The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied;
And the rest are but folly and care.
How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife,
The many their labours employ !
Since all that is truly delightful in life,
Is what all, if they please, may enjoy.
Attachment to life.
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground:
'Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increas'd with years,
So much, that in our later stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages
The greatest love of life appears.
Virtue's address to pleasure.*
Vast happiness enjoy thy gay allies!
A youth of follies, an old age of cares ; Young yet enervate, old yet never wise,
Vice wastes their vigour, and their mind impairs. Vain, idle, delicate, in thoughtless ease,
Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend ;
All wretched, hopeless, in the evil days,
With sorrow to the verge of life they tend.
Griev'd with the present, of the past asham'd,
They live and are despis'd; they die, no more are nam'd.
VERSES IN WHICH SOUND CORRESPONDS TO SIGNIFICA
SOFT is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
Slow motion imitated.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.
Swift and easy motion.
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes ;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks
Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
Sound of a bow-string.
Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry.
The Pheasant.
See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.
Boisterous and gentle sounds.
Two craggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring winds tempestuous rage restrain :
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide;
And ships secure without their halsers ride.
Laborious and impetuous motion.
With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone :
The huge round stone resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the groun
Regular and slow movement.
First march the heavy mules securely slow;
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.
Motion slow and difficult.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
A rock torn from the brow of a mountain.
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and urg'd amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plair
Extent and violence of the waves.
The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide-rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore.
Pensive numbers.
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns.
Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord; and the madding wheels Of brazen fury rag'd.
Sound imitating reluctance.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd;
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind:
PARAGRAPHS OF GREATER LENGTH.
Connubial affection.
THE love that cheers life's latest stage,
Proof against sickness and old age,
Preserv'd by virtue from declension,
Becomes not weary of attention:
But lives, when that exterior grace,
Which first inspired the flame, decays.
'Tis gentle, delicate, and kind,
To faults compassionate, or blind;
And will with sympathy endure
Those evils it would gladly cure.
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression,
Shows love to be a mere profession;
Proves that the heart is none of his,
Or soon expels him if it is.
Swarms of flying insects.
Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways,
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,
The quiv'ring nations sport; till tempest-wing'd,
Fierce winter sweeps them from the face of day.
Ev'n so, luxurious men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer life, in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! Thus they flutter on,
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till, blown away by death, cblivion comes
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.
Beneficence its own reward.
My fortune (for I'll mention all,
And more than you dare tell) is small;
Yet ev'ry friend partakes my store,
And want goes smiling from my door.
Will forty shillings warm the breast
'Of worth or industry distress'd!
This sum I cheerfully impart ;
'Tis fourscore pleasures to my heart:
And you may make, by means like these,
Five talents ten, whene'er you please.
"Tis true, my little purse grows light;
But then I sleep so sweet at night!
This grand specific will prevail,
When all the doctor's opiates fail.
Virtue the best treasure.
Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of Heav'n,: a happiness
That, even above the smiles and frowns of fate,
Exalts great nature's favourites: a wealth
That ne'er encumbers; nor to baser hands
Can be transferr'd. It is the only good
Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.
Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd.
But for one end, one much-neglected use,
Are riches worth our care; (for nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied ;)
This noble end is to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light;
And make humanity the minister
Of bounteous Providence.
As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the serious night,
And contemplation her sedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.
Where now, ye lying vanities of life!
Ye ever tempting, ever cheating train !
Where are you now? and what is your amount?
Vexation, disappointment, and remorse.
Sad, sick'ning thought! And yet, deluded man,
A scene of crude disjointed visions past,
And broken slumbers, rises still resolv'd,
With new flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round.
Pleasure of piety.
A Deity believ'd, is joy begun;
A Deity ador'd, is joy advanc'd;
A Deity belov'd, is joy matur'd.
Each branch of piety delight inspires:
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next,
O'er death's dark gulf, and all its horror hides;
Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy,
That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still;
Pray'r ardent opens heav'n, lets down a stream
Of glory, on the consecrated hour
Of man in audience with the Deity.
As two young bears, in wanton mood,
Forth issuing from a neighbouring wood,
Came where th' industrious bees had stor❜d,
In artful cells, their luscious hoard;
O'erjoy'd they seiz'd, with eager haste,
Luxurious on the rich repast.
Alarm'd at this, the little crew
About their ears vindictive flew.
The beasts, unable to sustain
Th' unequal combat, quit the plain;
Half-blind with rage, and mad with pain,
Their native shelter they regain;
"There sit, and now, discreeter grown,
Too late their rashness they bemoan;
And this by dear experience gain,
That pleasure's ever bought with pain.
So when the gilded baits of vice
Are plac'd before our longing eyes,
With greedy haste we snatch our fill,
And swallow down the latent ill:
But when experience opes our eyes,
Away the fancied pleasure flies.
It flies, but oh! too late we find,
It leaves a real sting behind.-MERRICK.
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