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All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds,

They rise in visionary crowds,

And all with sober accent cry,

"Think, mortal, what it is to die."

FROM A HYMN OF CONTENTMENT

Lovely, lasting peace of mind!
Sweet delight of human-kind!
Heavenly-born, and bred on high,
To crown the favourites of the sky
With more of happiness below,
Than victors in a triumph know!
Whither, O whither art thou fled,
To lay thy meek, contented head?
What happy region dost thou please
To make the seat of calms and ease?

Ambition searches all its sphere
Of pomp and state, to meet thee there.
Encreasing Avarice would find
Thy presence in its gold enshrined.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
To gain thy love; and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves.
The silent heart, which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,

And seeks, as I have vainly done.

Amusing thought; but learns to know

That solitude's the nurse of woe.

No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground;

Or in a soul exalted high,

Then every Grace shall prove its guest, And I'll be there to crown the rest."

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Oh! by yonder mossy seat,

ΙΟ

20

In my hours of sweet retreat,

Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy!
Rais'd as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleas'd and bless'd with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight;
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song;
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of nature, sing.

The sun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day;
The moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves;
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me:

They speak their maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,

Or own the next begun in this.

SONG

When thy beauty appears

In its graces and airs

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бо

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All bright as an angel new dropp'd from the sky,
At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears:
So strangely you dazzle my eye!

But when without art

Your kind thoughts you impart,

When your love runs in blushes through every

vein;

When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in

your heart,

Then I know you're a woman again. 10

"There's a passion and pride

In our sex," she replied,

"And thus, might I gratify both, I would do: Still an angel appear to each lover beside, But still be a woman to you."

Oh! how your beating breast a mistress warms
Who looks through spectacles to see your charms,
While rival undertakers hover round

And with his spade the sexton marks the ground!
Intent not on her own, but others' doom,
She plans new conquests and defrauds the tomb.
In vain the cock has summoned sprites away,
She walks at noon and blasts the bloom of day.
Gay rainbow silks her mellow charms infold, 511
And nought of Lycè but herself is old.

Her grizzled locks assume a smirking grace,
And art has levelled her deep furrowed face.
Her strange demand no mortal can approve,
We'll ask her blessing, but can't ask her love.
She grants, indeed, a lady may decline
(All ladies but herself) at ninety-nine.

Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself, Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, We censure Nature for a span too short: That span too short, we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer (For Nature's voice, unstifled, would recall), 120 Drives headlong towards the precipice of death! Death, most our dread; death, thus more dreadful made:

O, what a riddle of absurdity!

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Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels:
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse: like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groaned
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement:
The next amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turned.
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age;
Behold him when past by; what then is seen 140
But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career.

PROCRASTINATION

FROM THE COMPLAINT

NIGHT I

By nature's law, what may be, may be now; 270
There's no prerogative in human hours.

In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none; and yet on this 'perhaps,'
This 'peradventure,' infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build
Our mountian hopes, spin out eternal schemes
As we the fatal sisters could out-spin,
And big with life's futurities, expire.
Not e'en Philander had bespoke his shroud,

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Nor had he cause; a warning was denied:
How many fall as sudden, not as safe;
As sudden, though for years admonish'd home!
Of human ills the last extreme beware;
Beware, Lorenzo, a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

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300

If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,
Forever on the brink of being born."
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applaud
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead.
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's to wisdom they consign.
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,

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Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

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A worm! a god! - I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! At home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
O, what a miracle to man is man!
Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

JOHN GAY (1685-1732)

THE HARE WITH MANY FRIENDS

Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child whom many fathers share,
Hath seldom known a father's care.
'Tis thus in friendship; who depend
On many rarely find a friend.

A Hare, who, in a civil way,
Complied with everything, like Gay,
Was known by all the bestial train,
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend,
And every creature was her friend.

As forth she went at early dawn,
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind she hears the hunter's cries,
And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies.
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles, to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round:
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half dead with fear she gasping lay.
What transport in her bosom grew,
When first the Horse appeared in view!
"Let me," says she, "your back ascend,
And owe my safety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship every burden's light."
The Horse replied: "Poor honest Puss,
It grieves my heart to see thee thus;
Be comforted; relief is near,
For all your friends are in the rear."
She next the stately Bull implored;
And thus replied the mighty lord,
"Since every beast alive can tell
That I sincerely wish you well,
I may, without offence, pretend,
To take the freedom of a friend;

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The Goat remarked her pulse was high, Her languid head, her heavy eye; "My back," says he, "may do you harm; The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm." The Sheep was feeble, and complained His sides a load of wool sustained: Said he was slow, confessed his fears, For hounds eat sheep as well as hares. She now the trotting Calf addressed, To save from death a friend distressed. "Shall I," says he, "of tender age, In this important care engage? Older and abler passed you by; How strong are those, how weak am I! Should I presume to bear you hence, Those friends of mine may take offence. Excuse me, then. You know my heart. But dearest friends, alas, must part! Adieu ! How shall we all lament! For see, the hounds are just in view."

BLACK-EYED SUSAN

All in the Downs the fleet was moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When Black-eyed Susan came aboard,

"Oh! where shall I my true love find?

Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,

If my sweet William sails among the crew?"

William, who high upon the yard

Rocked with the billow to and fro, Soon as her well-known voice he heard

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ΙΟ

He sighed, and cast his eyes below:
The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands
And, quick as lightning, on the deck he stands.

So the sweet lark, high poised in air,
Shuts close his pinions to his breast
If chance his mate's shrill call he hear
And drops at once into her nest.
The noblest captain in the British fleet
Might envy William's lips those kisses sweet. 18

"O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,

My vows shall ever true remain; Let me kiss off that falling tear;

We only part to meet again.

Change as ye list, ye winds! my heart shall be The faithful compass that still points to thee. 24

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By judgment ripen'd, and by time refined.
That glorious bird have ye not often seen
Who draws the car of the celestial Queen?
Have ye not oft survey'd his varying dyes,
His tail all gilded o'er with Argus' eyes?
Have ye not seen him in the sunny day
Unfurl his plumes, and all his pride display,
Then suddenly contract his dazzling train,
And with long-trailing feathers sweep the plain?
Learn from this hint, let this instruct your art:
Thin taper sticks must from one centre part; 166
Let these into the quadrant's form divide,

180

The master Cupid traces out the lines, And with judicious hand the draught designs; Th' expecting Loves with joy the model view, And the joint labour eagerly pursue. Some slit their arrows with the nicest art, And into sticks convert the shiver'd dart; The breathing bellows wake the sleeping fire, Blow off the cinders, and the sparks aspire; Their arrow's point they soften in the flame, 185 And sounding hammers break its barbèd frame: Of this, the little pin they neatly mould, From whence their arms the spreading sticks unfold;

ΙΟ

Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul's best part forever to the grave?
How silent did his old companions tread,
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of
kings!

What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire;
The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid;
And the last words, that dust to dust conveyed!
While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend,
Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. 20
Oh, gone forever! take this long adieu;
And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague.

To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine,
A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine;
Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan,
And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone.
If e'er from me thy loved memorial part,
May shame afflict this alienated heart;
Of thee forgetful if I form a song,

My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue,
My griefs be doubled from thy image free,

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And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!
Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire
held;

In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars and prodigal of blood;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood; 40
Just men by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty
rest,

Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,
What new employments please th' unbodied mind?
A winged Virtue, through th' ethereal sky
From world to world unwearied does he fly? 50
Or curious trace the long laborious maze
Of heaven's decrees, where wondering angels
gaze?

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Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell?
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love, not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well suited to thy gentle mind?
Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart:
Led through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
That awful form which, so the heavens decree,
Must still be loved and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,
Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes. 70
If business calls or crowded courts invite,
Th' unblemished statesman seems to strike my

sight;

If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,

His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious
song:

There patient showed us the wise course to steer, A candid censor, and a friend severe;

There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.

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