He held the thunder: but the monarch owes
His firm ftability to what he fcorns,
More fixt below, the more difturbed above.
The law, by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man the Lord of all.
No mean advantage from a kindred cause,
From ftrenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease.
The fedentary ftretch their lazy length
When cuftom bids, but no refreshment find,
For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek
Deferted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk,
And withered muscle, and the vapid foul,
Reproach their owner with that love of rest,
To which he forfeits even the reft he loves.
Not fuch the alert and active. Measure life
By its true worth, the comforts it affords,
And their's alone feems worthy of the name.
Good health, and, its affociate in the moft,
Good temper; fpirits prompt to undertake,
And not foon spent, though in an arduous task;
The powers of fancy and strong thought are their's;
Even age itself seems privileged in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A fparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The veteran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful smiles, defcends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almoft without decay.
Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most, Fartheft retires-an idol, at whose shrine
Who ofteneft facrifice are favoured leaft.
The love of Nature, and the fcenes she draws,
Is nature's dictate. Strange! there fhould be found,
Who, felf-imprisoned in their proud faloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field
For the unfcented fictions of the loom;
Who, fatisfied with only pencilled scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God
The inferior wonders of an artift's hand!
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire,
None more admires the painter's magic skill,
Who fhows me that which I fhall never fee,
Conveys a diftant country into mine,
And throws Italian light on English walls:
But imitative ftrokes can do no more
Than please the eye-fweet Nature's every fenfe.
The air falubrious of her lofty hills,
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And mufic of her woods-no works of man
May rival thefe, these all befpeak a power
Peculiar, and exclufively her own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feaft;
'Tis free to all-'tis every day renewed;
Who fcorns it ftarves deservedly at home.
He does not fcorn it, who, imprisoned long
In fome unwhole fome dungeon, and a prey
To fallow fickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at laft to liberty and light:
His cheek recovers foon its healthful hue;
His eye relumines its extinguished fires;
He walks, he leaps, he runs-is winged with joy,
And riots in the fweets of every breeze.
He does not scorn it, who has long endured
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed
With acrid falts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall fide he stands, poffeffed
With vifions prompted by intense defire:
Fair fields appear below, such as he left
Far diftant, fuch as he would die to find-
He feeks them headlong, and is feen no more.
The spleen is feldom felt where Flora reigns; The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown,
And fullen fadness, that overshade, diftort,
And mar, the face of beauty, when no caufe
For fuch immeasurable woe appears,
Thefe Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet fmiles, and bloom lefs tranfient than her own. It is the conftant revolution, ftale
And taftelefs, of the fame repeated joys,
That palls and fatiates, and makes languid life
A pediar's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health fuffers, and the spirits ebb, the heart
Recoils from its own choice-at the full feaft
Is famished-finds no mufic in the song,
No smartness in the jeft; and wonders why.
Yet thousands ftill defire to journey on,
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 fhuffle, to divide and fort
Her mingled fuits and fequences; and fits,
Spectatrefs both and spectacle, a fad
And filent cypher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragged into the crowded room
Between fupporters; and, once feated, fit,
Through downright inability to rife,
Till the ftout bearers lift the corpfe 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,
Yet fcorn the purposes for which they live.
'Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the dread,
The flavish dread of folitude, that breeds
Reflection and remorfe, the fear of fhame,
And their inveterate habits, all forbid.
Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boaft of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay-the lark is gay, That dries his feathers, faturate with dew, Beneath the rofy cloud, while yet the beams Of day-spring overshoot his humble neft. The peasant too, a witness of his fong, Himself a fongfter, is as gay as he.
But fave me from the gaiety of those,
Whofe head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And fave me too from their's, whofe haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs
For property ftripped off by cruel chance;
From gaiety, that fills the bones with pain,
The mouth with blafphemy, the heart with woe.
The earth was made so various, that the mind
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