To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in ev'ry wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to day:
Yet see, how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black misfortune's baleful train!
Ab, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd'rous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!
YOUTH. Pleasures of Teaching.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh intruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast. Thomson.
YOUTH. Remembrances of.
Alas! the hospitable hall,
Where youth and friendship play'd,
Wide to the winds a ruin'd wall,
Projects a death-like shade!
The charm is vanish'd from the vales,
No voice with virgin-whisper hails
A stranger to his native bow'rs;
No more Arcadian mountains bloom,
Nor Enna valleys breathe perfume,
The fancied Eden fades with all its flowers!
Companions of the youthful scene,
Endear'd from earliest days!
With whom I sported on the green,
Or rov'd the woodland maze!
Long exil'd from your native clime,
Or by the thunderstroke of time,
Snatch'd to the shadows of despair;
I hear your voices in the wind,
Your forms in every walk I find,
I stretch my arms: ye vanish into air!
My steps, when innocent and young,
These fairy paths pursu'd;
And, wand'ring o'er the wild, I sung
My fancies to the wood.
I mourn'd the linnet-lover's fate,
Or turtle, from her murder'd mate,
Condemned the widow'd hours to wail:
Or while the mournful vision rose,
I sought to weep for imag'd woes,
Nor real life believ'd a tragic tale!
ZELICA. Nature of her Grief.
Oh grief, beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without that only tie
For which it lov'd to live or fear'd to die;-
Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er bath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!
Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul was such,
Ev'n reason sunk blighted beneath its touch;
And though, ere long, her sanguine spirit rose
Above the first dead pressure of its woes,
Tho' health and bloom return'd, the delicate chain
Of thought, once tangled, never clear'd again.
Warm, lively, soft as in youth's happiest day,
The mind was still all there, but turn'd astray;-
A wandering bark, upon whose path-way shone
All stars of heav'n, except the guiding one!
Again she smil'd, nay, much and brightly smil'd,
But 'twas a lustre, strange, unreal, wild;
And when she sung to her lute's touching strain,
"Twas like the notes, half ecstacy, half pain,
The bulbul utters, ere her soul depart,
When, vanquish'd by some minstrel's powerful art,
She dies upon the lute whose sweetness broke her heart!
ZEPHON. His rebuke to Satan.
"Know ye not then," said Satan fill'd with scorn, "Know ye not me? ye knew me once no mate For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar: Not to know me argues yourselves unknown, The lowest of your throng; or, if ye know, Why ask ye, and superfluous begin
Your message, like to end as much in vain?"
To whom thus Zephon, answ'ring scorn with scorn, "Think not, revolted Sp'rit, thy shape the same, Or undiminish'd brightness, to be known
As when thou stood'st in Heav'n upright and pure;
That glory then, when thou no more wast good,
Departed from thee; and thou resemblest now
Thy sin and place of doom, obscure and foul.-
So spake the cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible: abash'd the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw and pin'd
His loss.
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiffin opinions, always in the wrong;
Was ev'ry thing by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fidler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could ev'ry hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes:
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent, or over civil,
That ev'ry man with him was god or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar ar t:
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert;
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late;
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
ZONE. Torrid, Described.
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling:
Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd;
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murd'rous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies.
Goldsmith.
Beelzebub, His Character.
Beppo and Laura, Humorous Recontre
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