Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;

Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams 'Tis free to ali—'tis every day renewed;

Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest. Who scorns it starves deservedly at home.

The peasant too, a witness of his song, He does not scorn it, who, imprisoned long

Himself a songster, is as gay as he. In some uuwholesome dungeon, and a prey

But save me from the gaiety of those, To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank

Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed; And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,

And save me too from theirs, whose haggard eyes Escapes at last to liberty and light:

Flash desperation, and betray their pangs His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue;

For property stripped off by cruel chance; His eye relumines its extinguished fires;

From gaiety, that fills the bones with pain, He walks, he leaps, he runs—is winged with joy, The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe. And riots in the sweets of every breeze.

The earth was made so various, that the mind He does not scorn it, who has long endured

Of desultory man, studious of change, A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed

Prospects, however lovely, may be seen With acrid salts; his very heart athirst

Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight, To gaze at nature in her green array.

Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possessed Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. With visions prompted by intense desire:

Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale, Fair fields appear below, such as he left

Where frequent hedges intercept the eye, Far distant, such as he would die to find

Delight us; happy to renounce awhile, He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

Not senseless of its charms, what still we love, The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;

That such short absence may endear it more. The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown,

Then forests, or the savage rock, may please, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,

That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts And mar, the face of beauty, when no cause

Above the reach of man. His hoary head, For such immeasurable woe appears,

Conspicuous many a league, the mariner These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

Bound homeward, and in hope already there, Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own. Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist It is the constant revolution, stale

A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shows, And tasteless, of the same repeated joys,

And at his feet the baffled billows die. Thnt palls and satiates, and makes languid life The common, overgrown with fern, and rough A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer duwn. With prickly gorse, that shapeless and deformed, Health suffers, and the spirits ebb, the heart

And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom, Recoils from its own choice-at the full feast

And decks itself with ornaments of gold, Is famished-finds no music in the song,

Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf No smartness in the jest; and wonders why. Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs Yet thousands still desire to journey on,

And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. With luxury of unexpected sweets. The paralytic, who can hold her cards,

There often wanders one, whom better days But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort

With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound. Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits,

A serving maid was she, and fell in love Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad

With one who left her, went to sea, and died. And silent cypher, while her proxy plays.

Her fancy followed him through foaming waves Others are dragged into the crowded room

To distant shores; and she would sit and weep Between supporters; and, once seated, sit,

At what a sailor suffers; fancy too, Through downright inability to rise,

Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again.

Would oft anticipate his glad return, These speak a loud memento. Yet even these And dream of transports she was not to know. Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he

She heard the doleful tidings of his deathThat overhangs a torrent to a twig.

And never smiled again! and now she roams They love it, and yet loathe it; fear to die,

The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, Yet scorn the purposes for which they live.

And there, unless when charity forbids, Then wherefore not renounce them ? No—the dread, The livelong night. A tattered apron hides, The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds

Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,

More tattered still; and both but ill conceal And their inveterate habits, all forbid.

A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs.
Whom call we gay? That honour has been long She begs an idle pin of all she meets,
The boast of mere pretenders to the name.

Aud hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food, The innocent are gay-the lark is gay,

Though pressed with hunger oft, or comelier That dries his feathers, saturate with dew,

clothes,

Though pinched with cold, asks never.-Kate is Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside. crazed.

Thus fare the shivering natives of the north, I see a column of slow-rising smoke

And thus the rangers of the western world, O'ertop the lofty wood, that skirts the wild.

Where it advances far into the deep, A vagabond and useless tribe there eat

Towards the Antarctic. Even the favoured isles Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung

So lately found, although the constant sun Between two poles upon a stick transverse,

Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, Receives the morsel--flesh obscene of dog,

Can boast but little virtue; and inert Or vermin, or at best of cock purloined

Through plenty, lose ip morals what they gain From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race ! In manners-victims of luxurious ease. They pick their fuel out of every hedge,

These therefore I can pity, placed remote Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves un- From all that science traces, art invents, quenched

Or inspiration teaches; and enclosed
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide In boundless oceans never to be passed
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, By navigators uninformed as they,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.

Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again : Great skill have they in palmistry, and more But far beyond the rest, and with most cause To conjure clean away the gold they touch, Thee, gentle savage! whom no love of thee Conveying worthless dross into its place;

Or thine, but curiosity perhaps,
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal. Or else vain glory, prompted us to draw
Strange! that a creature rational, and cast

Forth from thy native bowers, to shew thee here In human mould, should brutalize by choice

With what superior skill we can abuse His nature; and, though capable of arts,

The gifts of Providence, and squander life. By which the world might profit, and himself, The dream is past; and thou hast found again Self-banished from society, prefer

Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams, [found Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!

And homestall thatched with leaves. But hast thou Yet even these, though feigning sickness oft Their former charms? And having seen our state, They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp And vex their flesh with artificial sores,

Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports, Can change their whine into a mirthful note, And heard our music; are thy simple friends, When safe occasion offers; and with dance,

Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights,
And music of the bladder and the bag,

As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys
Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. Lost nothing by comparison with ours?
Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy

Rude as thou art, (for we returned thee rude The houseless rovers of the sylvan world;

And ignorant, except of outward show) And, breathing wholesome air, and wandering much, I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart Need other physic none to heal the effects

And spiritless, as never to regret Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known. Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd Methinks I see thee straying on the beach, By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure,

And asking of the surge, that bathes thy foot, Where inan, by nature fierce, has laid aside

If ever it has washed our distant shore.
His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn, I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
The manners and the arts of civil life.

A patriot's for his country: thou art sad
His wants indeed are many; but supply

At thought of her forlorn and abject state, Is obvious, placed within the easy reach

From which no power of thine can raise her up: Of temperate wishes and industrious hands.

Thus fancy paints thee, and though apt to err, Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil;

Perhaps errs little when she paints thee thus, Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns,

She tells me too that duly every moro And terrible to sight, as when she springs

Thou climb'st the mountain top, with eager eye (If e'er she spring spontaneous) in remote

Exploring far and wide the watery waste And barbarous climes, where violence prevails, For sight of ship from England. Every speck And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind, Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,

With conflict of contending hopes and fears. And all her fruits by radiant truth matured.

But comes at last the dull and dusky eve, War and the chase engross the savage whole; And sends thee to thy cabin, well prepared War followed for revenge, or to supplant

To dream all night of what the day denied. The envied tenants of some happier spot:

Alas! expect it not. We found no bait The chase for sustenance, precarious trust!

To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, His hard condition with severe constraint

Disinterested good, is not our trade. Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth

We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought; Of wisdom, proves a school, in which he learns And must be bribed to compass earth again Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,

By other hopes and richer fruits than yours.

But though true worth and virtue in the mild That, through profane and infidel contempt And genial soil of cultivated life

Of holy writ, she has presumed to annul Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there, And abrogate, as roundly as she may, Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay

The total ordinance and will of God; And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,

Advancing fashion to the post of truth, As to a common and most noisome sewer,

And centering all authority in modes The dregs and feculence of every land.

And customs of her own, till sabbath rites lo cities, foul example on most ininds

Have dwindled into unrespected forms, Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorced. In gross and pampered cities sloth and lust,

God made the country, and man made the town. And wantonness and gluttonous excess.

What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, In cities, vice is hidden with most ease,

That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, Or seen with least repro-ch; and virtue, taught That life holds out to all, should most abound By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there And least be threatened in the fields and groves? Beyond the achievement of successful flight. Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about I do confess them nurseries of the arts,

In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue In which they flourish most; where, in the beams But that of idleness, and taste no scenes Of warm encouragement, and in the eye

But such as art contrives, possess ye still Of public note, they reach their perfect size. Your element; there only can ye

shine; Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed There only minds like yours can do no harm. The fairest capital of all the world,

Our groves were planted to console at noon By riot and incontinence the worst.

The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes The moon-beam, sliding softly in between A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees

The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, All her reflected features. Bacon there

Birds warbling all the music. We can spare Gives more than female beauty to a stone,

The splendour of your lamps; they but eclipse And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.

Our softer satellite. Your songs confound Nor does the chisel occupy alone

Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs The powers of sculpture, but the style as much; Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute. Each province of her art her equal care.

There is a public mischief in your mirth ; With nice incision of her guided steel

It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan, So sterile with what charms soe'er she will,

Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done, The richest scenery and the loveliest forms.

Our arch of empire, stedfast but for you,
Where finds philosophy her eagle eye,

A mutilated structure, soon to fall.
With which she gazes at yon burning disk
Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots?

VANITY OF HUMAN PURSUITS.
In London. Where her implements exact,
With which she calculates, computes and scans, I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now

Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt Measures an atom, and now girds a world?

My panting side was charged, when I withdrew In London. Where has commerce such a mart, To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supplied, There was I found by one, who had himself As London-opulent, enlarged, and still

Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore, Increasing, London? Babylon of old

And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars, Not more the glory of the earth than she,

With gentle force soliciting the darts, A more accomplished world's chief glory now. He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live.

She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two, Since then, with few associates, in remote That so much beauty would do well to purge ; And silent woods I wander, far from those And show this queen of cities, that so fair

My former partners of the peopled scene; May yet be foul; so witty, yet not wise.

With few associates, and not wishing more. It is not seemly, nor of good report,

Here much I ruminate, as much as I may, That she is slack in discipline; more prompt With other views of men and manners now To avenge than to prevent the breach of law: Than once, and others of a life to come. That she is rigid in denouncing death

I see that all are wanderers, gone astray On petty robbers, and indulges life

Each in his own delusions; they are lost And liberty, and oft-times honour too,

In chase of fancied happiness, still wooed To peculators of the public gold;

And never won. Dream after dream ensues; That thieves at home must hang; but he that puts And still they dream that they shall still succeed, Into his overgorged and bloated purse

And still are disappointed. Rings the world The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.

With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, Nor is it well, nor can it come to good,

And add two thirds of the remaining half,

And find the total of their hopes and fears

'Twere well, could you permit the world to live Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay As the world pleases. What's the world to you? As if created only like the fly,

Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon, As sweet as charity from human breasts. To sport their season, and be seen no more.

I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise,

And exercise all functions of a man.
And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. How then should I and any man that lives
Some write a narrative of wars, and feats

Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Of heroes little known; and call the rant

Take of the crimson stream meandering there, A history: describe the man, of whom

And catechise it well; apply thy glass, His own coevals took but little note,

Search it, and prove now if it be not blood And paint his person, character, and views,

Congenial with thine own; and, if it be,

: As they had known him from his mother's womb. What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose They disentangle from the puzzled skein,

Keen enough, wise and skilful as thouart, In which obscurity has wrapped them up,

To cut the link of brotherhood, by which
The threads of politic and shrewd design,

One common Maker bound me to the kind?
That ran through all his purposes, and charge True; I am no proficient, I confess,
His mind with meanings that he never had,

arts like yours. I cannot call the swift Or having kept concealed. Some drill and bore And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, The solid earth, and from the strata there

And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath; Extract a register, by which we learn,

I cannot analyze the air, nor catch That he who made it, and revealed its date

The parallax of yonder luminous point, To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

That seems half quenched in the immense abyss : Some, more acute, and more industrious still, Such powers I boast not-neither can I rest Contrive creation, travel nature up

A silent witness of the headlong rage, To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,

Or heedless folly, by which thousands die, And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixed, Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine. And planetary some; what gave them first

God never meant that man should scale the heavens Rotation, from what fountain Rowed their light. By strides of human wisdom. In his works Great contest follows, and much learned dust

Though wondrous, he commands us in his word Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, To seek him rather, where his mercy shines. And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The mind indeed, enlightened from above, The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp

Views him in all; ascribes to the grand cause In playing tricks with nature, giving laws

The grand effect ; acknowledges with joy To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. His manner, and with rapture tastes his style. Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums

But never yet did philosophic tube, Should ever tease the lungs, and blear the sight That brings the planets home unto the eye Of oracles like these ? Great pity too,

Of observation, and discovers, else That having wielded the elements, and built Not visible, his family of worlds, A thousand systems, each in his own way,

Discover him, that rules them; such a veil They should go out in fume, and be forgot?

Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, Ah! what is lise thus spent? and what are they And dark in things divine. Full often too But frantic, who thus spend it? all for smoke- Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Eternity for bubbles proves at last

Of nature, overlooks her author more; A senseless bargain. When I see such games From instrumental causes proud to draw Played by the creatures of a power, who swears Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake. That he will judge the earth, and call the fool But if his word once teach us, shoot a ray To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain; Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well, Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, And prove it in the infallible result

Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptized So hollow and so false-I feel my heart

In the pure fountain of eternal love, Dissolve in pity, and account the learned,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees If this be learning, most of all deceived.

As meant to indicate a God to man, Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps, Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. While thoughtful man is plausibly amused.

Learning has borne such fruit in other days Defend me therefore common sense, say I,

On all her branches: piety has found From reveries so airy, from the toil

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Of dropping buckets into empty wells,

Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. And growing old in drawing nothing up!

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage! 'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Sagacious reader of the works of God, Terribly arched and aquiline his nose,

And in his word sagacious. Such too thine, And overbuilt with most impending brows,

Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,