothing strives, has charms
That  soothe the rich possessor ; much consol'd,        755
That  here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,
Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
He cultivates.  These serve him with a hint
That  Nature lives ;  that sight-refreshing green
Is still the livery she delights to wear,                 760
Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole.
What are the casements lin'd with creeping herbs,
The prouder sashes fronted with a range
Of orange, myrtle,  or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's*  darling ? Are they not all proofs    765
That  man,  immur'd in cities, still retains
His inborn, inextinguishable thirst
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss
By supplemental shifts, the best he may ?
The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,           770
And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds
To range the fields and treat their lungs with air,
Yet feel the burning instinCt: over-head
Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick,
And water'd duly.  There the pitcher stands          775
A fragment, and  the spoutless tea-pot there ;
Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets
The country, with what ardour he contrives
A peep at nature, when he can no more.

   Hail, therefore, patroness of health, and ease,       788
And contemplation,  heart-consoling joys,
And harmless pleasures,  in the throng'd abode
Of multitudes  unknown ! hail,  rural life!
Address himself who will to the pursuit
Of honours, or emolument, or fame ;                  785
I shall not add myself to such a chase,
Thwart his attempts, or envy his success.
Some must  be  great.  Great offices will have
Great talents.   And God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,              790
That  lifts him into life ; and lets him fall
Just in the  niche he was ordain'd to fill.
To the deliverer of an injur'd land
He gives a  tongue to enlarge upon, an heart
To feel,  and courage to redress  her wrongs ;           795
* Mignonnette. 
Book  IV.   THE WINTER  EVENING.   241

To monarchs dignity ; to judges sense ;
To artists ingenuity and skill ;
Tome an unambitious mind, content
In the low vale of life, that early felt
A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long              800
Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd,
X 
   ARGUMENT  OF THE FIFTH BOOK.

A frosty  morning.—The foddering  of cattle.—
  The man and his dog.—The poultry.—Whim-
  sical effects of frost at a waterfall.—The Em-
  press of Russia's palace of ice.—Amusements of
  tnonarchs.—War, one of them.—Wars, whence
  —And  whence  monarchy.—The evils of it.—
  English and French  loyalty contrasted.—The
  Bastille, and a prisoner there.—Liberty the chief
  recommendation of this country.—Modern pa-
  triotism questionable, and why.—The perisha-
  ble nature of the best human institutions—Spi-
  ritual liberty not perishable.— The slavish state
  of man by nature.—Deliver him, Deist,  if you
  can.—Grace must do it.— The respective merits
  of patriots  and martyrs stated.— Their differ-
  ent  treatment.-—Happy freedom of the man
  ■whom grace makes free.—His relish of the
  works of God.—Address to the Creator. 
BOOK  V.
   THE WINTER  MORNING  WALK.


      |_  IS morning ; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascenuing, fires the horizon ;  while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood.  His  slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the  field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile.  With eye askance
I view the muscular,  proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean shank.   The shapeless pair,
As they design'd to mock me,  at my  side
Take step for step ; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaister'd wall,
Preposterous sight! the legs without  the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge ; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearmg o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel  clad,
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness.  There they wait
Their wonted fodder ; not like hungering  man, 
244
THE TASK.
Book V.
 Fretful if unsupplied ;  but silent, meek,
 And_ patient of the slow-pac'd swain's delay.
 He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,
 Deep-plunging, and again deep plunging oft,
 His broad, keen knife, into  the solid mass :              35
 Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
 With such undeviating and even force
 He severs it away : no needless care,
 Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
 Deciduous, or its  own unbalanc'd weight.               4fl
 Forth gees the woodman, leaving, unconcern'd,
 The cheerful haunts of man ;  to wield the axe
 And drive the wedge,  in yonder forest drear,
 From morn to eve his solitary task.
 Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed  ears,       45
 And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur—
 His dog attends him.   Close behind his heel
 New creeps he slow ;  and now, with many a frisk
 Wide-scampering,  snatches up the drifted snow
 With ivory teeth,  or ploughs it with his snout;         50
 Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy.
 Heedless cf all his pranks, the sturdy churl
 Moves right toward the mark ;  nor stops for aught,
 But now and then, with pressure of his thumb,
 To adjust the fragrant  charge of a short tube             55
 That fumes beneath his nose : the trailing cloud
 Streams far behind him,  scenting all the air.
 >;ow from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale,
 Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam
 Of smiling day, theygossip'd  side by side,              69
 Come trooping, at the  housewife's well-known call,
 The ftather'd tribes domestic.   Half on wing,
 And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
 Conscious, and fearful cf too deep a plunge.
 The sparrows peep, and quit the  sheltering eaves        65
 To seize the fair occasion.   Well they eye
 The scatter'd grain ; and, thievishly resolv'd
 To escape the impending famine, often scar'd,
 As oft return—r pert voracious kind.
 Clean riddance .quickly made, one only care              70
 Remains to each—the search of sunny nook,
Or shed impervious to the blast.   Resign'd
To sad necessit/, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut;  and, wading at their head,
With well consider'd steps, seems to resent              75
His alter'd gait, arid stateliness retrench'cL 
Book V.   THE  WINTER  MORNING WALK.    245

How find the myriads,  that in summer cheer
The hills and vallies with their ceaseless songs,
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now ?
Earth yields them nought: the imprison'd worm is safe   80
Beneath the frozen clod ; all seeds of herbs
Lie cover'd close ; and berry-bearing thorns,
That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose)
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long protraCted rigour of the year                   85
Thins all their numerous flocks.  In chinks and  holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
As instinCt promps ; seif-buried ere they die.
The very rooks  and daws forsake the fields,
V/hcru neither grub, nor root,  nor earth-nut,  now        90
Repays their labour more ; avid, perch'd aloft
By the way-side, or stalking in the path,
Lean pensioners upon the travellers track,
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them,
Of voided  pulse or half-digested grain.                  95
The streams are lost amkl the splendid blank,
O'erwhelming all distinction.  On the flood,
Indurated  and fixt,  the snowy  weight
Lies undissolv'd ; while silently beneath,
And unperceiv'd, the current steals away.               100
Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulph below  :
No frost can bind it there ;  its utmost force
Can but arrest the light ard smoky mist                 105
That in its fall the  liquid  sheet throws wide.
And see where it has hung the enbroider'd banks
With forms so various, that no powers of art,
The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene !
Here glittering  turrets rise, upbearing high             110
(Fantastic  misarrangement !)  on the  roof
Large growth of what may seem the  sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairy land.  The crystal drops
That trickle clown the branches,  fast congeal'd,
Shoot into  pillars of pellucid length,                    115
And prop  the pile they but adorn'd before.
Here grotto, within grotto safe, defies
The sun-beam ;  there,  emboss'd and  fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in  vain               120
The likeness of some object seen before.
Thus nature works as if to mock at art,
                           x 2 
246
THE TASK.
Book V.
And in defiance of her rival powers ;
By these fortuitous and random strokes,
Performing such inimitable feats                       125
As she, with all her rules, can never reach.
Less worthy of applause, though more admir'd,
Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ !
Thy most magnificent and mighty freak                130
The wonder of the North.  No forest fell
When thou wouldst build ;  no quarry sent its stores
To enrich thy walls :  but thou didst hew the floods,
And make ihy marble of the glassy wave.
In such a palace Aristxus found                        135
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear :
In such a palace poetry might place
The armoury of winter ; where his troops,
The glcomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy fleet,         140
 Skm-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,
 And snow that often blinds the traveller's course,
 And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.
 Silently as a dream the fabric  rose;—
 No sound < f hammer or of saw was there.               145
 Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts
 Were soon ccnjoin'd ; ncr other cement ask'd
 Than water interfus'd to make them one.
 Lamps gracefully dispos'd, and of all hues,
 Illumin'd every side :  a watery light                   150
 Gleam'd through the clear tran: parency, that seem d
 Another moon new risen,  or meteor fallen
 From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene.
 !h">  steed the brittle prcdigy ; though smooth
 And slippery the materials, vet, frost-bound,           155
 Fiim as a rock.  Nor wanted aught within,
 That royal residence might well befit,
 For grandeur or for use.  Long wavy wreaths
 Of flowers,  that fear'd no enemy but warmth,
 Blush'd on the pannels.  Mirror needed none           160
 Where all was vitreous ;  but in order due
 Convivial table and commodious seat
 ^ What seem'd at least commodious seat)  were there ;
 Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august.
 The same lubricity was found in all,                    165
 And all was moist  to the warm touch ; a scene
 Qf evanescent glory, once a stream,
 And soon to slide into a stream again. 
Book V.   THE WINTER MORNING  WALK.   247

Alas ! 'twas but a mortifying stroke
Of undesign'd severity, that glanc'd                    170
(Made by a monarch)  on her own estate,
On human grandeur and the courts of kings.
'Twas transient in its nature,  as in show
'Twas durable ;  as worthless as it seem'd
Intrinsically precious ; to the foot                      175
Treacherous and false ; it smil'd, and it was cold.

  Great princes have great playthings.   Some have play'd
At hewing mountains into men, and  some
At building human wonders mountain-high.
Somr have amus'd the dull, sad years of life,            180
(Life spent in indolence,  and therefore sad)
With schemes of monumental fame ; and sought
By pyramids and mausolean pomp,
Short-liv'd themselves, to immortalize their bones.
Some seek diversion in the tented field,                185
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game, which, were their subjeCts wise,
Kings would not play  at.   Nations would do well
To extort their truncheons from the  puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds               190
Are gratified with mischief;  and who  spoil,
Because men suffer it, their toy, the  world.

  When Babel was confounded, and the great
Confederacy of projectors wild and vain
Was split into diversity of tongues,                    195
Then, as a shepherd separates his flock,
These to the upland, to the valley those,
God drove asunder, and assign'd their lot
To all the nations.  Ample was the  boon
He gave them,  in its distribution fair                  200
And equal;  and he bade them dwell in peace.
Peace was awhile their care: they plough'd, and sow'd,
And reap'd their plenty,  without grudge or strife.
But violence can never longer sleep
Than human passions please.  In every heart          205
Are  sown the sparks that kindle firy war;
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.
Cain had already shed a brother's blood:
The deluge  wash'd it out: but left unquench'd
The seeds of murder in the breast of man.              21©
Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line
Of his descending progeny was found 
248
THE TASK.
Book V.
The first artificer of death ;  the shrewd
Contriver who first sweated at the forge,
And forc'd the blunt and yet unblooded steel
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.
Him,  Tubal nam'd,  the Vulcan of old times,
The sword and faulchion their inventor claim ;
And the first smith was the first murderer's son.
His art surviv'd the waters ; and ere long,
When man was multiplied and spread abroad
In tribes and clans,  and had begun to call
These meadows and that rage of hills his own,
The tasted sweets of property begat
Desire of more ; and industry in some,
To improve and cultivate their just demesne,
Made others covet what they saw so fair.
Thus war began on earth :  these fought for spoil,
And those in self-defence.  Savage, at first,
The onset, and irregular.   At length                  230
One eminent above the rest,  for strength,
For stratagem, or courage, or for all,
Was  chosen leader; him they serv'd in war,
And him in peace,  for sake of warlike deeds
Reverenc'd no less.  Who  could with him compare,    235
Or who so worthy to control  themselves
As he whose prowess had subdu'd their foes ?
Thus war, affording field for the display
Of virtue,  made one chief, whom times of peace,
Which have their exigencies too, and call             240
For skill in government, at length made  king.
King was a name too proud for man to wear
With modesty and meekness; and the crown,
So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,
Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.            245
It is the abjeCt property of most,
That, being parcel cf  the common mass,
And  destitute of means to raise themselves,
They sink, and settle lower than they need.
They know not what it is to feel within               250
 A comprehensive faculty,  that grasps
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields,
Almost without an effort, plans too vast
For their conception, which they cannot move.
Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk        255
With gazing,  when they see an able man
Step forth to notice ; and,  besotted thus,
Build him a pedestal,  and say, " Stand there,
220 
Book V.   THE WINTER MORNING WALK.   24£»

" And be our admiration and our praise."
They roll themselves before him in the dust,            260
Then most deserving in their own account,
When most extravagant in his applause,
As if, exalting him, they rais'd themselves.
Thus by degrees,  self-cheated of their souud
And sober judgment ' that he is but man'              266'
They demi-deify and fume him so,
That in due season he forgets it too.
Inflated and astrut with self-conceit.
He gulps the windy diet; and ere long,
Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks             27®
The world was made in vain, if not for him.
Thenceforth they are his cattle : drudges, born
To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,
And sweating in his service, his caprice
Becomes the soul that animates them all.               275
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,
Spent in the purchase of renown for him,
An easy reckoning ; and they think the same.
Thus kings were first invented,  and thus kings
Were bumish'd into heroes, and became               280
The arbiters of this terraqueous  swamp ;
Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died.
Strange, that such folly as lifts bloated  man
To eminence, fit only for a god,
Should ever drivel out of human lips,                  285
Even in the cradled weakness of the world !
Still stranger much, that, when at length mankind
Had reach'd the sinewy firmness of their youth,
And could discriminate and argue well
On subjeCts more mysterious, they were yet            290
Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear
And quake  before the gods themselves had made !
But above measure strange, that neither proof
Of sad experience, nor examples set
By some whose patriot virtue has prevail'd,            295
Can even now,  when they are grown mature
In wisdom, and with philosophic deeps
Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest!
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To reverence what is ancient, and can  plead          300
A course of long observance for its use,
That even -servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred tiling ! 
250
THE TASK.
Book V.
But is it fit,  or can it bear the shock                   305
Of rational discussion, that a man,
Compounded and made up,  like other men,
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet,
As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,    -            310
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freeman of his land ?
Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will,
Wage war,  with any, or with no pretence
Of provocation given, or wrong sustain'd,             315
And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That his own humour dictates, from the clutch
Of poverty, that thus he may procure
His  thousands, weary of penurious life,
A splendid opportunity  to die ?                        320
Say ye, who (with less prudence than, of old,
Jotham ascrib'd to his assembled trees
In politic convention)  put  your trust
In the shadow of a bramble, and, reclin'd
In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch,        325
Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway,
Where find ye passive fortitude ? Whence springs
Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good
To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang
His thorns with streamers of continual praise ?          330
We, too, are friends to loyalty.  We  love
The king who love* the law, respeCts his bounds,
And reigns content within  them : him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free:
But, recolleCting still that he is man,                  335
We trust him not too far.  King though he be,
And king in England too,  he may be  weak ;
And vain enough to be ambitious still,
May exercise amiss his proper powers,
Or covet more than freemen choose to grant:          340
Eeyond that mark is treason.   He is  our's
To administer,  to guard, to adorn the state,
But not to warp or change it.   We are his
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.            345
Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love
Of kings, between your loyalty and our's.
We love the man ; the paltry pageant you.
We the chief patron of the commonwealth ;
You the regardless author of its woes.                 35*, 
Book V.     THE  WrINTER MORNING  WALK.   251
We, for the sake of liberty, a king ;
You chains and bondage, for a tyrant's sake.
Our love is principle, and has its root
In reason, is judicious, manly, free;
Your's,  a blind instinct,  crouches to the rod,            355
And licks the foot that treads it in the dust.
Were kingship as true treasure as it seems,
Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish,
I would not be a king to be belov'd
Causeless, and daub'd with undiscerning praise,        360
Where love is mere attachment to the throne,
NGt to the man who fills it as he ought.

  Whose freedom is by sufferance,  and at will
Of a superior, he is never free.
Who  lives, and is not weary of a life                  365
Expos d to manacles, deserves  them well.
The state that strives for liberty, though foil'd,
And forc'd to abandon what she bravely sought,
Deserves at least applause for her attempt,
And pity for her loss.  But that's a cause              370
Not often unsuccessful:  pow'r usurp'd
Is weakness when oppos'd;  conscious of wrong,
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.
But slaves,  that  once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess                 375
All that the contest calls for ;  spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts;
The surest presage of the good they seek*.
380
385
  Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
To France than all her losses and defeats,
Old, or of later date, by sea or land,
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old
Which God aveng'd on Pharaoh—the Bastille !
Ye horrid tow'rs, the abode of broken hearts ;
Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,
That monarchs have supplied  from age to age
With music such as suits their sovereign ears—
The sighs and groans of miseiable men!


  * The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unne-
cessary warmth  upon so interesting a subject.  He is aware
thltU  income almost fashionable to stigmatize such sent.-
ImsasnTberterthan empty declamation ;  but it is an ill
symptom,  and peculiar to modem times. 
 5^2                  THE  TASK.             Book V.

 There's not an English heart that would net leap
 To hear that ye were fallen at last;  to know            390
 That even our enemies, so oft employ'd
 In forging chains for us, themselves were free.
 For he who values liberty, confines
 His zeal for her predominance within
 No narrow bounds ;  her cause engages him             395
 Wherever pleaded.  'Tis the cause of man.
 There dwell the  most forlorn of human  kind ;
 Immur'd, though unaccus'd, condemn'd untried,
 Cruelly spar'd, and hopeless of escape !
 There, like the visionary emblem, seen                 400
 By him  of Babylon,  life stands a stump,
 And, fileted about with hoops of brass,
 Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone,
 To count the hour-bell and expect no change ;
 And ever, as the sullen sound is heard,                 405
 Still to reflect, that,  though a joyless note
 To him whose moments all have  one dull pace,
 Ten thousand rovers in the world at large
 Account it music ; that it summons some
 To theatre, or jocund feast or ball:                    418
 The wearied hireling finds it a release
 From labour ; and the lover, who has chid
 Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke
 Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight—
 To fly for refuge from distracting thought               41 >
 To such amusements as ingenious wee
 Contrives, hard-shifiing, and without her tool' —
 To read  engraven on the mouldy walls,
 In  staggering types,  his predecessor's tale,
 A sad memorial,  and subjoin his own—                 420
 To turn purveyor to an overgorg'd
 And bloated spider, till the pamper'd pest
 Is made  familiar, watches his  approach,
 Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend—
 To wear out time in numbering to and fro               425
 The studs that thick emboss  his iron dooi ;
 Then downward and then upward, then  aslant
 And then alternate ;  with a sickly hope
 By  dint of change to give his tasteless task
 Some relish ; till, the sum exactly found                430
 In all directions,  he begins again—
Oh  comfortless existence ' hemm'd around
With woes, which who that suffer:, would not kneel
And beg  for exile, or the pangs of death ? 
 Book  V.   THE WINTER MORNING WALK.   253

That man should thus encroach on fellow man,         435
 Abridge him of his just and native rights,
 Eradicate him, tear him from his hold
Upon the endearments  of domestic life
 And social,  nip  his fruitfulness and use,
And doom him for, perhaps, an heedless word,         4 40
To barrenness, and solitude,  and tears,
Moves indignation ;  makes the name of king
(Of  king whom  such prerogative can please)
As dreadful as the Mar.ichean god,
 Ador'd through  fear, strong only to destroy.            445

   'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ;
And we are  weeds without it.  All constraint,
Except what wisdom lays on evil men,
Is evil;  hurts the faculties,  impedes                    450
Their progress in the road of science ; blinds
The  eyesight of  discovery : and begets,
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind
Bestial, a meagre intellect,  unfit
To be the tenant of man's noble form.                  455
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd
By public exigence till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
Thee I account still happy,  and the chief   '           460
Among the nations, seeing thou art free:
My native nook  of earth ! Thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
 All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine :
Thine unadulterate manners are less soft                465
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art
To give thee what politer France receives
From Nature's bounty—that humane address
And sweetness,  without which no pleasure is           470
In converse, either, starved by cold reserve,
Or flushed with fierce dispute,  a senseless brawl:
Yet,  being free,  I love thee -.  for the sake
Of that one  feature can be well content,
Disgrac'd as thou hast been,  poor as thou art,          475
To seek no sublunary rest beside.
But, once enslav'd, farewell! I  could endure
Chains no where patiently; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birthright, not at all. 
254
THE TASK.
Book V.
Then what were left of roughness in the grain           480
Of British natures, wanting its excuse
That it belongs to freemen, would disgust
And shock me.  I should then, with double pain
Feel all the rigour  of thy fickle clime ;
And, if I must bewail the blessing lost,                485
For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled,
I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people less austere ;
In scenes which, having never known me free,
Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.            490
Do I forebode impossible events,
And tremble at vain dreams ! Heav'n grant I may l
But the age  of virtuous politics is past,
And we  are deep m that of cold pretence.
Patriots are  grown too shrewd to be sincere,            495
And we  too wise to trust them.  He that takei
Deep in his  soft credulity the stamp
Designed by loud declaimers on the part
Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,
Incurs derision for his easy faith                       506
And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough j
For when was public virtue to be found
Where private was not ?  Can he love the whole
Who loves no part ? He be a nation's friend
Who is,  in truth, the friend of no man there ?          505
Can  he be strenuous in his country's cause
Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be beloved!

  'Tis therefore sober and good men are sad
For England's glory,  seeing it wax  pale                510
And sickly,  while  her champions wear their hearts
So loose  to private duty,  that no brain,
Healthful and undisturbed by faCtious fumes,
Can dream them trusty to the general weal.
Such were not they of old, whose tempered blades      515
Dispersed the shackles of usurped control,
And hew'd them link  from link;  then Albion's sons
Were sons indeed ; they felt a filial heart
Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs ;
And, shining each in  his domestic sphere,              520
Shone brighter still, once call'd to public view,
'Tis  therefore many, whose sequestered lot
Forbids their interference, looking on,
Anticipate perforce some dire event; 
Book V.   THE WINTER MORNING WALK.    255

And, seeing the old castle of the state,                 525
That promised once more firmness,  so assailed
That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake,
Stand motionless expectants of its fall.
All has its date below ; the fatal hour
Was registered in heaven ere time began.              530
We turn to dust, and all  our mightiest works
Die too: the deep foundations that we lay,
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.
We build with what we  deem eternal rock :
A distant age asks  where the fabric stood ;             535
And in the dust, sifted and search'd in vain,
The undiscoverable secret sleeps.

   But there it yet a liberty, unsung
By poets, and by senators unprais'd,
Which monarchs cannot  grant, nor all the powers      540
Of earth and hell confederate take away :
A liberty, which persecution, fraud,
 Oppressions,  prisons, have no power to bind;
 Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more.
 'Tis liberty of heart,  deriv'd from heaven ;             545
 Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind,
 And seal'd with the same token! It is held
 By charter, and that charter sanCtion'd sure
 By the unimpeachable and awful oath
 And promise of a God !  His other gifts                550
 All bear the royal stamp  that speaks them his,
 And are august; but this transcends them all.
 His other works, the visible display
 Of all-creating energy and might,
 Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the word           555
 That, finding an interminable space
 Unoccupied,  has fill'd the void so well,
 And made so sparkling  what was dark before.
 But these are not his glory.  Man,  'tis true,
 Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene,                560
 Might well suppose the artificer divine
 Meant it eternal,  had he not himself
 Pronounc'd it transient, glorious as it is,
 And, still designing a more glorious far,
 Doom'd it as insufficient for his praise,                 565
 These therefore,  are occasional, and pass ;
 Form'd for the confutation of the fool,
 Whose lying heart disputes against a God ;
 That office serv'd, they mu^t be swept away. 
056                   THE  TASK.             Book V.

Not so the labours of his love : they shine              570
In other heavens than these that we behold,
And fade not.   There is paradise that fears
No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends
Large prelibation oft to saints below.
Of these the first in order, and the  pledge              575
And confident assurance of the rest,
Is liberty :—a flight into his arms
Ere  yet mortality's fine threads give way,
A clear escape from tyrannizing lust,
And full immunity from penal woe.                   580

   Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes and a dungeon ;  and his body serves
The triple purpose.   In that sickly, foul,
Opprobrious residence, he finds them all.
Propense his heart to idols, he is held                 585
In silly dotage on created things,
Caieless of their Creator.  And that low
And sordid gravitation of his powers
To a vile clod so draws him,  with such force
Resistless from the centre he should seek,              590
That he at last forgets it.  All his  hopes
Tend downward ; his ambition is to sink,
To reach a depth profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.                 595
But, ere he gain the comfortless repose
He seeks, and acquiescence of his  soul,
In heaven renouncing exile, he endures—
What does he not ? from lusts oppos'd in vain,
And self-reproaching conscience.   He foresees         600
The fatal issue to his health,  fame, peace,
Fortune, and dignity ; the loss of all
That can ennoble man, and make frail life,
Short as it is,  supportable.  Still worse,
Far  worse than all the plagues with which his sins     605
InfeCt his happiest moments, he forebodes
Ages of hopeless misery.   Future death,
And death still future.  Not an hasty stroke,
Like that which sends him to the dusty grave ;
But unrepeatable enduring death !                      6i0
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears :
What none qan prove a forgery, may be true ;
What none but bad men wish exploded, must..
That scruple checks him.   Riot is not loud, 
 Book  V.   THE WINTER MORNING  WALK.   257

 Nor drunk enough to drown it.  In the midst           615
 Of laughter his compunctions are sincere ;
 And he abhors the jest by which he shines.
 Remorse begets reform.  His master-lust
 Falls first before his resolute rebuke,
 And seems dethron'd and vanquish'd.  Peace ensues,   620
 But spurious and short-liv'd ;  the puny child
 Of self-congratulating pride, begot
 On fancied innocence.   Again he falls,
 And fights again ; but finds his best essay
 A presage ominous, portending still                   625
 Its own dishonour by a worse relapse.
 Till Nature, unavailing nature, foil'd
 So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt,
 Scoffs at her own  performance.   Reason now
 Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause,         630
 Perversely, which of late she so condemn'd ;
 With shallow shifts and old devices, worn
 And tatter'd in the service of debauch,
 Covering his shame from his offended sight.

   " Hath God indeed given appetites to  man,
 "  And stor'd the earth so plemeously with means
 "  To gratify the hunger of his wish  ;
 "  And doth he reprobate, and will he damn,
 "  The une of his own bounty ? making first
 "  So frail a kind,  and then enaCting laws
 "  So strict, that less than perfeCt must despair ?
 "  Falsehood !  which whoso but suspeCts of truth
 "  Dishonours God, and makes a slav< of man.
 "  D"> they themselves,  who undertake for hire
 " The teacher's office, and dispense at large
 " Their weekly dole of edifying  strains,
 "  Attend to thhr own music ? have  they faith
 " In what with such  solemnity of tone
 " And gesture they propound to our belief ?
" Nay—conduCt ha'h the loudest tongue.   The  voice
" Is but an instrument, on which 'he priest
" May play what tu.ie he pleases.  In the deed,
" The unequivocal authentic deed,
 "  We find sound argument, we read the heart."

  Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong      655
To excuses in which reason has no part)
Fewe to compose  a spirit well inclin'd
To live on terms of amitv with vice,
                         y  2
640
645 
258
THE TASK.
Book V.
And sin without disturbance.   Often urg'd,
(As often as libidinous discourse                       660
Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes
Of theological and grave import)
They gain at last  his unreserv'd assent ;
Till, harden'd his heart's temper in the forge
Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,                    665
He slights the strokes of conscience   Nothing moves,
Or nothing much, his constancy in ill ;
Vain tampering has but foster'd his disease ;
'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death !
Haste now, philosopher, and set him free.             670
Charm the deaf serpent wisely.   Make him hear
Of reCtitude and fitness, moral truth
How lovely,  and  the moral sense how sure,
Consulted and obey'd, to guide his steps
DireCtly to the first antj only fair.               675
Spare not in such a cause.   Spend all the  powers
Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise :
Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,
 And with poetic  trappings grace thy prose,
Till it out-mantle all the pride of verse.—              680
 Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high sounding  brass,
 Smitten in vain !  such music cannot chz-rm
 The eclipse that  intercepts truth's heavenly beam,
 And chills and darkens a  wide-war.dering soul.
 The still small voice is wanted.  He must speak,  685
 Whose word leaps forth at once to its effeCt;
 Who calls for things that are not, and they come.

   Grace makes the slave a freeman.   'Tis a change
 That turns to ridicule the turgid speech
And stately tone  of moralists,  who boast,              690
 As  if, like him of fabulous renown,
 They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each
 An Orpheus, and omnipotent in  song :
 But transformation of apostate man                    695
 From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,
Is work for Him  that made him.   He alone,
 And he by means in philosophic eyes
 Trivial and worthy of disdain,  achieves
The wonder; humanizing what is brute                700
 In the lost kind,  extracting from the lips
Of asps their venom,  overpowering strength
By weakness, and hostility by love. 
Book V.   THE WINTER MORNING WALK.   259

  Patriots have toil'd, and in their country's cause
Bled nobly ; and their deeds, as they deserve,          705
Receive proud recompense.   We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre.  The historic muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times ;  and sculpture,  in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass              710
To guard them, and  to immortalize her trust :
But fairer wreaths are due,  though never paid,
To those who, posted at the shrine of truth,
Have fallen in her defence.   A patriot's blood,
Well spent in  such a strife, may earn indeed,          715
And for a time ensure, to his lov'd land
The  sweets of liberty and equal laws ;
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,
And win it with more pain.   Their blood is shed
In confirmation of the noblest claim—                 720
Our  claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar, and to anticipate the skies !
Yet few remember them.  They liv'd unknown
Till persecution dragg'd them into fame,               725
And chas'd them up  to heaven.   Their ashes flew
—No marble tells us  whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song :
And history,  so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this.  She  execrates indeed                 730
The  tyranny that doom'd them to the fire,
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise*.

   He is the freeman  whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.   There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,            7S5
Can  wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green wyths.
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of Nature, and though poor perhaps compar'tl
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,         740
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His  are the mountains,  and the vallies his,
And the resplendent rivers.  His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But  who, with filial confidence inspir'd,               745
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say—" My father made them all!"
* See Hume. 
260
THE TASK.
Book V.
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose e> e they fill with tears of holy joy,              750
Whose heart with  praise,  and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That phinn'd,  and built, and still upholds, a world
So cloth'd with beauty for rebellious  man I
Yes—ye may fill your garners,  ye that reap—           755
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find,
In feast or in the chase, in song  or dance,
A liberty like his,  who, unimpeach'd
Of usurpation,  and to no man's wrong,                  760
Appropriates nature as his father's work,
And has  a richer use of your's than you.
He is indeed a freeman.  Free by birth
Of no mean city ;  plann'd or ere the  hills
Were built,  the fountains  open'd, or the  sea            765
With ail his roaring multitude of waves.
His  freedom is the same in every state ;
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less :              770
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury, can cripple or confine.
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With  ease,  and is at large.  The oppressor holds
His  body bound ; but knows not what a range          775
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ;
And that to bind him is a vain attempt
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells.

   Acquaint thyself with God,  if thou would'st taste
His works.  Admitted once to his embrace,             780
Thou shalt perceive that ihou was' blind before :
Thine eye shall be instructed ;  and thine heart,
Made  pure, shall relish, with divine delight
'Till then unfelt, what hands divine  have wrought.
Brutes grase the mountain-top, with  faces prone        785
Aid eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them ; or recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread
Beneath, beyond,  and  stretching far away
From inland regions to the distant main.                790
Man views it,  and admires; but rests content
With what he views.   The landscape has his praise, 
Book V.   THE WINTER  MORNING WALK.    261

But not its author.  Unconcern'd who form'd
The paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And such well-pleas'd to find it, asks no more.          795
Not so the mind that has been touch'd from heaven,
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught
To read his wonders, in whose thought the world,
Fair as it is, existed ere it was.
Not for its own sake merely, but for his                 800
Much more who fashion'd it, he gives it praise ;
Praise that,  from earth resulting,  as it ought,
To earth's acknowled'd sovereign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in Kim.
The soul that sees him, or receives sublim'd             805
New faculties,  or learns at least to employ
More worthily the powers she own'd before,
Discerns in ail things what, with stupid gaze
Of ignorance,  till then she overlook'd—
A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms               810
Terrestrial in the vast and the minute ;
The unambiguous footsteps of the God
Who gives its lustre to an inseCt's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds.
Much conversant with heaven, she often holds          815
With those fair ministers of light to man,
That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp,
Sweet conference.   Inquires what strains were they
With which heaven rang, when every star, in haste
Togratulate the new-created earth,                     820
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God
Shouted for joy.—" Tell me, ye shining hosts,
•' That navigate a sea that knows no storms,
" Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,
«' If from your elevation,  whence  ye view               825
" Distinctly scenes invisible to man,
" And systems of whose birth no  tidings yet
" Have reach'd this nether world, ye spy a race
*' Favour'd as our's ;  transgressors from the womb,
" And hasting to a grave, yet doom'd to rise,           830
" And to possess a brighter heaven than your's !
" As one who long detain'd on foreign shores
" Pants to return, and when he sees afar
" His country's weather-bleach'd  and batter'd rocks,
" From the green wave emerging, darts an eye         835
" Radiant with joy towards the happy land ;
" So I with animated hopes behold,
" And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, 
262                  THE TASK.             Book V.

" That shew like beacons in the blue abyss,
" Ordain'd to guide the embodied spirit home           840
" From toilsome life to never-ending rest.
" Love kindles as I gaze.  1 feel desires
" That give assurance of their own success,
" And that, infus'd from heaven,  must thither tend."

  So reads he nature whom the lamp of truth            845
Illuminates.  Thy lamp, mysterious word !
Which whoso sees no longer wanders lost,
With intellects bemaz'd in endless doubt,
But runs the road of wisdom.  Thou hast built,
With means that were not till  by thee employ'd,         850
Worlds that had never been hadst thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong.
They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power
And goodness infinite, but speak in ears
That hear not, or receive not their report.              855
In vain thy creatures testify  of thee
Till thou proclaim thyself.   Their's is indeed
A teaching voice ; but 'tis the praise of thine
That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn,
And with the boon gives talents for its use.             860
'Till thou art heard, imaginations vain
Possess the heart, and fables false as  hell;
Yet, deem'd oracular, lure down to death
The uninform'd and heedless souls of men.
We give to chance,  blind chance, ourselves as blind,    865
The glory of thy work ; which yet appears
PerfeCt and unimpeachable of blame,
Challenging human scrutiny,  and prov'd
Then skilful most when most  severely judged.
But chance is not; or is not where thou reign'st:       870
Thy providence forbids that fickle power
 (If power she be that works but to confound)
 To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws.
 Yet thus we dote, refusing while we can
 Instruction,  and inventing to  ourselves                 875
 Gods such as guilt makes welcome ; gods that sleep,
 Or disregard our follies, or that sit
 Amus'd spectators of this bustling stage.
 Thee we rejeCt, unable to abide
 Thy purity,  till pure as thou art pure ;                   880
 Made-such by thee,  we love thee for that cause
 For which we shunn'd and hated thee before.
 Then we are free.  Then liberty, like day,
V 
 Book V.   THE  WINTER MORNING WALK.   263

 Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heaven
 Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.                885
 A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not
 Till thou hast touch'd them ; 'tis the voice of song—
 A loud hosanna sent from all thy works ;
 Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,
 And adds his rapture to the general praise.             890
 In that blest moment Nature, throwing wide
 Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile
. The author of her beauties, who,  retir'd
 Behind his own creation,  works unseen
 By the impure, and hears his power denied.             895
 Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
 Their only point of rest, eternal Word !
 From thee departing, they are lost, and rove
 At random, without honour, hope, or peaee.
 From thee is all that sooths the life of man,             900
 His high endeavour, and his glad success,
 His strength to suffer,  and his will to serve.
 But oh thou bounteous giver of all good,
 Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown !
 Give what thou can'st, without thee we are poor ;       905
 And with thee rich, take  what thou wilt away. 
 ARGUMENT OF  THE SIXTH  BOOK.

Bells at a distance.—Their  effect.—A fine noon
  in winter.—A sheltered-walk.—Meditation bet-
  ter than books.—Our familiarity with the course
  of nature makes it appear less  -wonderful than
  it is.—The transformation that spring effects
  in a shrubbery described.—A mistake concern-
  ing the course of nature corrected.—God main-
  tains it by an unremitted act.—The amusements
  fashionable at this hour of the day reproved.—
  Animals happy, a delightful sight.—Origin of
  cruelty to animals.—That it is a great crime
  proved from scripture.—That proof illustrated
  by a tale.—A line drawn between the lawful
  and unlawful destruction of them.— Their good
  and useful properties insisted on.—Apology for
  the encomiums bestowed by the author on ani-
  mals.—Instances of man's extravagant praise
  of man.—The groans of the creation shall have
  an end—A viexv taken of  the restoration of all
  things.—An invocation and an invitation of him
  who shall bring it to pass.—The retired man
  vindicated from the charge qfuselessness—Con-
  clusion. 
BOOK  VI.
  THE WINTER  WALK  AT NOON,


      [_ HERE is in souls a sympathy with ^ound?,
And, as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleas'd
With melting airs,  or martial, brisk, or grave :
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sou -rous, as the gale comes on !
With easy force  it opens all the cells
Where memory slept.  Wherever I  have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As  in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospeft the journey seems,
It seem'd not always short ; the rugged path
And prospeft oft so dreary and forlorn,
Mov'd many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet, feeling present evils,  while the past
Faintlv impress the mind,  or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revo,. d,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience,  as we now perceive)
We miss'd that happiness  we might have found ! _
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son s best fnend ■. 
266
THE TASK.
Book VI.
A father,  whose authority, in show                     30
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love  ;
Whose favour,  like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,                 35
Threatening at once and nourishing the  plant.
We lov'd, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear'd us.   At a thoughtless age, allur'd
By every gilded folly, we renounc'd
His sheltering side,  and wilfully forewent               4Q
That converse which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected sire !  a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.            45
Sorrow has, since they went,  subdu'd and tam'd
The playful humour ; he could now endure,
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent's presence no restraint.
But  not to understand a treasure's  worth                50
Till  time has stolen away  the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it  is.
The few that pray at all oft pray amiss,
And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold,      55
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.

   The night was winter in his roughest mood ;
The morning sharp and clear.  But now at noon
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,       60
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May.   The vault is blue
Without a cloud,  and white without a  speck
The dazzling splendor of  the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale  ;                65
And through the trees I view the  embattled tower
Whence all the music.  I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk,.still verdant,  under oaks and elms,          70
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through  all  its length
As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic'd,
And, intercepting in their silent fall 
Book VI.   THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.  2o7

The frequent flakes,  has kept a path for me.             7.5
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast  warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd :
Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to  spray,  where'er he rests he shakes         80
From many  a twig the pendant drops of ice,
That tinkle  in the wither'd leaves below.
Stillness,  accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence.  Meditation here
May think down hours to moments.  Here the heart,     85
May give an useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without-his books.
Knowledge  and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion.   Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;            90
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
vThe mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smooth'd  and squar'd and fitted to  its place,
 Docs but incumber whom it seems to enrich.             95
 Knowledge  is  proud  that he lias learn'd so much ;
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
 Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
 By which the  magic art of shrewder wits
 Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.               100
 Some to the fascination of a name
 Surrender judgment, hood-wink'd.   Some the style
 Infatuates,  and through labyrinths and wilds
 Of error leads them by a tune entrane'd.
 Wiiile sloth seduces more,  too weak to bear           105
 The  insupportable fatigue of thought,
 And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,
 The total grist unsifted, husks  and all,
 But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course
 Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,            110
 And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
 And lanes in which the primrose eve her time
 Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,
 Deceive no student.   Wisdom there, and truth,
 Not shy, as in the world, and to be won          ^    115
 By slow solicitation, seize at once
 The roving thought, and fix it  on themselves.

   What prodigies can power divine perform
 More grand than it produces year by year, 
26%                 THE TASK.             Book VI.
And all in sight of inattentive man ?                   120
Familiar with the effect we slight the cause,
And,  in the constancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at.  Should God again,          125
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punCtualsun,
How would the world admire !  but speaks it less
An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to sink and when to rise,            130
Age after age,  then to arrest his course ?
All we behold is miracle ; but, seen
So duly,  all is miracle in  vain.
Where now the vital energy that nicv'iT,
While summer was, the  pure and subtile lymph        135
Through the imperceptible  meandring veins
Of leaf and flower ?  It sleeps ;  and the icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impress'd
A ccld stagnation on the intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a  few short months,      140
And all shall be restor'd.  These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage  on again,
And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread,           145
Shall boast new charms,  and more than they have lost
Than, each in its peculiar honours clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye.
Its family  and tribe.  Laburnum, rich
In streaming gold ; syringa, ivory pure;               15»
The scentless and the scented rose ; this red
And cf an humbler growth, the * other  tall,
And throwing  up into the darkest gloom
Of neighboring cypress,  or more sable yew,
Her silver glebes, light as the foamy surf               155
That the wind severs from the  broken wave ;
The lilac,  various in array, now while,
Now sanguine,  and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolv'd                   165
Which hue she most approv'd, she chose  them all;
Copious  of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late j

                   * The Gudder-rcse. 
Book VI.   THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.   26t

Hypericum, all bloom, so thick a swarm               165
Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears ; mezerion,  too,
Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray ;
Althaea with the purple eye ;  the broom,                170
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd,
Her blossoms ; and, luxuriant above all,
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,
The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more           175
The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars.—
These have been, and these shall be in  their day ;
And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene,
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.                           180
From dearth to plenty,  and from death to life,
Is nature's progress,  v,  hen she leCtures  man
In heavenly truth ; evincing,  as she makes
The grand transition, that there  lives and  works
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.               185
The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That make so gay the solitary place
Where no eye  sees them.  And the fairer  forms
Tliat cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way,                190
And marshalls all the order of the year ;
He marks the bounds which winter may not pass,
And blunts his pointed fury ;  in its case,
Russet and rude,  folds  up the tender germ,
Uninjur'd, with inimitable art;                        195
And, ere one flowery season fades and  dies,
Designs the blooming wonders cf the next.

  Some say that,  in the origin of things,
When  all creation started into birth,
The infant elements receiv'd a law,
From which they  swerve not since.  That under force
Of that controuling ordinance they move,
And need not his  immediate hand, who first
Prescrib'd their course, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and con! rive to save a God
The  incumbrance of his own concerns,  and spare
The  great Artificer of  all that moves
The stress of a continual act, the pain,
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
200
205 
270                  THE TASK.            Book VI.
As toi) laborious and severe a task.                    210
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span omnipotence, and measure might,
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of its own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down !              215
But how should matter occupy a charge
Dull as it  is, and satisfy a law
So vast in its demands, unless impell'd
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause ?            220
The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd,
Sustains,  and is the life of all that lives.  .
Nature is  but a name for an effeCt,
Whose cause is God.  He feeds the secret fire
By which the mighty process is maintain'd,             225
Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight
Slow-circling ages are as transient days ;
Whose work is without labour ; whose designs
No flaw deforms,  no difficulty thwarts ;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.             230
Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd,
With self-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male,  Pomona,  Pales, Pan,
And Fiona, and Vertumnus ; peopling earth
With tutelary goddesses and gods                      235
That were not; and commending,  as they would,
To each some province, garden, field,  or grove.
But all are under one.  One spirit—His
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows—
Rules universal nature.  Not a flower                  240.
But shows some touch, in freckle^  streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil.   He inspires
Their balmy odours, and  imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the  sea-side sands,            245
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him ; whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruits or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak                 250
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present  God !
His presence,  who made all so fair, perceiv'd,
Makes all still fairer.  As with him no scene
Is dreary, so with  him all seasons please.               255 
 Book  VI.   THE  WINTER  WALK AT  NOON.   271

 Though winter had been none, had man been true,
 And earth be punish'd for its tenant's sake.
 Yet not in vengeance ; as this smiling sky,
 So soon'succeeding such an angry nigh*,'
 And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream      260?
 Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.

   Who then, that has a mind well strung and tun'd
 To contemplation, and within his reach
 A scene so friendly to his favorite task,
 Would waste attention at the chequer'd board.          265
 His host of wooden warriors to and fro
 Marching and counter-marching,  with an eye
 As fixt as marble, with a forehead ridg'd
 And furrow'd into storms,  and. with a hand
 Trembling,  as if eternity were hung                    270;
 In balance on his conduit of a pin ?—
 Nor envies he aught more their idle sport,
 Who pant with application misapplied,
 To trivial toys, and,  pushing ivory balls
 Across a velvet level, feel a joy                       275
 Akin to rapture when the bawble finds
 Its destin'd goal, of difficult access.—
 Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon
 To miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop
 Wandering,  and littering with unfolded silks  -         280
 The polish'd counter, and approving none,
 Or promising with smiles to call again.—
 Nor him,  who by his  vanity seduc'd,
 And sooth'd into a dream that he discerns
 The difference of a Guido from a daub,                 285
 Frequents the crowded auction: station'd there
 As duly as the Langford of the show,
 With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,
 And tongue accomplish'd in the fulsome cant
 And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease ;          290
 Oft as  the price deciding hammer falls
 He notes it in his book, then raps his box,
 Swears 'tis a bargain, rails  at his hard fate
That he has let it pass—but never bids!

   Here, unmolested,  though whatever sign             295
The sun proceeds, I wander.  Neither mist,
Nor freezing sky nor  sultry, checking me,
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.
Even in the spring and play-time of the year, 
272
THE TASK.
Book VI.
That calls the unwonted villager abroad                300
With all her little ones,  a sportive train,
To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,        J   •
And prink their haar^vith daisies, or to pick ■* ^tfe23t
A cheap but wholesome sallad from the brook,
These shades are all my own.  The timorous hare,      305
Grown so familar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me ;  and the stock-dove, unalarm'd,
Sits cooing in the  pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm             310
That age or injury has hollow'd deep,
Where, on his bed  of wool and matted leaves,
He has  outslept the winter, ventures forth
To  frisk awhile and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play :           315
He sees me, at once swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighboring beach ; there whisks  his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,
With all the prettiness of feign'd alarm,
And anger insignificantly fierce.                        320

  The heart is hard in nature,  and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy,  and therefore dread alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleas'd
With sight of animals enjoying life,                    325
Nor feel their happiness augment his own.
The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade
When none pursues, through mere delight of heart,
And spirits buoyant with excess of glee ;
The horse as wanton,  and almost as fleet.              330
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,
Then stops and snorts,  and, throwing high his heels,
Starts to the voluntary race again ;
The very kine that gambol at high noon,
The total herd receiving first from one                 335
That leads the dance a summons to be gay,
Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth
Their efforts,  yet resolv'd with one consent
To give such aft and utterance as they may
To ecstasy too big to be suppress'd—                   348
These,  and a thousand images of bliss,
With which kind nature graces every scene
Where  cruel man defeats not her design ,
Impart  to the benevolent, who wish 
Book VI.   THE WINTER WALK  AT NOON.   273

All that are capable of pleasure plea%'d,                345
A far superior happiness to their's,
The comfort of a reasonable joy.

  Man scarce had risen,  obedient to his  call
Who form'd him from the dust, his future grave,
When he was crown'd as never king was since.         350
God set the diadem upon his head,
And angel choirs  attended.  Wondering stood
The new-made monarch,  while before him pass'd,
All happy, and all perfeCt in their kind,
The creatures, summon'd from their various haunt*    354
To see their sovereign, and confess his sway.
Vast was his empire, absolute his power.
Or bounded only by a law, whose force
'Twas his sublimest privilege to feel
And own—the law of universal love.                  $66
He rul'd with meekness,  they cbey'd with joy ;
No cruel purpose lurk'd within his heart,
And no distrust of his intent in their's.
So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,
Where kindness on his part who rul'd the whole        t&S
Begat a tranquil confidence in all,
And fear as yet was not,  nor cause for fear.
But sin marr'd all; and the revolt of man,
That source of evils not exhausted yet,
Was punish'd with revolt of his from him,              $79
Garden of God, how terrible the change
Thy groves and lawns then witness'd ! Every heart,
Each animal of every name,  conceiv'd
A jealousy and an instinCtive fear,
And, conscious of some danger, either fled            375
Precipitate the loath'd abode of man,
Or growl'd defiance in such angry sort,
As taught him, too, to tremble  in his turn.
Thus harmony and family accord
Were driven from Paradise ; and in that hour-          180
The seeds of cruelty,  that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth,
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution  and the pain
That man infliCts on all inferior kinds,                 $35
Regardless of their plaints.   To make him sport,
To gratify the frenzy of his  wrath,
Or his base gluttony, are causes good
 And just,  in his account, why bird and boast 
574                  THE  TASK.            Book VI.
Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed            "CO
With blood of their inhabitanis impal'd.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war
Wag'dwith defenceless innocence, while he,
No: satisfied to prey on all around,
Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs               395
Needless, and first torments ere he devours.
Now happiest they that occupy the scenes
The most remote from his abhorr'd resort,
"Whom once, as delegate of God on earth,
They fear'd, and, as his perfeCt image, lov'd.           400
The wilderness is their's, with all its caves,
Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains,
Unvisited by man.   There they are free,
And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrol'd ;
Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play.                 405
Woe to the tyiant, if he dare intrude
Within the confines of their wild domain !
The lion tells him—I am monarch here !
And, if he  spare him, spares him on the terms
Of royal mercy,  and through generous scorn            410
To rend a victim trembling at his foot.
In measure, as by force of instinct drawn,
 Or by necessity constrain'd, they live
 Dependent upon man ; those in his fields,
These at his crib, aiid some beneath his  roof.            415
 They prove too often at how dear a rate
 He sells protection.—Witness at his foot
 The spaniel dying, for some venial fault,
 Under disseCtion of the knotted Scourge—
 Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells          420
 Driven to the slaughter, goaded, as he runs,
 To madness ; while the savage at his heels
 Laughs at  the frantic sufferer's fury,  spent,
 Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown.
 He, too, is witness,  noblest of the train                425
 That wait  on man, the flight-performing horse ;
 With unsuspecting readiness he takes
 His murderer on his back, and, push'd all day,
 With bleeding sides and flanks that heave for life,
 To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.               430
 So little mercy shows who needs so much !
 Does law,  so jealous in the cause of man,
 Denounce  no doom on the delinquent'—None.
 He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts
 (As if barbarity were high desert)                      435 
 Book VI.   THE WINDER WALK  AT NOON.   275

The inglorious feat,  and, clamorous in praise
Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose
The honours of his matchless horse his own !
But many a crime, deem'd innocent on earth,
Is register'd in heaven ;  and these, no doubt,
Have each their  record, with a curse annex'd.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never.   When he charg'd the Jew
To assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise ;
And when the bush-exploring boy, that seiz'd
The young, to let the parent bird go free ;
Prov'd he not plainly that his meaner  works
Are yet his care,  and have  an interest all,
All, in the universal Father's love ?
On Noah,  and in him on all mankind,
The charter was conferr'd,  by which we  hold
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim
O'er all we feed  on power of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well:
The oppression of a tyrannous control
Can find no warrant there.   Feed then, and yield
Thanks for thy food.  Carnivorous, through sin,
Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute!

  The governor of all, himself to all
So bountiful, in whose attentive ear                    460
The unfledg'd raven  and the lion's whelp
Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs
Of hunger unassuag'd, has interpos'd,
Not seldom, his  avenging arm,  to smite
The injurious trampler upon nature's law.              46 5
That claims forbearance, even for a brute.
He hates the hardness of a Balaam's heart;
And, prophet as he was, he might not strike
The blameless animal, without rebuke,
On which he rode.   Her opportune offence             470
Sav'd him, or the unrelenting seer had died.
He sees that human  equity is slack
To interfere, though in so just a cause;
And makes the task  his own.   Inspiring dumb
And helpless victims with a sense so keen              475
Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength,
And such sagacity to take revenge,
That oft the beast has seem'd to judge the man.
 An ancient, not a legendary tale,
By one of sound intelligence rehear Al,                480
445
450 
276
THE TASK.
Book VI,
(If such who plead for Providence may seem
In modern eyes) shall make the doCtrine clear.—

  Where England, stretch'd towards the setting sun,
Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave,
Dwelt young Misagathus ; a scorner he                 4$i
Of God and goodness, atheist  in ostent,
Vicious in aCt, in temper savage-fierce.
He journey'd ; and his chance  was as he went
To join a traveller, of far different note-r-
Evander, fam'd for piety, for years                    49 0
Deserving honour, but for wisdom more.
Fame had not left the venerable man
A stranger to the manners of the youth,
Whose  face, too,  was familiar to his view.
Their way wa; *,.- the margin  cf the land,              495
O'er the green summit of the recks,  whose base
Beats back the roaring surge,  scarce heard so high.
The charity that warm'd his heart was mov'd
At sight of the man-monster.  With a smile
Gentle, and affable, and full of grace,                  500
As fearful of offending whom he wish'd
Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truths
Not harshly thunder'd forth or rudely press'd,
But, like his purpose, gracious,  kind, and sweet.
" And dost thou dream," the impenetrable man         505
Exclaim'd, " that  me the lullabies of age,
" And fantasies cf dotards, such as thou,
"Can cheat, or move a moment's fear in me ?
" Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave
" Need no such aids as superstition lends               51$
" To steel their hearts against the dread of death."
He spoke,  and to the precipice at hand
Push'd with a madman's fury.   Fancy shrinks.
And the blood thrills and curdles, at the thought
Of such a gulph as he design'd his grave.                5J5
But, though the felon on his back could dare
The dreadful leap, more rational, his steed
Declin'd the death, and wheeling swiftly round,
Or e'er his hoof had press'd the crumbling verge,
Baffled his rider, sav d against his will!                  529
The frenzy of the brain may be redress'd
By medicine well applied, but without grace
The heart's insanity admits no cure.
Enrag'd the more, by what might have reform'd
His horrible intent, again he sought                  52-; 
 Book VI.   THE  WINTER  WALK AT  NOON.   277

 Destruction, with a zeal to be destroy'd,
 With sounding whip, and rowels died in blood-
 But still in vain.  The Providence, that meant
 A longer date to the far nobler beast,
 Spar'd yet again the ignobler, for his sake-             530
 And  now, his prowess prov'd,  and his sincere
 Incurable obduracy evinc'd,
 His rage grew cool ; and, pleas'd perhaps to have earn'd
 So cheaply the renown of that attempt,
 With looks  of some complacence he resum'd            535
 His road, deriding much the blank amaze
 Of good Evander, still where he was left
 Fixt motionless, and petrified with dread.
 So on they far'd.   Discourse on other themes
 Ensuing, seem'd to obliterate the past;                 540
 And, tamer far for so much fury shown,
 (As is the course of rash and fiery men)
 The rude companion smil'd, as if transform'd.
 But 'twas a  transient calm.   A  storm was near,
 An unsuspected storm.  His hour was come.             545
 The impious challenger of Power divine
 Was now to learn that Heaven, though slow to wrath,
 Is never with impunity defied.
 His horse, as he had caught'his master's mood,
 Snorting,  and starting in sudden rage,                  550
 Unbidden, and not now to be control'd,
 Rush'd to the cliff, and, having reach'd it, stood.
 At once the  shock unseated him :  he flew
 Sheer over the craggy barrier ; and, immers'd
 Deep in the  flood, found, when he sought it not,       555
 The death he had deserv'd—and died alone !
 So God wrought double justice; made the fool
 The victim of his own tremendous choice,
 And taught a brute the way to safe revenge.

  I would not enter on my list of friends               56(J
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man  *
Who needlessly sets foot  upon a worm.
 An inadvertent step may crush the snail
 That crawls at evening in the public path ;              565
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
 Will tread aside,  and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
 And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes,
 A visitor unwelcome,  into scenes                       570
                         A a 
278                  THE  TASK.             Book VI.

Sacred to neatness and repose—the alcove,
The chamber, or refeftory—may die :
A necessary aCt incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence,  they range the air,             57i
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileg'd;  and he that hunts
Or haims them there is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of nature's realm,
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abode.       580
The sum is this.—If man's  convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish their's.
Else ihey are all—the meanest things that are—
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,                  585
 As God was free to  form them at the first,
Who, in his sovereign  wisdom, made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love meicy, teach  your  sons
To love it too.  The spring-time of our years
Is soon dishonour'd  and defil'd in most                 590
 By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
 To check them.  But alas none sooner shoots ?
 If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth,
 Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.
 Mercy to him that shews it, is the rule                 595
 And righteous limitation of its aCt,
 By which Heaven  moves in pardoning guilty man;
 And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
 And conscious of the outrage he commits,
 Shall seek  it, and not find  it,  in his turn.              600

   Distinguish'd much by reason, and still more
 By our capacity of grace divine,
 From creatures that exist but for our sake,
 Which, having serv'd  us, perish,  we  are held
 Accountable ; and God, some future day,               60j
 Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse
 Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust.
 Superior as we are, they yet depend
 Not more on human help than we on their's.
 Their strength, or speed,  or vigilance, were given      610
 In aid of our defects.   In some are found
 Such teachable and apprehensive parts,
 That man's attainments in his own concerns,
 Match'd with the expertness of the brutes  in  their's,
 Are oft-times vanquish'd and thrown far behind.         615 
 Book VI.   THE WINTER  WALK AT  NOON.   279

 Some show that nice sagacity of smell,
 And read with such discernment, in the port
 And figure of the  man, his secret aim,
 That oft we owe our safety to a skill
 We could not teach, and must despair to learn.         620
 But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop
 To quadrupede instru&ors, many a good
 And useful quality, and virtue too,
 Rarely exemplified among ourselves.
 Attachment never to be wean'd, or chang'd            625
 By any change of fortune ; proof alike
 Against unkindness, absence, and neglect;
 Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat
 Can move or warp;  and gratitude for small
 And trivial favours, lasting as the life,                 630
 And glistening even in the dying eye.

  Man praises man.   Desert  in arts or arms
 Wins  public honour; and ten thousand sit
 Patiently present at a sacred song,
 Commemoration-mad ;  content to hear                 635
 (Oh wonderful effeCt of music's power !)
 Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake !
 But less, methink, than sacrilege might serve__
 (For, was it less, what heathen would  have dar'd
 To  strip Jove's statute of his oaken wreath,            640
 And hang it up in  honour of a man ?)
 Much  less might serve, when all that we design,
 Is but  to gratify an itching ear,
 And give the day to a musician's praise.
 Remember Handel; Who, was not born               645
 Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,
 Or can, the more than Homer of his age ?
 Yes—we remember him ; and, while we praise
 A talent so divine, remember too
 That His most holy book from whom it came           650
 Was never meant,  was never us'd before,
To  buckram out the memory of a man.
But hush !—the muse perhaps is too severe ;
And, with a gravity beyond the size
And measure of the offence, rebukes a deed            65^
 Less impious than absurd, and owing more
To  want of judgment than to wrong design.
 So in the chapel of old Ely House,
When wandering Charles, who meant  to be the third
 Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,     '  660 
280
THE TASK.
Book VI.
The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,
And eke did rear right merrily,  two staves,
Sung to the praise and glory of king George !
—Man praises man; and Garrick's memory next,
When time hath somewhat mellow'd it, and made      665
The idol of our worship while he liv'd
The god of our idolatry once more,
Shall have its altar; and the world shall go
In pilgrimage to bow before his shrine.
The theatre, too small,, shall suffocate,                 670
Its squeez'd contents, and more than it admits
Shall sigh at their exclusion, and return
Ungratified.  For there some noble  lord
Shall stuff his shoulders with king Richard's bunch,
Or wrap himself in Hamlet's inky cloak,               675
And strut, t.nd storm,  and straddle, stamp, and stare,
To show the world how Garrick did not aCt—
For  Garrick was  a worshipper himself;
He drew the liturgy, and fram'd the rites
And solemn ceremonial of the day,                    619
And call'd the world to worship on the banks
Of Avon, fam'd in song.   Ah, pleasant proof
That piety has still in human hearts
Some place, a spark or two not yet extinCt.
The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths ;    685
The mulberry-tree stood centre cf the dance ;
Tlie mulberry-tree was hymn'd with dulcet airs;
And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry- tree
Supplied such  relics  as devotion holds
Still sacred, and preserves  with pious care.             690
So 'twas an hallow'd time : decorum reign'd,
And mirth without offence. No few return'd,
Dou'bless, much edified, and all refreshed.
—Man praises  man.   The  rabble,  all alive,
Frtm tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes,        695
Swarm  in the streets.   The statesman of the tlay,
A pomuous ard slow-moving pageant,  comes.
Some shout him,  and some hang upon his car,
To jraze in his eyes, and bless him.   Maidens wave
T'-'-i. 'kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy :        700
V h'.le others, not so satisfied,  unhorse
T !".-£■■ vd equipage,  and,  turning loose
Hi. s   ;i-, usurp a place they well deserve.
Wi      vhat has  charm'd them ! Hath he sav'd the state ?
No.  Doth he purpose its salvation ? No.              705
Enchanting novelty, that moon at full, 
 Book VI.    THE  WINTER WALK AT  NOON.   281

 That finds out every crevice of the head
 That is not sound and perfect, hath in their's
 Wrought this disturbance.   But the wane is near,
 And his own cattle must suffice him soon.               710
 Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise,
 And dedicate a tribute,  in its use
 And just direction sacred, to a thing
 Doom'd to the dust, or lodg'd already there !
 Encomium  in old time was poets' work ;                715
 But, poets having lavishly long since
 Exhausted  all materials of the art,
 The task now falls into the public hand;
 And I,  contented with an humble theme,
 Have pour'd  my stream of panegyric down              720
 The vale of nature, where it creeps and winds
 Among her lovely works with a secure
 And unambitious course, reflecting clear,
 If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes.
 And I am recompens'd, and deem the toils             725
 Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine
 May stand  between an animal and woe,
 And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge.

  The groans of nature in this nether world,
 Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end.       730
 Foretold by prophets,  and by poets sung,
 Whose fire  was kindled at the prophets' lamp,
 The time of rest, the  promis'd sabbath, comes.
 Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh
 Fulfill'd their tardy and disastrous course               735
 Over a sinful world ;  and what remains
 Of this tempestuous state of  human things
 Is merely as the working of a sea
 Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest :
 For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds       740
The dust that waits upon his sultry march,
When sin hath mov'd him, and his wrath is hot,
 Shall visit earth in mercy ; shall descend,
 Propitious,  in his chariot* pav'd with love ;
 And what his storms have blasted and defac'd          745
 For man's revolt shall with a smile repair.

  Sweet is  the harp of prophecy ; too sweet
Not to be wrong'd by a mere mortal touch :
Nor can the wonders it records be sung
To meaner  music, and not suffer loss.                   750
                          a a 2 
2$2
THE TASK.
Book VI
But, when a poet, or when one like me,
Happy to rove among poetic flowers,
Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair,
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels                755
To give it praise proportion'd to its worth,
That not to attempt it,  arduous as he deems
The labour, were a task more arduous still.

   Oh scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scenes of accomplish'd bliss ! which who can see,       760
Though but in distant prospeCt, and not feel
His soul refresh'd with foretaste of the joy !
Rivers of gladness water all the earth,
And clothe all climes with beauty ; the reproach
Of barrenness is past.  The fruitful field               765
Laughs with abundance ; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thistly curse repeal'd.
The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,                 770
The garden fears no blight,  and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and  the bear
Graze with the fearless flocks ;  all bask at noon
Together,  or all gambol in the shade                   775
Oi the same grove,  and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none.   No foe  to man
Lurks in the serpent now : the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her  infant's playful hand
Stretch'd forth to dally with the crested worm,          780
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father.   Error has no place :
That creeping pestilence is driven away ;               785
The breath of heaven has chas'd it.  In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string,
But all is harmony and love.  Disease
Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of  age.         790
One song employs all nations ;  and  all cry,
«' Worthy the Lamb, for he  was slain for us !"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;           795 
Book VI.   THE  WINTER WALK AT  NOON.   283

Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Each rolls the rapturous hosanna round.
Behold ihe measure of the promise fill'd ;
Sec Salem built, the labour of a God !
Bright as a sun the sacred city shines ;
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth
Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands
Flows into her ;  unbounded is her joy,
And endless her increase.  Thy rams are there,
* Nebaioth,  and the flocks of Kedar there ;
The looms of Ormus,  and the mines of  Ind,
And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates ;  upon her walls,
And in her streets,  and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation.  Eastern Java there
Kneels with the  native of the farthest west;
And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand,
And worships.   Her report has travell'd forth
Into all lands.  From every clime they come
To see thy beauty and to share thy joy,
O Sion !  an assembly such as earth
Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.

  Thus heaven-ward all things tend.  For all were once
PerfeCt, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd ; who would else          820
In his dishonour'd works'himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste, then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons ! we would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)            825
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime ;  would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases him.
Here every drop of honey hides a sting;               830
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers;
And even the joy that haply some poor heart
Derives from heaven, pure as the fountain is,
Is sullied in the stream,  taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.              835

  * Nebaioth and Kedar, the sons of  Ishmael, and proge-
nitors of the Arabs, in the prophetic scripture here alluded
to, may be reasonably considered as representatives of the
Gentiles at large.   -
805
810 
284
THE TASK.
Book VI.
Oh for a world in principle as chaste
As this is gross and selfish !  over which
Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway,
That govern all things here,  shouldering aside
The meek and modest truth, and forcing her
To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men :—
Where violence shall never lift the sword,
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy  but tears :—
Where he that fills an office shall esteem
The occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite :—where law shall speak
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts
And equity ; not jealous more to  guard                  850
A worthless form, than to decide aright:—
Where  fashion shall  not sanCtify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace)
With lean performance ape the work of love !

   Come then, and, added to thy many crowns,         855
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth,
Thou who alone art worthy ! It was  thine
By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth ;
And thou hast made it thine by purchase since,
And overpaid its value with thy blood.                  860
Thy saints proclaim thee king ; and in their  hearts
Thy title is engraven with a  pen
Dipt in the fountain of eternal love.
Thy saints proclaim thee king ; and thy delay
Gives courage to their foes,  who, could they see        865
The dawn of thy last advent, long-desir'd,
Would  creep into the bowels of the hills,
And flee for safety to the falling rocks.
The very  spirit of the world  is tir'd
Of its own taunting question, ask'd so long,           870
" Where is the promise of your Lord's approach ?"
The infidel has shot his bolts away,
Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none,
He gleans the blunted shafts that have  recoil'd,
And aims them at the shield of truth again.             875
The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands,
That hides divinity from mortal eyes ;
And all the mysteries to faith propos'd,
Insulted and traduc'd, are cast aside,
As useless, to the moles and to the bats.                880
840
845 
 Book  VI.  THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.  285

They now are  deem'd the faithful,  and are prais'd,
"Who,  constant only in rejecting thee,
Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal,
And quit their office for their error's sake.
Blind,  and in love with darkness ! yet even these       885
Worthy, compar'd with sycophants, who kneel
Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man !
So fares thy church.   But how thy church may fare
The world takes little thought.  Who will may preach,
And what they will.   All pastors are alike             890
To wandering sheep, resolv'd to follow none.
Two gods divide them all—Pleasure and Gain:
For these they live, they sacrifice to these,
And in their service wage perpetual war
With conscience and with thee.  Lust in their  hearts,  895
And mischief in their hands,  they roam the earth
To prey upon each other ;  stubborn, fierce,
High-minded,  foaming out their own disgrace.
Thy prophets speak of such ;  and, noting down
The features of the last degenerate times,              900
Exhibit every lineament of these.
Come then,  and, added to thy many crowns,
Receive yet  one, as radiant as the rest,
Due to thy last and most effectual work,
Thy word fulfill'd, the conquest of a world !            905

  He is the  happy man, whose life even now
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come ;
Who, doom'd  to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleas'd with it, and, were he free to choose,
Would make his fate his choice ; whom peace, the fruit 910
Of virtue, and whom  virtue,  fruit of faith,
Prepare for  happiness ; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search             915
Of objeCts, more illustrious in her view ;
And, occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his  pleasures, for she knows them not;
Hi  ieeks not tier's, for he has prov'd them vain.        920
Ht cannot skim the ground like summer-birds
Pursuing gilded flies ;  and such he deems
Her honours, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose power  is such, that whom she  lifts from earth   925 
-86                  THE  TASK.

She makes familiar with a heaven unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd.
Not slothful he, though seeming unemploy'd,
And censur'd oft as useless.  Stillest streams
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird
That flutters least is longest on the wing.
Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has rais'd,
Or what achievements of immortal fame
He purposes, and he shall answer—None.
His welfare is within.  There unfatigu'd
His fervent spirit labours.  There he fights,
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself,
And never withering wreaths,  compar'd with which
The laurels that a Casar reaps are weeds.
Perhaps the self-approving haughty world,              940
That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks
Scarce deigns to notice him,  or,  if she see,
Deems him a cypher in the works of God,
Receives advantage from his noiseless hours,
Of which she little dreams.  Perhaps she owes          945
Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring
And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes,
When, Isaac like, the solitary saint
Walks forth to  meditate at even-tide,
And think on her,  who thinks not for herself.           950
Forgive him, then, thou bustler in concerns
Of little worth, an idler in the best,
If,  author of no mischief and some good,
He seek his proper happiness by means
That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine.           955
Nor, though he tread the secret path of life,
Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease,
Account him an incumbrance on the state,
Receiving benefits, and rendering none.
His sphere though humble, if that humble sphere       960
Shine with his fair example, and though small
His influence, if thai influence all be spent
In soothing sorrow and in quenching strife,
In aiding helpless indigence, in works
From which at least a grateful  few derive              965
Some taste of comfort in a world of wo,
Then let the sup^ixilious great confess
He serves his country, recompenses well
The state,  beneath the shadow  of ./hose vine
He sits secure,  and in the scale of life                  970
Holds no ignoble,  though a slighted, place.
Book VI.
930 
 Book vi.   inc. vviiNir.K. vvalK  AT NOON.   287

The man, whose virtues are more felt than seen,
Must drop indeed the hope of public praise ;
But he may boast what few  that win it can—
That, if his country stand not by his skill,              975
At least his follies have not  wrought her  fall.
Polite refinement offers him  in vain
Her golden tube, through which a  sensual world
Draws gross impurity, and likes it well,
The neat conveyance hiding all the offence.             980
Not that he peevishly rejeCts a mode
Because  that world adopts it.   If it bear
The stamp and clear impression of good sense,
And be not costly more than of true worth,
He puts it on, and, for decorum sake,                 985
Can wear it e'en as gracefully  as she.
She judges of refinement by the eye,
He by the test of conscience,  and  a heart
Not soon deceiv'd ; aware that what is base
No polish can make sterling ;  and  that vice,             990
Though well perfum'd and elegantly dress'd,
Like an  unburied carcase trick'd with flowers,
Is but a garnish'd nuisance, fitter  far
For cleanly riddance than for fair attire.
So life glides smoothly and  by stealth away,            995
More golden than that age of fabled gold
Renown'd in ancient song ;  not vext with care
Or stain'd with guilt, beneficent, approv'd
Of God and man,  and peaceful in its end.
So glide  my life away !  and so at last,                1000
My share of duties decently fulfill  d,
May some disease, not tardy to perform
Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke,
Dismiss  me, weary, to a safe retreat
Beneath  the turf that I have often trod.                1005
It shall not grieve me,  then, that once, when call'd
To dress a sofa with the flowers of verse,
I play'd awhile, obedient to the fair,
With that light task ; but soon, to please her more,
Whom flowers alone I knew would little  please,       1010
Let fall the unfinish'd wreath, and rov'd for fruit;
Rov'd far, and gather'd much: some harsh,  'tis true,
Pick'd from the thorns and  briers  of reproof,
But wholesome, well-digested ; grateful some
To palates that can taste immortal truth;             1015
Insipid else, and sure to be despis'd.
But all is in His hand whose praise I seek. 
288               THE TASK, &x.           Book VI.
In vain the poet sings, and the world hears,
If he regard not, though divine the theme.
'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime
And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre,
To charm his ear, whose eye is on the heart;
Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain,
Whose approbation—prosper even mine.
1020
 
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