Then though you deem it better still
To gain some rustic 'squire's good will,
And souls, however mean or vile,
Like features, brighten by a smile,
Yet Reason holds it for a crime
The trivial breast should share thy time;
And Virtue with reluctant eyes
Beholds this human sacrifice!
Through deep reserve and air erect,
Mistaken Damon won respect;
But could the specious homage pass
With any creature but an ass?
If conscious, they who fear'd the skin
Would scorn the sluggish brute within.
What awe-struck slaves the towers enclose
Where Persian monarchs eat and doze!
What prostrate reverence all agree
To pay a prince they never see!
Mere vassals of a royal throne;
The Sophi's virtues must be shown,
To make the reverence his own.
As for Thalia-would thou make her
Thy bride without a portion?-take her :
She will with duteous care attend,
And all thy pensive hours befriend;
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Have quite withdrawn their lingering fires,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?
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 memory draws
The lasting meed of self-applause.
Such fair ideas lend 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*;
*Alluding to the allegory in Cebes' Tablet.
To show him her remote abode,
To point the rocky arduous road;
But from each flower his fields allow,
She twines a garland for his brow.
ADDRESSED TO YOUNG POETS.
Insanis; omnes gelidis quicunque lacernis
Sunt tibi, Nasones Virgiliosque vides.
-Thou know'st not what thou say'st;
In garments that scarce fence them from the cold,
Our Ovids and our Virgils you behold.
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,
To guard from fatal ills the tribe he loves,
Inspires the meanest of the Muse's train!
Like you I loath the grovelling progeny,
Whose wily arts, by creeping time matur'd,
Advance them high on Power's tyrannic throne,
To lord it there in gorgeous uselessness,
And spurn successless Worth that pines below!
See the rich churl, amid the social sons
Of wine and wit regaling! hark, he joins
In the free jest, delighted! seems to show
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 Shakspeare's line,
Obstreperous Silence,† drowning Shallow's voice,
And startling Falstaff and his mad compeers.
He owns 'tis 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 through the pores of earth from Stygian
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; all sainted, all ensky'd:
The trembling tears that charge thy melting eyes
Say thou art honest, and of gentle kind;
But all is false! an intermitting sigh
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 walls
+Justice Silence, in Shakspeare's Henry IV. 2d Part.
Of some dark dungeon. Hence, thou caitiff! fly;
Touch not my glass, nor drain my sacred bowl,
Monster ingrate! beneath one common sky
Why should thou breathe! beneath one common
Thou ne'er shalt harbour, nor my little boat [roof
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 even or morn,
Invest thee happy! but when life declines,
May thy sure heirs stand tittering round thy bed,
And, ushering in their favourites, 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 the' harmonious mind
Endure the worldly! Poets, ever void
Of guile, distrustless, scorn the treasur'd gold,
And spurn the miser, spurn his deity.
Balanc'd with friendship, in the poet's eye
The rival scale of interest kicks the beam,
Than lightning swifter. From his cavern'd store
The sordid soul, with self-applause, remarks
The kind propensity; remarks and smiles,
And hies with impious haste to spread the snare.
Him we deride, and in our comic scenes
Contemn the niggard form Moliere has drawn:
We loath with justice; but, alas! the pain
To bow the knee before this calf of gold,
Implore his envious aid, and meet his frown!
But 'tis not Gomez, 'tis not he whose heart
Is crusted o'er with dross, whose callous mind
Is senseless as his gold, the slighted Muse
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