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And fit the limpid element for use,

Else noxious: oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams, All feel the fresh'ning impulse, and are cleans'd By restless undulation: ev'n the oak

Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm: He seems indeed indignant, and to feel

Th' impression of the blast with proud disdain,
Frowning, as if in his unconscious arm

He held the thunder: but the monarch owes
His firm stability to what he scorns-

More fixt below, the more disturb'd above.
The law, by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man the lord of all. Himself derives

No mean advantage from a kindred cause,

From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease.

The sedentary stretch their lazy length

When custom bids, but no refreshment find,

For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk,

And wither'd muscle, and the vapid soul,

Reproach their owner with that love of rest
To which he forfeits ev'n the rest he loves.
Not such th' alert and active. Measure life
By its true worth, the comforts it affords,
And their's alone seems worthy of the name.
Good health, and, its associate in most,

Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake,
And not soon spent, though in an arduous task;
The pow'rs of fancy and strong thought are their's;
Ev'n age itself seems privileg'd in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The vet'ran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful smiles, descends toward the

Sprightly, and old almost without decay.

grave

Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most, Farthest retires-an idol, at whose shrine

Who oft'nest sacrifice are favour'd least.

The love of Nature, and the scene she draws,

Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there should be

found,

Who, self-imprison'd in their proud saloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field

For the unscented fictions of the loom;
Who, satisfied with only pencil'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

The inferior wonders of an artist's hand!
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire—
None more admires--the painter's magic skill
Who shows me that which I shall never see,
Conveys a distant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls:

But imitative strokes can do no more

Than please the eye-sweet Nature ev'ry sense. The air salubrious of her lofty hills,

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales, And music of her woods-no works of man May rival these; these all bespeak a pow'r

Peculiar, and exclusively her own.

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Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;
'Tis free to all-'tis ev'ry day renew'd;
Who scorns it starves deservedly at home.
He does not scorn it, who, imprison'd long
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:

His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue;

His

eye relumines its extinguish'd fires;

He walks, he leaps, he runs-is wing'd with joy,

And riots in the sweets of ev'ry breeze.

He does not scorn it, who has long endur'd

A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam'd
With acrid salts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possess'd

With visions prompted by intense desire:

Fair fields appear below, such as he left,
Far distant, such as he would die to find-
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears,

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her

own.

It is the constant revolution, stale

And tasteless, of the same repeated joys,

That palls and satiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health suffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from-its own choice-at the full feast
Is famish'd-finds no music in the song,
No smartness in the jest; and wonders why.

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