Reproach their owner with that love of rest,
To which he forfeits e'en the rest he loves.
Not such the alert and active. Measure life
By it's true worth, the comforts it affords,
And theirs alone seems worthy of the name.
Good health, and, it's associate in the 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 theirs;
Ev'n age itself seems privileg'd in them

400

With clear exemption from it's own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The vet'ran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almost without decay.

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 scenes she draws,

410

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 pencill'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God
Th' 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,

420

Than please the eye-Sweet Nature's 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

430

Peculiar, and exclusively her own.

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 it's healthful hue;
His eye relumines it's extinguish'd fires;

440

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 450

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 wo appears,

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

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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 it's own choice-at the full feast Is famish'd-finds no music in the song,

No smartness in the jest; and wonders why.

Yet thousands still desire 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 shuffle, to divide and sort

Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits,
Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad
And silent cipher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once seated, sit,
Through downright inability to rise,

Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again.

These speak a loud memento.

4

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 loath it; fear to die,

Yet scorn the purposes, for which they live.

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480

Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the

dread,

The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds