That happiness which great ones often see, With rage and wonder, in a low degree, Themselves unblessed. The poor are only poor. But what are they who droop amid their store? Nothing is meaner than a wretch of state. The happy only are the truly great.
Peasants enjoy like appetites with kings, And those best satisfied with cheapest things. Could both our Indies buy but one new sense, Our would be due to large expense; envy
Since not, those pomps which to the great belong, Are but poor arts to mark them from the throng. See how they beg an alms of Flattery: They languish! oh, support them with a lie! A decent competence we fully taste;
It strikes our sense, and gives a constant feast; More we perceive by dint of thought alone; The rich must labour to possess their own, To feel their great abundance, and request Their humble friends to help them to be blest; To see their treasure, hear their glory told, And aid the wretched impotence of gold.
But some, great souls! and touched with warmth divine,
Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine;
All hoarded treasures they repute a load,
Nor think their wealth their own, till well bestowed.
Grand reservoirs of public happiness,
Through secret streams diffusively they bless,
And, while their bounties glide, concealed from view, Relieve our wants, and spare our blushes too. -YOUNG.
BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer: Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born;
pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least their own; their future selves applaud; How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails; That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign; The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone. 'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
THROUGH the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide, and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter robe of purest white:
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun Faint from the west, emits his evening ray; Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill, Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: Till more familiar grown, the table crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kine Eye the bleak heaven, and next, the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first, a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining either, but by swift degrees, In heaps on heaps the doubled vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep, Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom; Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope, of every joy, The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm, that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused In glassy breadth, seem, through delusive lapse, Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all, And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense, The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
And wait the approaching sign, to strike at once Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales, And forests, seem impatient to demand The promised sweetness. Man superior walks Amid the glad creation, musing praise, And looking lively gratitude. At last The clouds consign their treasures to the fields, And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow In large effusion o'er the freshened world. -Ibid.
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn; Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine; And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward; while along the forest glade The wild deer trip, and often turning, gaze At early passenger. Music awakes The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise. Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells; And from the crowded fold, in order, drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn. -Ibid.
Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train, In all their pomp attend his setting throne. Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now, As if his weary chariot sought the bowers Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs (So Grecian fable sung), he dips his orb; Now half immersed; and now a golden curve Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds, All ether softening, sober evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air; A thousand shadows at her beck. She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn: While the quail clamors for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, From field to field the feathered seeds she wings. His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart- Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means— Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower
Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold- So night-struck fancy dreams-the yelling ghost. Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, The glow-worm lights his gem; and through the dark A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields The world to night; not in her winter robe Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye; While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft The silent hours of love, with purest ray Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise, When daylight sickens till it springs afresh, Unrivalled reigns the fairest lamp of night.
DEPENDENCE ON PROVIDENCE.
WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care, And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear, While all my warring passions are at strife, Oh, let me listen to the words of Life! Raptures deep-felt His doctrines did impart, And thus He raised from earth the drooping heart.
Think not, when all your scanty stores afford
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
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