The powers of fancy and ftrong thought are their's;
Even age itself seems privileged in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The veteran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful fmiles, defcends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almoft without decay.

Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted moft, Fartheft retires-an idol, at whose shrine

Who ofteneft facrifice are favoured leaft.

The love of Nature, and the scenes the draws,
Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there should be found,
Who, felf-imprisoned in their proud faloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field

For the unfcented fictions of the loom;
Who, fatisfied with only pencilled scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

The 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 fhows me that which I fhall never fee,
Conveys a diftant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls:
But imitative ftrokes can do no more

Than please the eye-sweet Nature's every sense.
The air falubrious of her lofty hills,
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And mufic of her woods-no works of man
May rival thefe; these all befpeak a power
Peculiar, and exclufively her own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;
'Tis free to all-'tis every day renewed;
Who fcorns it ftarves defervedly at home.
He does not scorn it, who, imprisoned long
In fome unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To fallow fickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:

His cheek recovers foon its healthful hue;
His eye relumines its extinguished fires;

He walks, he leaps, he runs-is winged with joy,
And riots in the sweets of every breeze.

He does not scorn it, who has long endured

A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs,

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed

With acrid salts; his very heart athirst

To gaze at nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall fide he stands, poffeffed
With vifions prompted by intense defire:
Fair fields appear below, such as he left
Far diftant, fuch as he would die to find—
He feeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

The spleen is feldom felt where Flora reigns; The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, And fullen sadness, that overfhade, diftort, And mar, the face of beauty, when no cause For fuch immeasurable woe appears,

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet fmiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
It is the conftant revolution, ftale

And taftelefs, of the fame repeated joys,

That palls and fatiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health fuffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from its own choice-at the full feaft
Is famished-finds no mufic in the song,

No smartness in the jeft; and wonders why.
Yet thousands ftill defire 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 fhuffle, to divide and fort
Her mingled fuits and fequences; and fits,
Spectatrefs both and fpectacle, a fad
And filent cypher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragged into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once feated, fit,
Through downright inability to rise,

Till the ftout bearers lift the corpfe again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet even 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 fcorn the purposes for which they live.
Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the dread,
The flavish dread of folitude, that breeds
Reflection and remorfe, the fear of fhame,
And their inveterate habits, all forbid.

Whom call we gay? That honour has been long

The boaft of mere pretenders to the name.
The innocent are gay-the lark is gay,

That dries his feathers, faturate with dew,

Beneath the rofy cloud, while yet the beams
Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest.
The peasant too, a witness of his fong,
Himself a fongsfter, is as gay as he.

But fave me from the gaiety of those,

Whofe head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And fave me too from their's, whose haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs

For property ftripped off by cruel chance;
From gaiety, that fills the bones with pain,

The mouth with blafphemy, the heart with woe.

The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of defultory man, ftudious of change,
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen
Till half their beauties fade; the weary fight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, flides off
Faftidious, feeking lefs familiar fcenes.

Then fnug enclosures in the sheltered vale,
Where frequent hedges intercept the eye,
Delight us; happy to renounce awhile,
Not fenfelefs of its charms, what ftill we love,
That fuch short abfence may endear it more.