Of life oppress, whom fober Sense conducts, Or to excess, and dissipate the soul; (clown, Love in fuch bosoms never to a fault For, while the cherish'd poison in your breast The peace and shelter of adversity. Ferments and maddens; fick with jealousy, And, if you pant for glory, build your fame Absence, distrust, or even with anxicus joy, On this foundation, which the secret thock The wholetom appetites and pow'rs of life Defies of Envy and all-fapping Time. Difolve in languor. The coy stomach loaths The gaudy glofs of Fortune only strikes The genial board; your cheerful dars are gone; The vulgar eye; the suffrage of the wise, The gen'rous bloom that futh'd your cheeksis fcd. The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd To tishs devoted, and to tender pains, By sense alone, and dignity of mind. Penfive you sit, or solitary Itray, Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, And waste your youth in muling. Musing first Is the best gift of Heaven; a happiness Toy'd into care your unsuspecting heart : That ev'n above the smiles and frowns of fate It found a likiny there, a fportful fire, Exalts great Nature's favourites; a wealth And that fomented into serious love; That ne'er encumbers, nor to baser hands Which mufing daily ftrengtheos and improves Can be transferr'd : it is the only good Thro' all the heights of fondness and romance : Man juftly boasts of, or can call his own. And you 're undone, the fatal shaft has fped, Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn’d; If once you doube whether you love or no : Or dealt by chance, to thield a lucky knave, The body wastes away; th’infected mind, Or chrow a cruel fun-thine on a fool. Diffolu'd in female tenderness, forgets But for one end, one much-neglected use, Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame. Are riches worth your care (for Nature's wants Sweet Heaven from such intoxicating charms Are few, and without opulence fupplied): Defend all worthy breasts ! Not that I deem This noble end is, to produce the foul; Love always dangerous, always to be Thunn'd. To fhew the virtucs in the faireft light; Love well repaid, and not too weakly funk To make humanity the minister In wanton and unmanly tenderness, A gay, humane, and amiable grace, With jealousy, fatigued with hope and fear, And some have died for love, and some run mad; Skill'd in the passions, how to check their sivay And fome with desp’rate hand themselves have He knew, as far as reason can controul Some to extinguiin, others to prevent, [llain. The lawless pow'rs. But other cares are minc: A mad devotion to one dang’rous Fair, Form'd in the school of Pæon, I relate Court all they meet; in hopes to dissipate What paffions hurt the body, what improve; The cares of love amongst an hundred brides. Avoid them, or invite them, as you may. Th'event is doubtful: for there are who find Know then, whatever cheerful and ferene A cure in this; there are who find it not. Supports the mind, supports the body too. 'Tis no relief, alas! it rather galls Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel The wound, to those who are sincerely sick. Is Hope, the balm and life-blood of the soul : For while from feverish and tumultuous joys It pleases, and it lasts. Indulgent Heaven The nerves grow languid, and the soul fubfides, Sent down the kind delusion, thro' the paths The tender fancy smarts with ev'ry sting, Of rugged life to lead us patient on, And what was love before is madness now. And make our happiest state no tedious thing. Is health your care, or luxury your aim ? Our greatest good, and what we least can spare, Be temperate fill: when Nature bids, obcy ; Is Hope; the last of all our evils, Fear. Her wild impatient fallies bear no curb : But there are passions grateful to the breast, But when the prurient habit of delight, And yet no friends to life : perhaps they please Or loose imagination, spurs you on m To deeds above your strength, impute it not Or Tatters ev'ry hopeful scheme of life, To Nature; Nature all compulsion hates. And gives to horror all your days to come. Ah! let nor luxury nor vain renown Fate, armd with thunder, fire, and ev'ry plague Urge you to feats you well might Sleep without; That ruins, tortures, or distracts mankind, To make what should be rapture a farigue, And makes the happy wretched, in an hour A tedious task; nor in the wanton arms O’erwhelms you not with woes so horrible Of twining Lais melt your manhood down. As your own wrath, nor gives more fudden bians. For from the colliquation of soft joys While choler works, good friend, you may be How chang'd you rise! the ghost of what you was! wrong; Languid and melancholy, gaunt and wan, Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight. Your veins exhausted, and your nerves unstrung: 'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave; Spoil'd of its balm and sprightly zest, the blood If honour bids, to-inorrow kill or die. Grows vapid phlegm ; along the tender nerves But calm advice against a raging fit (To each light impulse tremblingly awake) Avails too little; and it braves the pow'r À fubtle fiend that mimics all the plagues, Of all that ever taught in profe or song, Rapid and restless, springs from part to pait. To tame the fiend that ilceps a gentle lamb, The blooming honours of your youth are fallen; And wakes a lion. Unprorok d and calm, Your vigour pines ; your vital pow'rs decay ; You reaion well, fee as you ought to see, Dife:fes haunt you ; and untjmcly age And wonder at the madness of mankind; Creeps on, unsocial, impotent, and lewd. Seiz'd with the common rage, you foon forget Infatuate, impious epicure ! to waste The fpeculation of your wilur hours. The tiores of pleasure, cheerfulnets, and health! Beser with furies of all deadly shapes, Infatuate all who make delight their trade, Fierce and intidious, violent and liou, And coy perdition ev'ry hour pursue. With all that urge or lure us on to fate, Who pines with love, or in lascivious flames What refuge fhall we feek, what arms prepare! Consumes, is with his own consent undone ; Where realon proves too wcak, or void of wiles, He chooses to be wretched, to be mad, To cope with subtle or impetuous pow'rs, And wand procecds and wilful to his fate. I would invoke new pailions to your aid; But there 's a paffion, whose tempestuous fway With indignation would extinguish fear, Tcars up cach virtue planted in the breast, With fear or generous pity vanquish rage, And thakes to ruin proud Philofopy. And love wiili pride; and foree to force oppose. For pale and trembling Anger ruthes in, There is a charm, a pow'r that fways the breati; With faltering speech, and eyes that wildly stare ; Bids every patlios revel or be still; Fierce as the tiger, madder than the feas, Inspires with rage, or all your cares difolves; Desperate, and arm'd with more than human Can footh dittraction, and almosi despair. strength. That pow'r is music: far beyond the stretch How soon the calm, humane, and polish d man Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage; Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend ! Thote clumsy heroes, thote fat-headed gods, Who pines in love, or ivastes with filent cares, Who nove no paffion juttly but contentpt; Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief, Who, like our dancers (light indeed and arong) Slowly descends, and ling'ring, to the flades. Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace. But he whom anger fings, drops, if he dies, The fault is ours; we bear thote monitrcus arti: At once, and rushes apoplectic down; Good Heaven! we praite them ; we with loudet Or a fierce fever hurries him to heil. peals For, as thic body thro' uonumber'd ftrings Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels, Reverberates each vibration of the soul; And with insipid show of rapture die As is the paflion, such is ftill the pain Of idiot notes impertinently long. The body feels; or chronic, or acute. But be the Mufe's laurel jusily shares, And oft á ludden form at once o'erpow'rs A poct hc, and touch'd with Heaven's own fire, The life, or gives your reason to the winds. Who with bold rage, or folemn pomp of foueds, Such fates attend the rash alarm of fear, (oflames, exalıs, and ravithes the soul; And sudden grief, and rage, and sudden jov. Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain, There are meantime, to whom the bott'rous fit In love diffolves you; now in sprightly strains Is health, and only fills the fails of life ; Breathes a gay rapture thro' your thrilling brezit, For where the mind a torpid winter leads, Or melts the heart with airs divinely fad, Wrapt in a body corpulent and cold, Or wakes to horror the tremendous firings. And each clogg'd function lazily moves on, Such was the bard whose heavenly strains of cal A generous fally spurns th' incuinbent load, Appeas'd the fiend of melancholy Saul. Unlocks the breast, and gives a cordial glow. Such was, if old and heathen fame fay true, But, if your wrathful blood is apt to boil, The man who bade the Thcban domes ascend, Or are your nerves too irritably ftrung, And tam'd the favage nations with his song; Wave all difpute; be cautious if you joke, And fuch the Thiacian, whose harmonious lire, Kcep Lent for ever, and forswear the bowl; Tuo'd to soft woe, made all the mountains cepi For one rath momeirt lends you to the shacles, Sooth dev’n th' inexorable pow’rs of Hell, And And half redeemd his loft Eurydice. § 74. Ode on the Death of a Favourite Car Expels diseases, softens ev'ry pain, drowned in a Tub of Gold Files. GRAY. Subducs the rage of poison, and the plague; And hence the wife of ancient days ador'd 'Twas on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flow'rs that blow; The pensive Selima, reclin'd, Gaz'd on the lake below. Her conscious tail her joy declar'd; LO! where the rosy-bosom’d Hours, The fair round face, the snowy bcard, Fair Venus' train, appear; The velvet of her paws ! Disclose the long-expected flow'rs, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, And wake the purple year! Her ears of jet, and em'rald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applaule. Still had the gaz'd; but 'midt the tide Two angel forms were seen to glide, The Genii of the fiream : Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue, Thro' richest purple, to the view The hapless nymph with wonder saw : A whisker first, and then a claw, Beside foine warer's rushy brink With many an ardent wish, With me the Muse shall fit, and think She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize : (At ease reclin'd in rustic state) What female heart can gold despite ? How vain the ardour of the crowd, What cat 's averse to fish ? How low, how little are the proud, Presumptuous maid! with looks intent How indigent the great ! Again the stretch'd, again the bent, Still is the toiling hand of Care; Nor knew the gulph between : The panting herds repofc : (Malignant Fate lat by and sinilla); Yet, hark, how thro’ the peopled air The flipp'ry verge her feet beguil'd, The busy murmur glo vs ! She tumbled headlong in. The infect youth are on the wing, Eight times emerging from the flood, Eager to taste the honey'd spring, She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry god, And float amid the liquid noon : Some speedy aid to lend. Some lightly o'er the current skim, No dolphin came, no Nereid stirrid; Some thew their gaily-gilded trim Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard : Quick-glancing to the fun. A fav’rite has no friend ! To Contemplation's sober eye From hence, ye beauties, undeceiv'd, Such is the race of man; Know, one false step is ne'er retriev'd, And they that creep, and they that fly, And be with caution bold. Shall end where they began. Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes, Alike the busy and the gay And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; Nor all that glitters, gold. § 75. Ode on a distant Profpe&t of Eton College. They leave, in duft to rest. GRAY. Methinks I hear, in accents low, YE distant fpires, ye antique tow'rs, The sportive kind reply: That crown the wat'ry glade, Poor moralist! and what art thou? Where grateful Science still adores A folitary fly! Her Henry's holy shade; Thy joys no glitt'ring female meets, And ye, that from the stately brow No hive haft thou of hoarded sweets, Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below No painted plumage to display: Of grove of lawn, of mead survey, On hafty wings thy youth is flown ; Whosc turf, whose thade, whose flow'rs among Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone... Wanders the hoary Thames along We frolic while 'tis May His filver-winding way! Ah a a Ah happy hills ! ah pleasing thade ! Ambition this shall tempt to rise ; Then whirl the wretch from high, And grinning infamy. The itings of falsehood those fhall try, A momentary bliss bestow; And hard unkindness' alter'd eye, As, waving fresh their glausome wing, That mocks the tear it forc'd to fow; My weary soul they seem to footh, And keen remorfe with blood defil'd, And, redolent of joy and youth, And moody madness laughing wild To breathe a second spring. Amid fererest woe. Say, father Thames, for thou hast fecn Lo! in the vale of years, beneath, Full many a sprightly race, A grisly troop are feen, Difporting on thy margent green, The painful family of Death, The paths of pleasure tracc; More hideous than their qucen : Who foremost now delight to cleave, This racks the joints, this fires the veins, With pliant aims, thy glaily wave ? That ev'ry labouring linew strains, The captive linnet which enthrall ? Those in the deeper vitals rage : What idle progeny succeed Lo! poverty, io hill the band, To chase the rolling circle's speed, That numbs the soul with icy hand; Or urge the flying ball : And low-consuming age. While some on earnest business bent To each his suff'rings : all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan ; Their murmuring labours ply The tender for another's pain, 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To fweeten liberty : Th' unfculing for his own. Some bold adventurers disdain Yet, ah! why should they know their fate? Since forrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would deftioy their paradise. They hear a voice in ev'ry wind, No more-where ignorance is blits, And snatch a fearful joy. 'Tis folly to be wile. Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fod, Leis pleasing when possest; § 76. Ode to Adversity. GRAY. The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast : DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless port, Thou tamer of the human breast, Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Whose iron scourge and torr’ring hour Wild wit, invention ever new, The bad aflright, afflict the best! And lively cheer, of vigour born ; Bound in thy adamantine chain, The thoughtless day, the caly night, The proud are taught to taste of pain; The spirits pure, the numbers light, And purple tyrants vainly groan That fly th' approach of morn. With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. Alas! regardless of their doom, When first thy Sire to send on earth The little victims play! Virtue, his darling child, design'd, No sense have they of ills to come, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, Nor care beyond to-day : And bade to form her infant mind. Yet fee, how all around 'em wait Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore The ministers of human fate, With patience inany a vear the bore ; And black Misfortune's baleful train ! What Torrow was, thou bad'st her know, Ah, shew them where in ambush stand, And from her own the learnt to melt at others woe. To seize their prey, the murd'rous band ! Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly Ah, tell them they are men ! Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, These shall the fury passions tear, Wild laughter, noise, and thoughtless joy, The vultures of the mind, And leave us leisure to be good. Disdainful anger, pallid fear, Light they disperse ; and with them go And shame that skulks behind; The fummer-friend, the flatt'ring foe; Or pining love shall waste their youth, By vain prosperity receiv'd, [lice's Or jealousy with rankling tooth, To her they vow their truth, and are again beThat inly gnaws the secret heart; Wisdom in sable garb array'd, And envy wan, and faded care, Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound, Grim-vilag'd comfortless despair, And Melancholy, filent maid, And sorrow's piercing darț, With leaden eye that lores the ground, 1. Still on thy folemn steps attend; Slow melting strains their Queen's approach deWarm Charity, the general friend, clare : With Justice, to herself fevere, Where'er the turns, the Graces homage pay. And Pity, dropping soft the fadly-pleasing tear. With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state the wins her ealy way: O'er her warm cheek, and rifing bosom, move The bloom of young desire, and purple light of love, Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band II. (As by the impious thou art seen) Man's feeble race what ills await! With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning micn, Labour, and penury, the racks of pain, With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry, Disease, and forrow's weeping train; Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear, The fond complaint, my fong, disprove, Thy milder influence impart ; And justify the laws of Jove. Thy philofophic train be there Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Musc? To soften, not to wound, my heart. Night, and all her fickiy dews, The gen'rous spark extinct revive; Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, Teach me to love, and to forgive; He gives to range the dreary sky: Exact my own defects to scan; Till down the castern cliffs afar What others are, to feel; and know myself a man. Hyperion's march they tpy, and glittring shafts of war. 2. I. II. 3: 2. II. § 77. The Progress of Poely. A Pindaric Ode. GRAY. In climes beyond the solar road, [roam, I. Where thaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains The Muse has broke the twilight gloom, AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode. From Helicon's harmonious springs And oft, beneath the od'rous shade A thousand rills their mazy progress take: Of Chili's boundless forests laid, The laughing Pow'rs that round them blow, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, Drink life and fragrance as they flow. In loose numbers, wildly sweet, Now the rich stream of music winds along, Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves. Deep, majeitic, smooth, and strong, Her track, where'er the goddess roves, Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign : Glory pursues, and gen'rous shame, [flame. Now rolling down the fiecp amain, Th’ unconquerable mind, and freedoin's holy Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep; Mes, that crown th’Egean duep; Fields, that cool Ilijius laves, In ling’ring lab'rinths creep, Mute but to the voice of anguish! Where cach old poetic mountain Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant pow'r, And coward vice, that revels in her chains. I. 3. When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, [coast. Thee the voice, the dance obey, Temper'd to thy warbled lay. They sought, 0 Albion ! next thy sea-encircled O'er Idalia's velvet green The rosy-crowned loves are seen Far from the sun and summer gale, On Cytherea's day, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, With antic sports, and blue-eyed pleasures, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, Frisking light in frolic measures; To him the mighty mother did unveil Now pursuing, now retreating, Her awful face : the dauntless child Now in circling troops they meet; Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd. To brisk notes in cadence beating, This pencil take (she faid), whose colours clear Glance their many-twinkling feet, Richly paint the vernal year; III. 1. |