A cure for all our griefs! So heavenly truth
Shall wide display her captivating charms,
And Peace her dwelling fix with human race.
So Love through every clime his gentle reign
Shall spread, and at his call discordant realms
Shall beat their swords to ploughshares, and their
spears
To pruninghooks, nor more learn murderous war.
So when revolving years, by Heaven's decree,
Their circling course have run, new firmaments,
With blessings fraught, shall fill the bright expanse
Of tempests void and thunder's angry voice.
New verdure shall arise to clothe the fields;
New Edens, teeming with immortal fruit!
No more the wing'd inhabitants of air,
Or those that range the fields or skim the flood,
Their fierceness shall retain, but brute with brute,
And all with man, in amicable league
Shall join, and enmity for ever cease.
Remains there aught to crown the rapturous
'Tis this unfading joy, beyond the reach [theme?
Of elemental worlds, and shortlived time.
This too is yours-from outward sense conceal'd,
But by resemblance of external things
Inward display'd, to elevate the soul
To thoughts sublime, and point her way to Heaven.
So, from the top of Nebo's lofty mount,
The patriot leader of Jehovah's sons
The promised land survey'd; to Canaan's race
A splendid theatre of frantic joys
And fatal mirth, beyond whose scanty bounds
Darkness and horror dwell. Emblem to him
Of fairer fields, and happier seats above!
Then closed his eyes to mortal scenes, to wake
In the bright regions of eternal day.
THE MILL STREAM AND THE CASCADE,
Inscribed to William Shenstone, Esq.
'discordia Semina rerum.'
NATURE with liberal hand dispenses
Her apparatus of the senses
In articles of general use,
Nerves, sinews, muscles, bones profuse.
Distinguishing her favourite race
With form erect, and featured face:
The flowing hair, the polish'd skin-
But, for the furniture within,
Whether it be of brains or lead,
What matters it, so there's a head?
For wisest noddle seldom goes,
But as 'tis led by corporal nose.
Nor is it thinking much, but doing,
That keeps our tenements from ruin :
And hundreds eat, who spin or knit
For one that lives by dint of wit.
The sturdy thresher plies his flail,
And what to this doth wit avail?
Who learns from wit to press the spade?
Or thinks 'twould mend the cobbler's trade?
The pedlar, with his cumbrous pack,
Carries his brains upon his back.
Some wear them in full bottom'd wig,
Ór hang them by, with queue, or pig,
Reduced, till they return again
In dishabille, to common men.
Then why, my friend, is wit so rare?
That sudden flash, that makes one stare!
A meteor's blaze, a dazzling show!
Say what it is, for well you know.
Or, if you can with patience hear
A witless Fable, lend an ear.
Betwixt two sloping verdant hills,
A current pour'd its careless rills,
Which unambitious crept along,
With weeds and matted grass o'erhung:
Till rural Genius, on a day,
Chancing along its banks to stray,
Remark'd with penetrating look
The latent merits of the brook,
Much grieved to see such talents hid,
And thus the dull by-standers chid-
How blind is man's incurious race,
The scope of Nature's plans to trace!
How do ye mangle half her charms,
And fright her hourly with alarms!
Disfigure now her swelling mounds,
And now contract her spacious bounds!
Fritter her fairest lawns to alleys,
Bare her green hills and hide her valleys!
Confine her streams with rule and line,
And counteract her whole design!
Neglecting, where she points the way,
Her easy dictates to obey;
To bring her hidden worth to sight;
And place her charms in fairest light!
'Alike to intellectuals blind,
'Tis thus you treat the youthful mind; Mistaking gravity for sense,
For dawn of wit, impertinence.
The boy of genuine parts and merit,
For some unlucky prank of spirit,
With frantic rage is scourged from school,
And branded with the name of fool,
Because his active blood flow'd faster
Than the dull puddle of his master.
While the slow plodder trots along,
Through thick and thin, through prose and song,
Insensible of all their graces,
But learn'd in words and common phrases
Till in due time he's moved to college,
To ripen these choice seeds of knowledge.
So some taste-pedant, wondrous wise,
Exerts his genius in dirt pies:
Delights the tonsile yew to raise,
But hates your laurels, and your bays,
Because too rambling and luxuriant,
Like forward youths, of brains too prurient,
Makes puns, and anagrams in box,
And turns his trees to bears and cocks.
Excels in quaint jet-d'eau, or fountain,
Or leads his stream across a mountain,
To show its shallowness and pride,
In a broad grin, on the' other side.
Perverting all the rules of sense,
Which never offers violence,
But gently leads where Nature tends,
Sure with applause to gain its ends.
'But one example may teach more
Than precepts hackney'd o'er and o'er.
Then mark this rill, with weeds o'erhung,
Unnoticed by the vulgar throng!
E'en this, conducted by my laws,
Shall rise to fame, attract applause;
Instruct in fable, shine in song,
And be the theme of every tongue.'
He said and to his favourite son
Consign'd the task, and will'd it done.
Damon his counsel wisely weigh'd,
And carefully the scene survey'd.
And, though it seems he said but little,
He took his meaning to a tittle.
And first, his purpose to befriend,
A bank he raised at the' upper end;
Compact and close its outward side,
To stay and swell the gathering tide:
But, on its inner, rough and tall,
A ragged cliff, a rocky wall.
1 See Fable XLI. and LI. in Dodsley's Fables.
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