The air falubrious of her lofty hills,
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And mufic of her woods-no works of man
May rival these; these all bespeak a power
Peculiar, and exclufively her own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;
'Tis free to all-'tis every day renew'd;
Who fcorns it starves defervedly at home.
He does not scorn it, who, imprison'd long
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To fallow fickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:
His cheek recovers foon its healthful hue;
eye relumines its extinguish'd fires;
He walks, he leaps, he runs-is wing'd with joy,
And riots in the fweets of every breeze.
He does not scorn it, who has long endured
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed
With acrid falts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall fide he stands, poffeff'd
With visions prompted by intense desire:
Fair fields appear below, fuch as he left
Far diftant, fuch as he would die to find-
He seeks them headlong, and is feen no more.
The spleen is feldom felt where Flora reigns;
The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown,
And fullen fadnefs, that o'erfhade, distort,
And mar the face of Beauty, when no cause
For fuch immeafurable woe appears,
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet fmiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
It is the conftant revolution, ftale
And tasteless, of the fame repeated joys,
That palls and fatiates, and makes languid life
A pedler's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health fuffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from its own choice—at the full feaft
Is famish'd-finds no mufic in the fong,
No smartness in the jeft; and wonders why.
Yet thousands ftill defire to journey on,
Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.
The paralytic, who can hold her cards,
But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand
To deal and fhuffle, to divide and fort
Her mingled fuits and fequences; and fits,
Spectatrefs both and spectacle, a fad
And filent cipher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
Between fupporters; and, once feated, fit,
Through downright inability to rise,
Till the ftout bearers lift the corpse again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet e'en these
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
That overhangs a torrent to a twig.
They love it, and yet loathe it; fear to die,
Yet fcorn the purposes for which they live.
Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the
The flavish dread of folitude, that breeds
Reflection and remorfe, the fear of fhame,
And their inveterate habits, all forbid.
Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay-the lark is gay, That dries his feathers, faturate with dew, Beneath the rofy cloud, while yet the beams Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest. The peasant too, a witness of his fong, Himself a fongfter, is as gay as he.
But save me from the gaiety of those
Whose headachs nail them to a noonday bed; And fave me too from theirs whofe haggard eyes Flash desperation, and betray their
pangs For property stripp'd off by cruel chance; From gaiety, that fills the bones with pain, The mouth with blafphemy, the heart with woe. The Earth was made fo various, that the mind Of defultory man, ftudious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. Profpects, however lovely, may be seen Till half their beauties fade; the weary fight, Too well acquainted with their smiles, flides off Faftidious, feeking less familiar fcenes. Then fnug enclosures in the shelter'd vale, Where frequent hedges intercept the eye, Delight us; happy to renounce awhile, Not fenfelefs of its charms, what ftill we love, That such short abfence may endear it more. Then forests, or the favage rock, may please, That hides the feamew in his hollow clefts Above the reach of man. His hoary head, Confpicuous many a league, the mariner, Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist
A girdle of half-wither'd fhrubs he shows,
And at his feet the baffled billows die.
The common, overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleafing ramble; there the turf
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets.
There often wanders one, whom better days.
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd
With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound.
A ferving-maid was fhe, and fell in love
With one who left her, went to fea, and died.
Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves
To distant shores; and she would fit and weep
At what a failor fuffers; fancy too,
Delufive moft where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,
And dream of transports she was not to know.
She heard the doleful tidings of his death—
And never smiled again! And now the roams
The dreary wafte; there fpends the livelong day,
And there, unless when charity forbids,
The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides,
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown
More tatter'd ftill; and both but ill conceal
A bofom heaved with never ceafing fighs.
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,
And hoards them in her fleeve; but needful food,
Though preff'd with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, Though pinch'd with cold, afks never.-Kate is crazed!
I fee a column of flow-rising smoke
O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle, flung
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morfel-flesh obfcene of dog,
Or vermin, or at beft of cock purloin'd
From his accustom'd perch. Hard-faring race!
They pick their fuel out of every hedge,
Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves un-
quench'd
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.
Great skill have they in palmistry, and more
To conjure clean away the gold they touch,
Conveying worthless drofs into its place;
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal.
Strange! that a creature rational, and cast
In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature; and, though capable of arts,
By which the world might profit, and himself,
Self-banish'd from fociety, prefer
Such fqualid floth to honourable toil!
Yet even these, though, feigning fickness oft, They fwathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial fores,
Can change their whine into a mirthful note
When fafe occafion offers; and with dance,
|