And, tho' the world may think th' ingredients odd,
The love of virtue, and the fear of God!
Such friends prevent what else wou'd foon fucceed,
A temper ruftic as the life we lead,
And keep the polish of the manners clean,
As their's who bustle 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 fhrew'd-
How fweet, how paffing sweet is folitude!
But grant me ftill a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, folitude is fweet.
Yet neither thefe delights, nor aught befide
That appetite can afk, or wealth provide,
Can fave us always from a tedious day,
Or fhine the dullness of ftill life away;
Divine communion carefully enjoy'd,
Oh facred art, to which alone life owes
Its happiest seasons, and a peaceful clofe,
Scorn'd in a world, indebted to that fcorn
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, felf-deferted in her grief,
Loft by abandoning her own relief,
Murmuring and ungrateful discontent,
That fcorns afflictions mercifully meant,
Thofe 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 rest,
Divine communion chafes, as the day
Drives to their dens th' obedient beafts of prey.
See Judah's promis'd king, bereft of all,
Driv'n out an exile from the face of Saul,
To distant caves the lonely wand'rer flies,
To feek that peace a tyrant's frown denies.
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice,
Hear him o'erwhelm'd with forrow yet rejoice,
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart,
'Tis manly mufic, fuch as martyrs make,
Suff'ring with gladnefs for a Saviour's fake;
His foul exults, hope animates his lays,
The sense of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds familiar with the lion's roar,
Ring with extatic founds unheard before;
'Tis love like his that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a defart fweet.
Religion does not cenfure or exclude
Unnumber'd pleasures harmlessly purfu'd.
To ftudy culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the ftubborn foil,
To give diffimilar yet fruitful lands
The grain or herb or plant that each demands,
To cherish virtue in an humble state,
And fhare the joys your bounty may create,
To mark the matchless workings of the pow'r
That fhuts within its feed the future flow'r,
Bid these in elegance of form excell,
In colour these, and thofe delight the fmell,
Sends nature forth the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes;
To teach the canvafs innocent deceit,
Or lay the landscape on the fnowy sheet,
Thefe, these are arts purfu'd without a crime,
That leave no ftain upon the wing of time.
Me, poetry (or rather, notes that aim
Feebly and vainly at poetic fame)
Employs, shut out from more important views,
Faft by the banks of the flow winding Oufe;
Content, if thus fequefter'd I may raise
A monitor's though not a poet's praife,
And while I teach an art too little known,
To close life wifely, may not wafte my own.
EAS'NING at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom inftin&t leads,
Are rarely known to stray.
One filent eve I wander'd late,
And heard the voice of love,
The turtle thus addrefs'd her mate,
And footh'd the lift'ning dove.
|