Still is the toiling hand of Care; Yet hark how through the peopled air And float amid the liquid noon; To Contemplation's sober eye Alike the busy and the gay But flutter through life's little day, Or chilled by age, their airy dance Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply: "Poor moralist, and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, 1742. 1748. ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the wat'ry glade, And ye that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among His silver-winding way: Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, To breathe a second spring. Say, father Thames-for thou hast seen Disporting on thy margent green, The paths of pleasure trace,— Who foremost now delight to cleave While some, on earnest business bent, Their murm'ring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty, Some bold adventurers disdain 30 35 The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy. 40 This racks the joints; this fires the veins; 85 The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah, why should they know their fate? And happiness too swiftly flies, Thought would destroy their paradise. 1742. HYMN TO ADVERSITY Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth To thee he gave the heav'nly birth, And bade to form her infant mind. 95 100 1747. 5 ΙΟ Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore; What sorrow was thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good: Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend; Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thund'ring voice and threat'ning mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40 Thy form benign, O goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart; Thy philosophic train be there, To soften, not to wound, my heart; The gen'rous spark extinct revive, What others are to feel, and know myself a man. 1742. 1748. 45 |