The tavern, park, assembly, mask, and play, Those dear destroyers of the tedious day? That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town! Call it diversion, and the pill goes down; Fools grin on fools; and Stoic-like support, Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court. Courts can give nothing to the wise and good, But scorn of pomp and love of solitude. High stations tumult, but not bliss create; None think the great unhappy, but the great. Fools gaze and envy; envy darts a sting Which makes a swain as wretched as a king.
Stands at a guard with envy; Scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that his appetite
ls more to bread than stone: Hence shall we see If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
ANGELS. Fallen, their Amusements.
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate; and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute; And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and apathy, and glory and shame, Vain wisdom all and false philosophy: Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm Pain for a while or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope, or arm'd th' obdurate breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
ANNIHILATION. Horror of.
To be no more: sad curse; for who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity; To perish rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion !
ANIMALS. Feasted by Man.
That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And till he ends the being, makes it blest; Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er. To each unthinking being Heaven a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end! To man imparts it; but with such a view As while he dreads it, makes him hope it too, The hour conceal'd and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near; Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.
Whether with reason or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best; To bliss alike by that direction tend,
And find the means proportion'd to their end.
ANIMALS. Their Happiness.
The heart is hard in nature, and unfit For human fellowship, as being void Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleas'd
With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own. The bounding fawn that darts across the glade When none pursues, through mere delight of heart And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;
The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet,
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, Then stops, and snorts, and throwing high his heels, Starts to the voluntary race again;
The very kine that gambol at high noon, The total herd receiving first from one, That leads the dance, a summons to be gay, Though wild their strange vagaries and uncouth Their efforts, yet resolv'd, with one consent To give such act and utt'rance, as they may To ecstasy too big to be suppress'd- These, and a thousand images of bliss, With which kind Nature graces ev'ry scene, Where cruel man defeats not her design Impart to the benevolent who wish All that are capable of pleasure pleas'd, A far superior happiness to theirs, The comfort of a reasonable joy.
APPEARANCES. Deceitful.
The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple, but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts,
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk? And these assume but valour's excrement, To render them redoubted. Look on beauty, And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head
The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest.
Or view the Lord of unerring bow,
The God of life, and poesy, and light
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright With an immortal vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, And majesty, flash their full lightnings by Developing, in that one glance, the Deity.
But in his delicate form a dream of love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Long'd for a deathless lover from above, And madden'd in that vision -are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd
The mind with, in its most unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guest- A ray of immortality-and stood
Star-like, around, until they gather'd to a god!
I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells,-whom late I noted In tatter'd weeds with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, And in his needy shop a tortoise hung. Sharp misery had worn him to the bones : An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
Visit of, to the Parish Poor.
Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,
All pride and business, bustle and conceit; With looks unalter'd by these scenes of wo, With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go, He bids the gazing throng around him fly, And carries fate and physic in his eye: A potent quack, long vers'd in human ills, Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect. Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste he seeks the bed where Misery lies, Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes.
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