But if a sweeter voice, and one design'd
A blessing to my country and mankind,
Reclaim the wand'ring thousands, and bring home
A flock so scatter'd and so wont to roam,
Then place it once again between my knees,
The found of truth will then be sure to please,
And truth alone, where'er my life be cast,
In scenes of plenty or the pining waste,
Shall be my chofen theme, my glory to the last.
doceas iter et facra oftia pandas.
SK what is human life-the sage replies
With disappointment low'ring in his eyes,
A painful passage o'er a restless flood,
A vain purfuit of fugitive false good,
A scene of fancied bliss and heart-felt care,
Closing at last in darkness and despair.-
The poor, inur'd to drudgery and distress,
Act without aim, think little and feel less,
And no where but in feign'd Arcadian scenes,
Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.
Riches are pass'd away from hand to hand,
As fortune, vice or folly may command;
As in a dance the pair that take the lead
Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed,
So shifting and so various is the plan
By which Heav'n rules the mixt affairs of man,
Viciffitude wheels round the motley crowd,
The rich grow poor, the poor become purse-proud :
Bus'ness is labour, and man's weakness such,
Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much,
The very sense of it foregoes its use,
By repetition pall'd, by age obtufe.
Youth loft in dissipation, we deplore
Through life's sad remnant, what no sighs restore,
Our years, a fruitless race without a prize,
Too many, yet too few to make us wife.
Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff, Lothario cries, what philofophic stuff.
Oh querulous and weak! whose useless brain Once thought of nothing, and now thinks in vain, Whose eye reverted weeps o'er all the past, Whose prospect shows thee a disheartning waste,
Would age in thee resign his wintry reign,
And youth invigorate that frame again,
Renew'd defire would grace with other speech
Joys always priz'd, when plac'd within our reach.
For lift thy palfied head, shake off the gloom
That overhangs the borders of thy tomb,
See nature gay as when she first began,
With fimiles alluring her admirer, man,
She spreads the morning over eastern hills,
Earth glitters with the drops the night distils,
The fun obedient, at her call appears
To fling his glories o'er the robe she wears,
Banks cloath'd with flow'rs, groves fill'd with
The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds,
Streams edg'd with osiers, fatt'ning ev'ry field
Where'er they flow, now seen and now conceal'd,
From the blue rim where skies and mountains meet,
Down to the very turf beneath thy feet,
Ten thousand charms that only fools despise,
Or pride can look at with indiff'rent eyes,
All speak one language, all with one sweet voice
Cry to her universal realm, rejoice.
Man feels the spur of passions and defires,
And the gives largely more than he requires,
Not that his hours devoted all to care,
Hollow-ey'd abstinence and lean despair,
The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, fight,
She holds a Paradise of rich delight,
But gently to rebuke his aukward fear,
To prove that what the gives, the gives fincere,
To banish hesitation, and proclaim
His happiness, her dear, her only aim.
'Tis grave philosophy's abfurdest dream,
That Heav'n's intentions are not what they feem,
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