§ 171. Fable XLIX.

The Man and the Flea.

WHETHER in earth, in air, or main,
Sure ev'ry thing alive is vain!
Does not the hawk all fowls furvey
As deftin'd only for his prey?
And do not tyrants, prouder things,
Think men were born for flaves to kings?
When the crab views the pearly ftrands,
Or Tagus, bright with golden fands,
Or crawls befide the coral grove,
And hears the ocean roll above;
Nature is too profufe, fays he,
Who gave all thefe to pleasure me!
When bord'ring pinks and rofes bloom,
And ev'ry garden breathes perfume;
When peaches glow with funny dyes,
Like Laura's cheek when blushes rife;
When with huge figs the branches bend,
When clufters from the vine depend;
The fnail looks round on flow'r and tree,
And cries, All these were made for me!
What dignity's in human nature!
Says Man, the most conceited creature,
As from a cliff he caft his eyes,
And view'd the fea and arched skies:
The fun was funk beneath the main ;
The moon, and all the starry train,
Hung the vaft vault of heaven. The Man
His contemplation thus began:

When I behold this glorious show,
And the wide wat❜ry world below,
The fealy people of the main,

The beafts that range the wood or plain,
The wing'd inhabitants of air,
The day, the night, the various year,
And know all thefe by Heaven defign'd
As gifts to pleasure human-kind;
I cannot raife my worth too high;
Of what vaft confequence am I!
Not of th' importance you suppose,
Replies a Flea upon his nofe:
Be humble, learn thyself to fcan;
Know, pride was never made for Man.
Tis vanity that fwells thy mind.
What, heaven and earth for thee design'd!
For thee! made only for our need,
That more important Fleas might feed.

172. Fable L. The Hare and many Friends.
FRIENDSHIP, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child, whom many fathers share,
Hath feldom known a father's care.
Tis thus in friendship; who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.
A Hare, who in a civil way
Complied with ev'ry thing, like GAY,
Was known by all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend;
And ev'ry creature was her friend.

As forth fhe went, at early dawn, To tafte the dew-befprinkled lawn,

| Behind she hears the hunter's cries,
And from the deep-mouth'd thunder flies:
She starts, the ftops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round;
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half-dead with fear the gafping lay.
What tranfport in her bofom grew,
When firft the Horfe appear'd in view!
Let me, fays fhe, your back afcend,
And owe my fafety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship ev'ry burthen's light.

The Horse replied, Poor honest Puss!
It grieves my heart to fee thee thus:
Be comforted, relief is near;

For all your friends are in the rear.

She next the stately Bull implor'd,
And thus replied the mighty lord:
Since ev'ry beaft alive can tell
That I fincerely wish you well,
I may, without offence, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.
Love calls me hence; a fav'rite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow;
And when a lady's in the cafe,
You know all other things give place.
To leave
you thus might feem unkind;
But fee, the Goat is just behind.

The Goat remark'd her pulse was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye;
My back, fays he, may do you harm;
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm.

The Sheep was feeble, and complain'd
His fides a load of wool fuftain'd:
Said he was flow, confefs'd his fears;
For hounds eat Sheep as well as Hares.

She now the trotting Calf addrefs'd,
To fave from death a friend diftrefs'd.
Shall I, fays he, of tender age,
In this important care engage?
Older and abler pafs'd you by ;
How ftrong are those! how weak am I!
Should I prefume to bear you hence,
Those friends of mine may take offence.
Excufe ine, then. You know my heart,
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How fhall we all lament! Adieu!

For, fee, the hounds are juft in view.

§ 173. Sleep. YOUNG.

TIR'D Nature's fweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays
Where Fortune fmiles! the wretched he forfakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

§ 174. Addrefs to the Deity. YoUNG. THOU, who didft put to flight

Primæval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;

O THOU, whose word from folid darkness ftruck

In queft of wretchednefs perverfely ftrays;
And finds all defart now; and meets the ghofts

• Of my departed joys, a num'rous train!

I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet Comfort's blafted clusters I lament:
I tremble at the bleffings once fo dear;
Ard ev'ry pleafure pains me to the heart.

Yet why complain or why complain for one?
Hangs out the fun his luftre but for me,
The tingle man? Are angels all befide?
I mourn for millions: 'tis the common lot;
In this fhape, or in that, has fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than fure heirs of pain.

§ 179. Oppreffion, Want, and Disease. YOUNG.
WAR, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Inteftine broils, Oppreflion, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brafs, betiege mankind.
God's image, dilinherited of day,

Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made:
There, beings, deathlefs as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life,
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard mafters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour fav'd:
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom,
Want, and incurable difeafe (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorfelefs feize
At once, and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hofpitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for fad admiffion there!
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity !

peace.

To fhock us more, folicit it in vain!
Ye filken fons of pleature! fince in pains
You rue more modifh vifits, vifit here,
And breathe from your debauch; give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but fo great
Your impudence, you bluth at what is right.
Happy! did forrow feize on fuch alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue fave;
Difcafe invades the chafteft temperance,
And punishment the guiltlefs; and alarm,
Thro' thickeft fhades, purfues the fond of
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And, his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Not happiness itfelf makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wifh.
How diftant oft the things we doat on most
From that for which we doat, felicity!
The fmootheft courfe of nature has its pains!
And trueft friends, thro' error, wound our reft.
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hoftilities without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the beft on earth.
But endless is the lift of human ills,

And fighs might fooner fail, than cause to figh.

§ 180. Death. YOUNG. BEWARE, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death. How dreadful that deliberate surprise !

Be wife to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wifdom is pufh'd out of life.
Procraftination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fo frequent, would not this be ftrange?
That 'tis fo frequent, this is ftranger 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.
All pay themfelves the compliment to think
They one day fhall not drivel; and their pride
On this reverfion takes up ready praife,
At leaft, their own; their future felves applauds;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !

Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodged in fate's, to wifdom they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose they poftpone:
And fcarce in human wisdom to do more.
'Tis not in folly not to fcorn a fool;
All promife is poor dilatory man.

And that thro' ev'ry stage: when young, indeed,
In full content we fometimes nobly reft,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only with,
As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty, man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pufhes his prudent purpofe to refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves, and re-refolves; then dies the fame.

And why? Because he thinks himfelfimmortal. All men think all men mortal but themfelves; Themselves, when fome alarming fhock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon clofe, where pafs'd the fhaft no trace is found,
As from the wing no fear the fky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature fheds
O'er thofe we love, we drop it in their grave.

§ 181. Inconfiftency of Man. YOUNG. AH! how unjuft to nature and himfelf

Is thoughtless, thankless, inconfiftent man! Like children babbling nonfenfe in their fports, We cenfure nature for a fpan too fhort; That fpan too fhort we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lath the ling'ring moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainlefs art! our furious charioteer (For Nature's voice unftified would recal) Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of death; Death, moft our dread; death thus more dreadful O what a riddle of abfurdity! Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels; How heavily we drag the load of life! Bleft leifure is our curfe; like that of Cain, It makes us wander; wander earth around

[made t

§ 188. Confcience. YOUNG.

CONSCIENCE, what art thou? Thou tremendous pow'r!

Who doft inhabit us without our leave;
And a t within ourselves, another felf;
A mafter-felf, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the flave.
How doft thou light a torch to distant deeds!
Make the paft prefent, and the future frown!
How ever and anon awake the foul,

As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors,
In this long rettlefs dream, which ideots hug;
Nay, wife men flatter with the name of life!

-LIFE fpeeds away From point to point, tho' feeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is fwift by ftealth: Too fubtile is the movement to be feen; Yet foon man's hour is up, and we are gone. Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: As there are ufelefs when the fun is set, So thofe but when more glorious Reason fhines. Reaton thould judge in all; in reafon's eye, That fedentary fhadow travels hard. But fuch our gravitation to the wrong, So prone our hearts to whifper what we wish, 'Tis later with the wife than he's aware: A Wilmington goes flower than the fun: And all mankind mistake their time of day, Ev'n age itfelf. Fresh hopes are hourly fown In furrow'd brows. To gentle life's defcent We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. We take fair days in winter for the spring, And turn our bleffings into bane. Since oft Man muft compute that age he cannot feel, He fearce believes he's older for his years. Thus, at life's lateft eve, we keep in store One difappointment fure, to crown the reft, The difappointment of a promis'd hour.

190. Blifs. YOUNG.

- MUCH is talk'd of blifs; it is the art Of fuch as have the world in their poffeffion, To give it a good name, that fools may envy : For envy to fmall minds is flattery.

How many lift the head, look gay, and finile, Againft their confciences! And this we know; Yet, knowing, difbelieve; and try again [tion: What we have tried, and struggle with convicEach new experience gives the former credit, And reverend grey threefcore is but a voucher, That thirty told is true.

5191. Friendship. YOUNG. KNow't thou, Lorenzo, what a friend contains? As bees mixt nectar draw from fragrant flow'rs, So men, from Friendship, Wisdom and Delight; Twins tied by nature, if they part they die. Haft thou no friend to fet thy mind abroach, [air, Good fenfe will ftagnate. Thoughts shut up,want

When coin'd in words, we know its real worth.
If sterling, ftore it for thy future ufe;
Twill buy thee benefit, perhaps renown.
Thought too, deliver'd, is the more possest;
Teaching we learn, and giving we retain
The births of intellect, when dumb forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine,
Brightens for ornament, and whets for ufe.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie
Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rufted in; who might have borne an edge,.
And play'd a fprightly beam, if born to fpeech;
If born bleft heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th'alternate
pufh

Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the ftudent's ftanding pool.

WISDOM, tho' richer than Peruvian mines,

And sweeter than the sweet ambrofial hive, What is the but the means of Happiness ! That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool; A melancholy fool without her bells. Friendship, the means of wifdom, richly gives The precious end which makes our wisdom wife. Nature, in zeal for human amity, Denies or damps an undivided joy. Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; Joys flies monopolifts: it calls for Two; Rich fruit! Heaven-planted! never pluck'd by One. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give To focial man true relifh of himself. Full on ourselves defcending in a line, Pleafure's bright beam is feeble in delight; Delight intenfe is taken by rebound; Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.

Celeftial Happiness, whene'er she stoops
To vifit earth, one fhrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For abfent heaven-the bofom of a friend;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally foft,
Each other's pillow to repofe divine.
Beware the counterfeit: In paffion's flame
Hearts melt, but melt like ice, foon harder froze.
True love ftrikes root in Reafon, paffion's foe;
Virtue alone entenders us for life:

I wrong her much-cntenders us for ever.
Of Friendship's faireft fruits, the fruit most fair
Is Virtue kindling at a rival fire,
And emulously rapid in her race.
O the foft enmity endearing ftrife!
This carries friendship to her noontide point,
And giyes the rivet of eternity. [themes,
From Friendship, which outlives my former
I 4
Glorious