TO SIR JOHN HARTOPP, BART.

CASIMIRE, B. i. OD. 4, IMITATED.

Vive jucunda metuens juventæ, &c.
LIVE, my dear Hartopp, live to-day,
Nor let the sun look down and say,
"Inglorious here he lies ;"

Shake off your ease, and send your name
To immortality and fame,

By ev'ry hour that flies.

Youth's a soft scene, but trust her not;
Her airy minutes, swift as thought,

Slide off the slipp'ry sphere;

Moons with their months make hasty rounds, The sun has pass'd his vernal bounds,

And whirls about the year.

Let folly dress in green and red,
And gird her waist with flowing gold,
Knit blushing roses round her head,
Alas! the gaudy colours fade,

The garment waxes old.

Hartopp, mark the withering rose,
And the pale gold how dim it shows!

Bright and lasting bliss below

Is all romance and dream;

Only the joys celestial flow

In an eternal stream:

The pleasures that the smiling day

With large right hand bestows,

Falsely her left conveys away

And shuffles in our woes.
So have I seen a mother play,
And cheat her silly child,
She gave and took a toy away,
The infant cried and smiled.

Airy chance, and iron fate
Hurry and vex our mortal state,
And all the race of ills create;
Now fiery joy, now sullen grief,
Commands the reins of human life,
The wheels impetuous roll:

The harness'd hours and minutes strive,
And days with stretching pinions drive
Down fiercely on the goal.

Not half so fast the galley flies

O'er the Venetian sea,

When sails and oars and lab'ring skies

Contend to make her way.

Swift wings for all the flying hours
The God of time prepares,
The rest lie still yet in their nest,

And grow for future years.

TO THOMAS GUNSTON, ESQ.

HAPPY SOLITUDE.

CASIMIRE, Book IV. ode 12, IMITATED. Quid me latentem, &c.

THE noisy world complains of me

That I should shun their sight, and flee

Visits and crowds and company.

Gunston, the lark dwells in her nest

Till she ascends the skies;

And in my closet I could rest

Till to the heavens I rise.

Yet they will urge, "This private life

Can never make you blest,

And twenty doors are still at strife

T engage you for a guest."

Friend, should the towers of Windsor or Whitehall
Spread open their inviting gates

To make my entertainment gay,
I would obey the royal call,

But short should be my stay,

Since a diviner service waits

T" employ my hours at home, and better fill the day.

When I within myself retreat,

I shut my doors against the great;
My busy eye-balls inward roll,
And there with large survey I see

All the wide theatre of me,

And view the various scenes of my retiring soul;

There I walk o'er the mazes I have trod,

While hope and fear are in a doubtful strife,

Whether this opera of life

Be acted well to gain the plaudit of my God.

There's a day hast'ning, ('tis an awful day!)
When the great Sovereign shall at large review
All that we speak, and all we do,

The several parts we act on this wide stage of clay:
Oh! if the Judge from his tremendous seat

Shall not condemn what I have done,

I shall be happy, though unknown,

Nor need the gazing rabble, nor the shouting street.

I hate the glory, friend, that springs
From vulgar breath and empty sound;

Fame mounts her upward with a flatt'ring gale
Upon her airy wings,

Till envy shoots, and fame receives the wound!
Then her flagging pinions fail,

Down glory falls and strikes the ground,
And breaks her batter'd limbs.

Rather let me be quite conceal'd from fame;
How happy I should lie

In sweet obscurity,

Nor the loud world pronounce my little name! Here I could live and die alone,

Or if society be due

To keep our taste of pleasure new,
Gunston, I'd live and die with you,
For both our souls are one.

Here we could sit and pass the hour,

And pity kingdoms and their kings,
And smile at all their shining things,
Their toys of state, and images of power;
Virtue should dwell within our seat,
Virtue alone could make it sweet,
Nor is herself secure but in a close retreat.
While she withdraws from public praise,
Envy, perhaps, would cease to rail-

Envy itself may innocently gaze

At beauty in a veil:

But if she once advance to light,

Her charms are lost in envy's sight,

And virtue stands the mark of universal spite.

TO MITIO, MY FRIEND.

AN EPISTLE.

FORGIVE me, Mitio, that there should be any mortifying lines in the following poems inscribed to you, so soon after your entrance into that state which was designed for the completest happiness on earth: but you will quickly discover that the Muse in the first poem only represents the shades and dark colours that melancholy throws upon love and the social life. In the second, perhaps, she indulges her own bright ideas a little. Yet if the accounts are but well balanced at last, and things set in a due light, I hope there is no ground for censure. Here you will find an attempt made to talk of one of the most important concerns of human nature in verse, and that with a solemnity becoming the argument. I have banished grimace and ridicule that persons of the most serious character may read without offence. What was written several years ago to yourself is now permitted to entertain the world; but you may assume it to yourself as a private entertainment still, while you lie concealed behind a feigned name.

PART I.

THE MOURNING-PIECE.

LIFE's a long tragedy: the globe the stage,
Well fix'd and well adorn'd with strong machines,
Gay fields and skies and seas: the actors many :
The plot immense: a flight of demons sit
On every sailing cloud with fatal purpose,
And shoot across the scenes ten thousand arrows