He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury;
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold;
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
MIND. Importance of Regulating.'
"Tis the great art of life to manage well
The restless mind. For ever on pursuit
Of knowledge bent, it starves the grosser pow'rs:
Quite unemploy'd, againt its own repose
It turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs
Than what the body knows embitter life.
Chiefly where solitude, sad nurse of care,
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind,
There madness enters; and the dim-eyed fiend,
Sour melancholy, night and day provokes
Her own eternal wound. The sun grows pale;
A mournful visionary light o'erspreads
The cheerful face of nature; earth becomes
A dreary desert, and heaven frowns above.
Then various shapes of curs'd illusion rise:
Whate'er the wretched fears, creating fear
Forms out of nothing; and with monsters teem
Unknown in hell. The prostrate soul beneath
A load of huge imagination heaves;
And all the horrors that the murd'rer feels
With anxious flutt'rings wake the guiltless breast.
Such phantoms pride in solitary scenes,
Or fear, on delicate self-love creates.
From other cares absolv'd, the busy mind
Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon;
It finds you miserable, or makes you so.
For while yourself you anxiously explore,
Timorous self-love, with sickening fancy's aid,
Presents the danger that you dread the most,
And ever galls you in your tender part.
Hence some for love, and some for jealousy,
For grim religion some, and some for pride,
Have lost their reason; some for fear of want,
Want all their lives; and others ev'ry day,
For fear of dying, suffer worse than death.
Ah! from your bosoms banish, if you can,
Those fatal guests; and first the demon fear,
'That trembles at impossible events,
Lest aged Atlas should resign his load,
And heaven's eternal battlements rush down.
Is there an evil worse than fear itself?
And what avails it that indulgent heaven
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?
Enjoy the present; nor with needless cares
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the surest hour that life bestows.
Serene, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come, and leave the rest to heaven.
Awake, arise! with grateful fervour fraught,
Go, spring the mine of elevated thought,
He who, through nature's various walk, surveys
The good and fair her faultless line portrays;
Whose mind, profan'd by no unhallow'd guest,
Culls from the crowd the purest and the best
May range, at will, bright fancy's golden clime,
Or, musing, mount where science sits sublime,
Or wake the spirit of departed time.
Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral muse,
A blooming Eden in his life reviews!
So richly cultur'd every native grace,
Its scanty limits he forgets to trace:
But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky,
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!
The weary waste that lengthen'd as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a span!
MIND. Depends on the Life.
Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill:
Bend the strait rule to their own crooked will;
And with a clear and shining lamp supplied,
First put it out, then take it for a guide.―
Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,
And these reciprocally those again.
The mind and conduct mutually imprint
And stamp their image in each other's mint.
MIND. Its Diseases incurable.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
MINDS. Happily tempered.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mix'
With such ingredients of good sense, and tr
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst
With such zeal to be what they approve,
That no restraints can circumscribe them more
Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake.
Nor can example hurt them: what they see
Of vice in others but enhancing more
The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
MINSTREL. Described.
Amid the strings his fingers strayed,
And an uncertain warbling made-
And oft he shook his hoary head.
But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his face, and smiled;
And lighted up his faded eye,
With all a poet's ecstasy!
In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along;
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot;
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost.
Each blank, in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied;
And, while his harp responsive rung,
'Twas thus the latest minstrel sung.
Hushed is the harp-the minstrel gone,
And did he wander forth alone?
Alone, in indigence and age,
To linger out his pilgrimage?
No-close beneath proud Newark's tower,
Arose the minstrel's lowly bower;
A simple hut; but there was seen
The little garden hedged with green,
The cheerful hearth, and lattice clean.
There shelter'd wanderers, by the blaze,
Oft heard the tale of other days;
For much he loved to ope his door,
And give the aid he begged before.
So pass the winter's day—but still,
When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,
And July's eve, with balmy breath,
Waved the blue bells on Newark heath;
And flourish'd, broad, Blackandro's oak,
The aged harper's soul awoke!
Then would he sing achievements high,
And circumstance of chivalry,
Till the wrapt traveller would stay
Forgetful of the closing day
And Yarrow, as he rolled along
Bore burden to the minstrel's song.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides;
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give the honour due,
Mirth admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
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