EAR Chloe, while the bufy crowd,
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,
In folly's maze advance;
Though fingularity and pride.
Be called our choice, we'll step afide,
Nor join the giddy dance.
From the gay world we'll oft retire
To our own family and fire,
Where love our hours employs;
No noify neighbours enter here;
No intermeddling stranger near
To spoil our heart-felt joys.
If folid happinefs we prize,
Within our breaft this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam :
The world has nothing to bestow,
From our own felves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.
Of reft was Noah's dove bereft,
When with impatient wing the left
That fafe retreat, the ark;
Giving her vain excursion o'er,
The difappointed bird once more
Explored the facred bark.
Though fools fpurn Hymen's gentle powers,
We, who improve his golden hours,
By fweet experience know,
That marriage, rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good
A paradife below.
Our babes fhall richest comforts bring:
If tutored right, they'll prove a spring
Whence pleasures ever rise:
We'll form their minds, with ftudious care,
To all that's manly, good, and fair,
And train them for the fkies.
We'll therefore relish with content
Whate'er kind Providence has fent,
Nor aim beyond our power;
For if our flock be very fmall,
'Tis prudence to enjoy it all,
Nor lose the present hour.
To be refignéd, when ills betide,
Patient, when favours are denied,
And pleafed with favours given,
Dear Chloe, this is wifdom's part,
This is that incenfe of the heart,
Whofe fragrance reaches heavėn.
We'll afk no long protracted treat
(Since winter life is feldom fweet;)
But when our feast is o'er,
Grateful from table we'll arife,
Nor grudge our fons, with envious eyes,
The relics of our store.
Thus hand in hand, through life we'll go,
Its checkered paths of joy and woe
With cautious fteps we'll tread;
Quit its vain scenes without a tear,
Without a trouble or a fear,
And mingle with the dead:
While confcience, like a faithful friend,
Shall through the gloomy vale attend,
And cheer our dying breath;
Shall, when all other comforts ceafe,
Like a kind angel whifper peace,
And fmooth the bed of death.
HE wind is high, the window fhakes,
With fudden ftart the Mifer wakes!
Along the filent room he ftalks,
Looks back, and trembles as he walks;
Each lock, and every bolt he tries,
In every creek and corner pries,
Then opes the cheft with treasure stored,
And ftands in rapture o'er his hoard.
But now, with fudden qualms poffeft,
He wrings his hand! he beats his breaft:
By confcience ftung he wildly ftares,
And thus his guilty foul declares:
Had the deep earth her flores confined,
This heart had known fweet peace of mind.
But virtue's fold. Good God! what price
Can recompenfe the pangs of vice!
O bane of good! feducing cheat!
Can man, weak man, thy power defeat?
Gold banished honour from the mind,
And only left the name behind;
Gold fowed the world with every ill;
Gold taught the murderers fword to kill:
'Twas gold inftructed coward hearts
In treachery's more pernicious arts.
Who can recount the mifchiefs o'er?
Virtue refides on earth no more!
He fpoke, and fighed. In angry mood
Plutus, his god before him stood.
The Mifer, trembling, locked his cheft;
The vifion frownéd, and thus addrefféd:
Whence is this vile ungrateful rant,
Each fordid rafcals' daily cant?
Did I, bafe wretch! corrupt mankind?
The fault's in thy rapacious mind,
Because my bleffings are abused,
Muft I be cenfured, curfed, accufed?
Even Virtue's felf by knaves is made
A cloak to carry on the trade;
And power (when lodged in their poffeffion)
Grows tyranny and rank oppression.
Thus, when the villain crams his cheft,
Gold is the canker of the breast;
Tis avarice, infolence, and pride,
And every fhocking vice befide:
But when to virtuous hands 'tis given,
It bleffes like the dews of heaven:
Like heaven it hears the orphans cries,
And wipes the tears from widow's
cyes.
Their crimes on gold fhall Mifers lay,
Who pawned their fordid fouls for pay?
Let bravoes, then, when blood is fpilt,
Upbraid their paffive fword with guilt.
RDAIN'D to tread the thorny ground,
Where few, I fear, are faithful found,
Mine be the conscience void of blame,
The upright heart, the fpotlefs name.
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