Will swell thy joys, will share thy pain,
With thee rejoice, with thee complain;
Will smooth thy pillow, plait thy bow'rs,
And bind thine aching head with flow'rs.
But be this previous maxim known-
If thou canst feed on Love alone,
If, bless'd with her, thou canst sustain
Contempt, and poverty, and pain;
If so then rifle all her graces-
And fruitful be your fond embraces!
Too soon, by caitiff spleen inspir'd,
Sage Damon to his groves retir'd,
The path disclaim'd by sober reason;
Retirement claims a later season,
Ere active youth and warm desires
Have quite withdrawn their ling'ring fires.
With the warm bosom ill agree
Or limpid stream or shady tree;
Love lurks within the rosy bow'r,
And claims the speculative hour;
Ambition finds his calm retreat,
And bids his pulse too fiercely beat;
Ev'n social Friendship duns his ear,
And cites him to the public sphere.
Does he resist their genuine force?
His temper takes some froward course,
Till passion, misdirected, sighs
For weeds, or shells, or grubs, or flies!
Volume 11.
Far happiest he whose early days,
Spent in the social paths of praise,
Leave fairly printed on his mind
A train of virtuous deeds behind :
From this rich fund the mem'ry draws
The lasting meed of self-applause.
Such fair ideas lent their aid
To people the sequester'd shade:
Such are the Naiads, Nymphs, and Fauns,
That haunt his floods or cheer his lawns.
If, where his devious ramble strays,
He Virtue's radiant form surveys,
She seems no longer now to wear
The rigid mien, the frown severe
To shew him her remote abode,
To point the rocky arduous road;
But from each flow'r his fields allow
She twines a garland for his brow.
* Alluding to-The allegory in Cebes's Tablet.
To you, ye Bards! whose lavish breast requires
This monitory lay, the strains belong;
Nor think some miser vents his sapient saw,
Or some dull cit, unfeeling of the charms
That tempt profusion, sings; while friendly Zeal, 5
To guard from fatal iils the tribe he loves,
Inspires the meanest of the Muse's train!
Like you
I loath the grov❜lling progeny,
Whose wily arts, by creeping time matur'd,
Advance them high on Pow'r's tyrannic throne, 10
To lord it there in gorgeous uselessness,
And spurn successless Worth that pines below!
See the rich churl, amid the social son's
Of wine and wit regaling! hark, he joins
In the free jest delighted! seems to shew
A meliorated heart! he laughs, he sings
Songs of gay import, madrigals of glee,
And drunken anthems, set agape the board,
Like Demea*, in the play, benign and mild,
And pouring forth benevolence of soul,
Till Micio wonder; or, in Shakspere's line,
Obstrep'rous Silence †, drowning Shallow's voice,
And startling Falstaff and his mad compeers.
He owns 't is prudence, ever and anon,
To smooth his careful brow, to let his purse
Ope to a sixpence's diameter.
He likes our ways; he owns the ways of wit
Are ways of pleasance, and deserve regard.
True, we are dainty good society,
But what art thou? Alas! consider well,
Thou bane of social pleasure, know thyself:
Thy fell approach, like some invasive damp,
Breath'd thro' the pores of earth from Stygian caves,
Destroys the lamp of mirth; the lamp which we,
Its flamens, boast to guard: we know not how,
But at thy sight the fading flame assumes
A ghastly blue, and in a stench expires.
True, thou seem'st chang'd, allsainted,allensky'd:
The trembling tears that charge thy melting eyes
Say thou art honest, and of gentle kind:
But all is false! an intermitting sigh
Justice Silence, in Shakspere's Henry IV. ad part.
Condemns each hour, each moment giv'n to smiles,
And deems those only lost thou dost not lose.
Ev'n for a demi-groat this open'd soul,
This boon companion, this elastic breast,
Revibrates quick, and sends the tuneful tongue.
To lavish music on the rugged walis
Of some dark dungeon. Hence, thou Caitiff! fly;
Touch not my glass, nor drain my sacred bowl,
Monster ingrate! beneath one common sky
Whyshouldst thoubreathe? beneath one commonroof
Thou ne'er shait harbour, nor my little boat
Receive a soul with crimes to press it down.
Go to thy bags, thou Recreant! hourly go,
And, gazing there, bid them be wit, be mirth,
Be conversation Not a face that smiles
Admit thy presence! not a soul that glows
With social purport, bid, or ev'n or morn,
Invest thee happy! but when life declines,
May thy sure heirs stand tittʼring round thy bed, 60
And, ush`ring in their fav'rites, burst thy locks,
And fill their laps with gold, till Want and Care
With joy depart, and cry,
"We ask no more."
Ah! never, never may th' harmonious mind
Endure the worldly! Poets, ever void
Of guile, distrustless, scorn the treasur'd gold,
And spurn the miser, spurn is deity.
Balanced with friendship, in the poet's eye
The rival scale of int'rest kicks the beam,
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