LXXVII.

Fast by her side a listless maiden pin'd,

With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings;

Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, Yet lov'd in secret all forbidden things.

And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings; The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks,

A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings; Whilst Apoplexy cramm'd Intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.

THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

CANTO II.

The knight of arts and industry,
And his achievements fair;
That, by this Castle's overthrow,
Secur'd, and crowned were.

I.

ESCAP'D the castle of the sire of sin, Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find? For all around, without, and all within, Nothing save what delightful was and kind, Of goodness savouring and a tender mind, E'er rose to view. But now another strain, Of doleful note, alas! remains behind : I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain, And of the false enchanter INDOLENCE complain.

II.

Is there no patron to protect the Muse,
And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil?
To every labour its reward accrues,

And they are sure of bread who swink and moil;
But a fell tribe the' Aonian hive despoil,
As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee:
Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil,
Ne for the muses other meed decree,

They praised are alone, and starve right merrily.

III.

I care not, fortune, what you me deny: You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shews her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave: Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.

IV.

Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder song; Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth, Dragging the lazy languid line along, Fond to begin, but still to finish loth, Thy half-writ scrolls all eaten by the moth: Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame, Who with the sons of softness nobly wroth, To sweep away this human lumber came, Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame.

V.

In Fairy-Land there liv'd a knight of old,
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well yclep'd,
A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor: he neither sow'd nor reap'd,
Ne stores in summer for cold winter heap'd;
In hunting all his days away he wore;

Now scorch'd by June, now in November steep'd,
Now pinch'd by biting January sore,

He still in woods pursu'd the libbard and the boar.

VI.

As he one morning, long before the dawn,
Priek'd through the forest to dislodge his prey,
Deep in the winding bosom of a lawn,
With wood wild-fiving'd, he mark'd a taper's ray,
That from the beating rain, and wintry fray,
Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy ;

There, up to earn the needments of the day, He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy: Her he compress'd, and fill'd her with a lusty boy.

VII.

Amid the green-wood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a knight of muchel fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyled,
The Knight of Arts and Industry by name.
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream;
His tasteful well-earn'd food the silvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands
teem:

The same to him glad summer, or the winter breme.

VIII.

So pass'd his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that through the commons run:
For him no tender parents troubled were,

He of the forest seem'd to be the son,
And certes had been utterly undone ;

But that Minerva pity of him took,

With all the gods that love the rural wonne,

That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook;

Ne did the sacred Nine disdain a gentle look.

IX.

Of fertile genius him they nurtur'd well,
In every science, and in every art,

By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel,
That can or use, or joy, or grace impart,

Disclosing all the powers of head and heart:
Ne were the goodly exercises spar'd,

That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert,
And mix elastic force with firmness hard:
Was never knight on ground mote be with him
compar❜d.

X.

Sometimes, with early morn, he mounted gay
The hunter-steed, exulting o'er the dale,
And drew the roseat breath of orient day;
Sometimes, retiring to the secret vale,

Yclad in steel, and bright with burnish'd mail,
He strain'd the bow, or toss'd the sounding spear,
Or darting on the goal outstrip'd the gale,
Or wheel'd the chariot in its mid-career,
Or strenuous wrestled hard with many a tough

compeer.

XI.

At other times he pry'd through nature's store,
Whate'er she in the' ethereal round contains,
Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor,
The vegetable and the mineral reigns;

Or else he scann'd the globe, those small domains,
Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains;
But more he search'd the mind, and rous'd from

sleep

Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.