BUT happy they! the happieft of their kind! Whom gentler ftars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
"Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their paffions into love;
Where friendship full-exerts her foftest power,
Perfect esteem enliven'd by defire
Ineffable, and fympathy of foul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for nought but love 1120
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To bless himself, from fordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, confume his nights and days:
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild defire, fierce as the funs they feel;
Let eastern tyrants from the light of Heaven
Seclude their bofom-flaves, meanly poffefs'd
Of a meer, lifelefs, violated form:
While those whom love cements in holy faith,
And equal tranfport, free as Nature live,
Difdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonfense all!
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face;
Truth, goodnefs, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent HEAVEN.
Mean-time a smiling offspring rifes round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human bloffom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, fhews fome new charm,
The father's luftre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reafon grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an affiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh inftruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! ye, whom the sudden tear
Surprizes often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but fights of blifs, 1155
All various Nature preffing on the heart:
An elegant fufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Eafe and alternate labour, useful life,
Progreffive virtue, and approving HEAVEN.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and confenting SPRING
Sheds her own rofy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at laft, ferene and mild;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance fwells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they fink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To fcenes where love and blifs immortal reign.
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