What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up eoquo
But which the poor, and the despis'd of all,od
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?

Tell me and I will tell thee what is truth.......

O, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd!

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets; Though many boast thy favours, and affect. ) To understand and choose thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss,

Ev'n as his first progenitor, and quits,

Though placed in paradise, (for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left)

Substantial happiness for transient joy.

Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to nurse!

The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest,

By ev'ry pleasing image they present,

1

Reflections such as meliorate the heart,

Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;
Scenes such as these 'tis his supreme delight
To fill with riot, and defile with blood.

Should some contagion, kind to the

We persecute, annihilate the tribes

poor

brutes

That draw the sportsman over hill and dale, Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;

Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song, Be quell'd in all our summer-months' retreat; How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurs'ries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town! They love the country, and none else, who seek For their own sake its silence and its shade. Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Susceptible of pity, or a mind

Cultur'd and capable of sober thought,

For all the savage din of the swift pack,
And clamours of the field?-Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endu'd
With eloquence, that agonies inspire,

Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs?
Vain tears, alas, and sighs, that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls!
Well-one at least is safe. One shelter'd hare

Has never heard the sanguinary yell

Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.

Innocent partner of my peaceful home,

Whom ten long years' experience of my care
Has made at last familiar; she has lost

Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,

Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. ·
Yes-thou may'st eat thy bread, and lick the hand
That feeds thee; thou may'st frolic on the floor

At evening, and at night retire secure

To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm'd;
For I have gain'd thy confidence, have pledg'd
All that is human in me to protect

Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
If I survive thee I will dig thy grave;
And, when I place thee in it, sighing, say,

I knew at least one hare that had a friend.

How various his employments, whom the world

Calls idle; and who justly, in return,

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, Delightful industry enjoy'd at home,

And nature in her cultivated trim

Dress'd to his taste, inviting him abroad

Can he want occupation who has these?
Will he be idle who has much t' enjoy?
Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,

Not waste it; and aware that human life sit

Is but a loan to be repaid with use,

When He shall call his debtors to account

From whom are all our blessings; bus'ness finds

Ev'n here: while sedulous I seek t' improve,

At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd,

The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack

Too oft, and much impeded in its work

A

By causes not to be divulg'd in vain, 2015 m. f

To its just point-the service of mankind.

He that attends to his interior self,

That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind

That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks A

3

A social, not a dissipated life;

Has business; feels himself engag'd t' achieve

No unimportant, though a silent, task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem,

To him that leads it, wise, and to be prais'd;⠀ But wisdom is a pearl with most success

Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.