Nobly distinguished above all the six
By deeds in which the world must never mix.
Hear him again. He calls it a delight,
A day of luxury, observed aright,
[guest,
When the glad soul is made heaven's welcome
Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.
But triflers are engaged and cannot come;
Their answer to the call is-Not at home.
Oh the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,
The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again.
Cards, with what rapture, and the polished die,
The yawning chasm of indolence supply!
Then to the dance, and make the sober moon
Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon.
Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,
The snug close party, or the splendid hall,
Where night, down-stooping from her ebon throne,
Views constellations brighter than her own.
'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,
The balm of care, elysium of the mind.
Innocent! Oh if venerable time
Slain at the foot of pleasure be no crime,
Then, with his silver beard and magic wand,
Let Comus rise Archbishop of the land ;
Let him your rubric and your feast prescribe,,
Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.
Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,
The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.
Rufillus, exquisitely formed by rule,
Not of the moral, but the dancing school
Wonders at Clodic's follies, in a tone
As tragical, as others at his own.
He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,
Then kill a constable, and drink five more;
But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,
And has the ladies etiquette by heart.
Go fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, plead
Your cause before a bar you little dread;
But know, the law, that bids the drunkard die,
Is far too just to pass the trifler by.
Both baby-featured, and of infant size,
Viewed from a distance, and with heedless eyes,
Folly and innocence are so alike,
The difference, though essential, fails to strike.
Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,
A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But innocence, sedate, serene, erect,
Delights us, by engaging our respect.
Man, nature's guest by invitation sweet,
Receives from her both appetite and treat;
But, if he play the glutton and exceed,
His benefactress blushes at the deed,
For nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,
Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.
Daniel ate pulse by choice-example rare!
Heaven blessed the youth, and made him fresh and
fair.
Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:
He snuffs far off the anticipated joy;
Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ;
Prepares for meals as jockies take a sweat,
an emetic for a whet!
Will Providence overlook the wasted good?
Temperance were no virtue if he could.
That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,
Are hurtful, is a truth confessed by all.
And some, that seem to threaten virtue less,
Still hurtful, in the abuse, or by the excess.
Is man then only for his torment placed
The centre of delights he may not taste?
Like fabled Tantalus, condemned to hear
The precious stream still purling in his ear,
Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst
With prohibition, and perpetual thirst?
No, wrangler-destitute of shame and sense,
The precept, that enjoins him abstinence,
Forbids him none but the licentious joy,
Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.
Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid
In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?
Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?
Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame,
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and
good fame?
All these belong to virtue, and all prove
That virtue has a title to your love.
Have you no touch of pity, that the poor
Stand starved at your inhospitable door?
Or if yourself too scantily supplied Need help, let honest industry provide. Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart: These both are pleasures to the feeling heart. No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern waste Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast? Can British paradise no scenes afford To please her sated and indifferent lord? Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run Quite to the lees? And has religion none? Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie, And judge you from the kennel and the stye. Delights like these, ye sensual and profane, Ye are bid, begged, besought to entertain; Called to these crystal streams, do ye turn off Obscene to swill and swallow at a trough? Envy the beast then, on whom heaven bestows Your pleasures, with no curses in the close. Pleasure admitted in undue degree Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. 'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use ;: Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame, And woman, lovely woman, does the same. The heart, surrendered to the ruling power Of some ungoverned passion every hour, Finds by degrees the truths, that once bore sway, And all their deep impressions, wear away; So coin grows smooth, in traffic current passed, Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.
The breach, though small at first, soon opening
wide;
In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,
Then welcome errors of whatever size,
To justify it by a thousand lies.
As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care,
First wish to be imposed on, and then are.
And, lest the fulsome artifice should fail,
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.
Not more industrious are the just and true
To give to virtue what is virtue's due-
The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,
And call her charms to public notice forth-
Than vice's mean and disingenuous race
To hide the shocking features of her face.
Her form with dress and lotion they repair;
Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.
The sacred implement I now employ
Might prove a inischief, or at best a toy;
A trifle, if it move but to amuse;
But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,
Worse than a poignard in the basest hand,
It stabs at once the morals of a land.
Ye writers of what none with safety reads,
Footing it in the dance that fancy leads:
Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,
nivelling and drivelling folly without end;
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