While hope prolongs our happier hour, Still, where rosy pleasure leads, The hues of bliss more brightly glow, And blended form, with artful strife, See the wretch, that long has tost At length repair his vigour lost, The meanest floweret of the vale, 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, 'To these, if Hebe's self should bring 'Mark ambition's march sublime Up to power's meridian height; Phantoms of danger, death, and dread, 'Happier he, the peasant, far, From the pangs of passion free, That breathes the keen yet wholesome air Of rugged penury. |