Difporting on thy margent green Who foremost now delight to cleave To chafe the rolling circle's speed, While fome on earnest business bent Their murm'ring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To fweeten Liberty : Some bold adventurers difdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare defcry; Gay Hope is theirs by Fancy fed, Lefs pleafing when possest; Theirs buxom Health of rofy hue, Alas, regardless of their doom, No fenfe have they of ills to come, Yet fee how all around them wait The minifters of human fate, And black misfortune's baleful train! These shall the fury Paffions tear, The vultures of the mind, Difdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind Or pining Love fhall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the fecret heart, Ambition this shall tempt to rife, The ftings of Falsehood those shall try, Lo, in the vale of years beneath A grifly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen :: ---Madnefs laughing in his ireful mood.. Dryden's Fable of Palamon and Areite.C This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 'That numbs the foul with icy hand, To each his fuff'rings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; "The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah, why should they know their fate! Since Sorrow never comes too late, And Happiness too swiftly flies. 'Thought would destroy their paradife. No more; where ignorance is blifs,. "Tis folly to be wife. |