Reflections such as meliorate the heart,
Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;
Scenes such as these 'tis his supreme delight
To fill with riot, and defile with blood.
Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes
We persecute, annihilate the tribes

That draw the sportsman over hill and dale,
Fearless and rapt away from all his cares;
Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again;
Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;

Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song,
Be quell'd in all our summer-months' retreat;
How many self-deluded nymphs and swains,
Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,
Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,
And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!
They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own sake its silence and its shade.
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind

Cultured and capable of sober thought,
For all the savage din of the swift pack,
And clamours of the field?-Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks

Well-one at least is safe. One shelter'd hare

Has never heard the sanguinary yell

Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.
Innocent partner of my peaceful home,
Whom ten long years' experience of my care

Has made at last familiar; she has lost
Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,
Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.
Yes-thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand
That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor
At evening, and at night retire secure

To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm'd;

For I have gain'd thy confidence, have pledged
All that is human in me to protect
Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
If I survive thee, I will dig thy grave;
And, when I place thee in it, sighing say

I knew at least one hare that had a friend.*

How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful industry enjoy'd at home,

And Nature, in her cultivated trim

Dress'd to his taste, inviting him abroad

Can he want occupation who has these?
Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?
Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful, happy to deceive the time,
Not waste it, and aware that human life
Is but a loan to be repaid with use,
When he shall call his debtors to account,
From whom are all our blessings, business finds
E'en here while sedulous I seek to improve,
At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd,
The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack

See Note at end of the Volume.

Too oft, and much impeded in its work,
By causes not to be divulged in vain,
To its just point-the service of mankind.
He, that attends to his interior self,

That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind
That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks
A social, not a dissipated life,

Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve
No unimportant, though a silent, task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem
To him that leads it wise, and to be praised;
But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water and beneath clear skies.
He that is ever occupied in storms,

Or dives not for it, or brings up instead,
Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.

The morning finds the self-sequester'd man Fresh for his task, intend what task he may. Whether inclement seasons recommend

His warm but simple home, where he enjoys With her who shares his pleasures and his heart, Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph Which neatly she prepares; then to his book Well chosen, and not sullenly perused

In selfish silence, but imparted oft,