To seize their prey the murth'rous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

60

These shall the fury Passions tear,

The vulturs of the mind,

Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that sculks behind;

Or pineing Love shall waste their youth,

Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high,

To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

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70

The stings of Falshood those shall try,

75

And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defil'd, And moody Madness 1 laughing wild Amid severest woe.

1 Madness laughing in his ireful mood.

Dryden's Fable of Palamon and Arcite.

80

A griesly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their Queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage :

85

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,

95

And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

III.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

— Ζῆνα

Τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ

σαντα, τῶ πάθει μαθὰν

Θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

Eschylus, in Agamemnone.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless Power,

Thou Tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour,
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!

100

Bound in thy adamantine chain

5

The Proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple Tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling Child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heav'nly Birth,
And bad to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer Friend, the flatt'ring Foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd

ΙΟ

15

20

25

And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy Suppliant's head,

Dread Goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

35

Nor circled with the vengeful Band

(As by the Impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, oh Goddess, wear,

Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic Train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart,
The gen'rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.

40

45

IV.

SONNET

[ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST.]

IN vain to me the smileing Mornings shine,
And redning Phoebus lifts his golden Fire:
The Birds in vain their amorous Descant joyn;
Or chearful Fields resume their green Attire:
These Ears, alas! for other Notes repine,

A different Object do these Eyes require.
My lonely Anguish melts no Heart, but mine;
And in my Breast the imperfect Joys expire.
Yet Morning smiles the busy Race to chear,

And new-born Pleasure brings to happier Men:
'The Fields to all their wonted Tribute bear:
To warm their little Loves the Birds complain :
I fruitless mourn to him, that cannot hear,
And weep the more, because I

weep in vain.

At Stoke, Aug. 1742.

5

IO

Still had she gaz'd; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The Genii of the stream:

Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw :
A whisker first and then a claw,

With many an ardent wish,

She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?

What Cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,

Nor knew the gulf between.