Well-born, well-difciplin'd, who, plac'd apart
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 busiest scene;
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 praife the Frenchman*, his remark was fhrewd
How sweet, how paffing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me ftill a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper-solitude is sweet.
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 dulness of still 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 feafons, and a peaceful close,
Scorn'd in a world, indebted to that scorn
For evils daily felt and hardly born,
Not knowing thee, we reap, with bleeding hands,
Flow'rs of rank odour upon thorny lands,
And, while experience cautions us in vain,
Grafp feeming happinefs, and find it pain.
Defpondence, felf-deserted 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 breaft,
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 diftant 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 gladness for a Saviour's fake;
His foul exults, hope animates his lays,
The sense of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds, familiar with a lion's roar,
Ring with ecftatic founds unheard before:
'Tis love like his that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a desert sweet.
Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumber'd pleasures harmlessly purfu'd;
To study culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the stubborn foil;
To give diffimilar yet fruitful lands
The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands;
To cherish virtue in an humble ftate,
And share the joys your bounty may create;
To mark the matchlefs workings of the pow'r
That fhuts within its feed the future flow'r,
Bid these in elegance of form excel,
In colour these, and those delight the smell,
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-
These, these are arts purfu'd 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, fhut 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 praise,
And while I teach an art too little known,
To close life wifely, may not wafte my own. I
REAS'NING at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom inftinct leads,
Are rarely known to ftray.
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
III.
Our mutual bond of faith and truth,
No time fhall difengage;
Those bleffings of our early youth,
Shall cheer our lafeft age:
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