But reveries (for human minds will act)
Specious in fhow, impoffible in fact,
Those flimfy webs that break as soon as wrought,
Attain not to the dignity of thought.
Nor yet the fwarms that occupy the brain
Where dreams of drefs, intrigue, and pleasure reign,
Nor fuch as useless converfation breeds,
Or luft engenders, and indulgence feeds.
Whence, and what are we? to what end ordain'd ?
What means the drama by the world sustain❜d?
Business or vain amusement, care or mirth,
Divide the frail inhabitants of earth.
Is duty a mere fport, or an employ ?
Life an intrufted talent, or a toy?
Is there as reafon, confcience, fcripture fay,
Cause to provide for a great future day,
When earth's affign'd duration at an end,
Man fhall be fummon'd and the dead attend?
The trumpet-will it found? the curtain rife?
And fhow th' august tribunal of the skies,
Where no prevarication fhall avail,
Where eloquence and artifice fhall fail,.
The pride of arrogant diftinctions fall,
And confcience and our conduct judge us all ?
Pardon me, ye that give the midnight oil,
To learned cares or philofophic toil,
Though I revere your honourable names,
Your useful labours and important aims,
And hold the world indebted to your aid,
Enrich'd with the discoveries ye have made,
Yet let me ftand excus'd, if I esteem
A mind employ'd on so sublime a theme,
Pushing her bold enquiry to the date
And outline of the present tranfient state,
And after poifing her advent'rous wings,
Settling at last upon eternal things,
Far more intelligent, and better taught
The strenuous use of profitable thought,
Than ye when happiest, and enlighten'd moft,
And highest in renown, can justly boast.
A mind unnerv'd, or indifpos'd to bear
The weight of fubjects worthieft of her care,
Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires,
Muft change her nature, or in vain retires.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as when it stands.
Books therefore, not the fcandal of the fhelves,
In which lewd sensualists print out themselves,
Nor those in which the stage gives vice a blow,
With what fuccess, let modern manners show,
Nor his, who for the bane of thousands born,
Built God a church and laugli'd his word to scorn,
Skilful alike to feem devout and just,
And ftab religion with a fly fide-thrust;
Nor thofe of learn'd philologifts, who chafe
A panting fyllable through time and space;
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark;
But fuch as learning without falfe pretence,
The friend of truth, th' affociate of found fenfe,
And fuch as in the zeal of good defign,
Strong judgment lab'ring in the fcripture mine,
All fuch as manly and great fouls produce,
Worthy to live, and of eternal use ;
Behold in these what leisure hours demand,
Amusement and true knowledge hand in hand.
Luxury gives the mind a childish caft,
And while the polishes, perverts the taste
Habits of clofe attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as diffipation spreads,
'Till authors hear at length, one gen'ral cry,
Tickle and entertain us, or we die.
The loud demand from year to year the fame,
Beggars invention and makes fancy lame,
Till farce itself most mournfully jejune,
Calls for the kind affiftance of a tune;
And novels (witness ev'ry month's review)
Belie their name and offer nothing new.
The mind relaxing into needful fport,
Should turn to writers of an abler fort,
Whose wit well manag'd, and whose classic ftyle
Give truth a luftre and make wisdom fmile.
Friends (for I cannot stint as fome have done,
Too rigid in my view, that name to one,
Though one, I grant it, in the gen'rous breast
Will stand advanc'd a step above the reft,
Flow'rs by that name promifcuously we call,
But one, the rose, the regent of them all)
Friends, not adopted with a school-boy's hafte,
But chofen with a nice difcerning taste,
Well-born, well-difciplin'd, who plac'd a-part
From vulgar minds, have honour much at heart,
And, tho' the world may think th' ingredients odd,
The love of virtue, and the fear of God!
Such friends prevent what else would foon fucceed,
A temper ruftic as the life we lead,
And keep the polish of the manners clean,
As their's who buftle in the bufieft fcene.
For folitude, however fome may rave,
Seeming a fanctuary, proves a grave,
A fepulchre in which the living lie,
Where all good qualities grow fick and die.
I praise the Frenchman, his remark was fhrewd
How fweet, how paffing sweet is folitude!
But grant me ftill a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, folitude is sweet.
Yet neither these delights, nor aught befide
That appetite can afk, or wealth provide,
Can fave us always from a tedious day,
Or fhine the dulnefs of ftill life away;
Divine communion carefully enjoy'd,
Or fought with energy, must fill the void.
Oh facred art, to which alone life owes
Its happiest seasons, and a peaceful close,
Scorn'd in a world, indebted to that scorn
For evils daily felt and hardly borne,
Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands,
Flow'rs of rank odor upon thorny lands,
And while experience cautions us in vain,
Grafp feeming happiness, and find it pain.
Defpondence, self-deserted in her grief,
Loft by abandoning her own relief,
Murmuring and ungrateful discontent,
That scorns afflictions mercifully meant,
Those humours tart as wines upon the fret,
Which idleness and wearinefs beget,
These and a thousand plagues that haunt the breast
Fond of the phantom of an earthly reft,
Divine communion chases, as the day
Drives to their dens th' obedient beasts of prey.
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