While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labors ply
'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:

Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigor born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,

That fly the approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom

The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see, how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train!

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40

45

50

55

Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murtherous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' altered eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild°
Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:

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65

70

75

80

This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85 That every laboring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,

And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

The 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 paradise.
No more; - - where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY°

-Ζήνα

Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς δδώ-
σαντα, τῷ πάθει μαθὼν
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

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100

ÆSCH. AGAM. ver. 181.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,o
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!

Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.

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10

Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

15

And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe;

20

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,
With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,

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30

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band°

(As by the impious thou art seen),
With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

35

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40

Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear,

Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound, my heart.

The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love, and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

45

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or cheerful fields resume their green attire°: