POETRY. (Beuuties of, not to be taught)
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare;
For there's a happiness as well as care:
Music resembles poetry; in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can teach.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
POETRY. (Folly of straining after)
From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,
All birks and braes, though he was never there;
Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains,
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;;
A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke-
An art contrived to advertise a joke,
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words-but in the gap between :
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
To dally much with subjects mean and low,
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so.
Neglected talents rust into decay,
And ev'ry effort ends in push-pin play.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it but to make it sure.
O'er globes and sceptres, now on thrones it swells,
Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells.
'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads;
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades;
Here, to Se's humour makes a bold pretence :
There, bolder aims at Pult'ney's eloquence:
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead.
Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And still where many a garden flow'r grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a-year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change, his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for pow'r,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain.
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast:
The ruir'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bid to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleas'd with his guests the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And ev❜n his failings lean'd to virtue's side;
But, in his duty prompt at ev'ry call,
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies:
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed, where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The rev'rend champion stood: At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last fault'ring accents whisper'd praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain❜d to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With ready zeal each honest rustic ran; Ev'n children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd, Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. GOLDSMITH.
RAPTURES. (Who enjoy most)
But in her temple's last recess inclos'd,
On dulness' lap th' anointed head repos'd.
Him close she curtains round with vapours blue,
And soft besprinkles with Cimmerian dew,
Then raptures high the seat of sense o'erflow,
Which only heads refin'd from reason know.
Hence from the straw where Bedlam's prophet nods,
He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods:
Hence the fool's paradise, the statesman's scheme,
The air-built castle, and the golden dream,
The maid's romantic wish, the chemist's flame,
And poet's vision of eternal fame.
READING. (Abuse of)
However, many books,
Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek ?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books, and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
RECREATION. (Bad effects from the want of) Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, But moody and dull melancholy, (Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ;) And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life?
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand,
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal, unfelt, the sultry hours away.
REFINEMENT. (Cannot clear the Stain of Vice)
She judges of refinement by the eye,
He by the test of conscience, and a heart
Not soon deceiv'd; aware that which is base
No polish can make sterling; and that vice,
Though well perfum'd and elegantly dress'd,
Like an unburied carcass trick'd with flow'rs,
Is but a garnished nuisance, fitter far
For cleanly riddance, than for fair attire.
RELIGION. (Hudibras, his)
For his religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended:
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
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