While hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;
Behind the steps that misery treads,
Approaching comfort view :

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe;

And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

See the wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,

At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again :

The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.

Humble quiet builds her cell,

Near the source whence pleasure flows;

She eyes the clear crystalline well,

And tastes it as it goes.

'While' far below the 'madding' crowd 'Rush headlong to the dangerous flood,' Where broad and turbulent it sweeps, 'And' perish in the boundless deeps.

Mark where indolence and pride,
'Sooth'd by flattery's tinkling sound,'
Go, softly rolling, side by side,
Their dull but daily round:

'To these, if Hebe's self should bring
The purest cup from pleasure's spring,
Say, can they taste the flavour high
Of sober, simple, genuine joy?

'Mark ambition's march sublime

Up to power's meridian height;
While pale-eyed envy sees him climb,
And sickens at the sight.

Phantoms of danger, death, and dread,
Float hourly round ambition's head;
While spleen, within his rival's breast,
Sits brooding on her scorpion nest.

'Happier he, the peasant, far,

From the pangs of passion free, That breathes the keen yet wholesome air Of rugged penury.