Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
The true Reward of Virtue.
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize: a better would you fix,
Then give humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown,
Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish man! will heaven reward us there,
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife:
As well as dream such trifles are assign'd
As toys and empires for a godlike mind.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judginent, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
'Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely soters us again.
Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where, once, the sign-post caught the passing eye;
Low lies that house, where nut-brown draughts
Where grey-beard mirth, and smiling toil retir❜d; Where village statesmen talk'd, with looks pro
And news, much older than their ale, went round. Imagination fondly stoops, to trace
The parlour splendors of that festive place:
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor;
The varnish'd clock, that click'd behind the door;
The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flow'rs, and fennel, gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for shew,
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.
Vain transitory splendors! could not all
Reprieve the tott'ring mansion from its fall.
Obscrue it sinks; nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart:
Thither, no more, the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more, the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more, the woodman's ballad, shall prevail;
No more, the smith, his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his pond'rous strength, and learn to hear;
The host himself, no longer shall be found,
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be press'd,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.
Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I pass'd, with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain, responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring
wind,
And the loud laugh, that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flow'r grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose,
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for pow'r,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched, than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain.
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bad to stay,
Sat, by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were
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