Slide off the flippery sphere;

Moons with their months make hafty rounds,

The fun has pafs'd his vernal bounds,
And whirls about the year.

Let folly drefs in green and red,
And gird her waste with flowing gold,
Knit blushing roses round her head,
Alas! the gaudy colours fade,
The garment waxes old.

Hartopp, mark the withering rofe,
And the pale gold how dim it shows!

Bright and lafting blifs below

Is all romance and dream;

Only the joys celestial flow
In an eternal ftream,

The pleasures that the fmiling day
With large right hand beftows,
Falfely her left conveys away,
And fhuffles in our woes.
So have I feen a mother play,
And cheat her filly child,
She gave and took a toy away,
The infant cry'd and smil`d.

Airy chance, and iron fate,
Hurry and vex our mortal state,

And

And all the race of ills create;

Now fiery joy, now fullen grief,

Commands the reins of human life,

The wheels impetuous roll;

The harneft hours and minutes ftrive,

And days with stretching pinions drive-down fiercely on the goal.

Not half fo faft the galley flies

O'er the Venetian fea,

When fails, and oars, and labouring skies,

Contend to make her way.

Swift wings for all the flying hours

The God of time prepares, The reft lie ftill yet in their neft And grow for future years.

To THOMAS GUNSTON, Efq;

HAPPY

1700.

SOLITUDE.

Cafimire, Book IV. Ode 12. imitated.

Quid me latentem, &c."

HE noify world complains of me

THE

That I fhould fhun their fight, and flee

Vifits, and crowds, and company.

Gunfton, the lark dwells in her neft

Till the afcend the fkies;

And in my closet I could reft

Till to the heavens I rife.

Yet they will urge, "This private life
"Can never make you blest,

"And twenty doors are still at ftrife
"T'engage you for a guest.”

Friend, fhould the towers of Windfor or Whitehall
Spread open their inviting gates.
To make my entertainment gay;
I would obey the royal call,

But short should be my stay,

Since a diviner service waits

T'employ my hours at home, and better fill the day.

When I within myself retreat,.
I fhut my doors against the great;.
My bufy eye-balls inward roll,
And there with large furvey I fee

All the wide theatre of Me,

And view the various fcenes of my retiring foul;.
There I walk o'er the mazes I have trod,
While hope and fear are in a doubtful strife,

Whether this Opera of life

Be acted well to gain the Plaudit of my God.

There's a day haftening, ('tis an awful day!)
When the great sovereign shall at large review
All that we speak, and all we do,

The feveral parts we act on this wide stage of clay:

These he approves, and those he blames,

And crowns perhaps a porter, and a prince he damns.

O if the judge from his tremendous feat

Shall not condemn what I have done,
I shall be happy though unknown,

Nor need the gazing rabble, nor the fhouting ftreet.

I hate the Glory, friend, that fprings
From vulgar breath, and empty found ; ·
Fame mounts her upward with a flattering gale
Upon her airy wings,

Till Envy shoots, and Fame receives the wound:
Then her flagging pinions fail,

Down glory falls, and strikes the ground,
And breaks her batter'd limbs.

Rather let me be quite conceal'd from Fame;
How happy I fhould lie

In. fweet obfcurity,

Nor the loud world pronounce my little name!
Here I could live and die alone ;

Or if fociety be due

To keep our taste of pleasure new,
Gunston, I'd live and die with you,,
For both our fouls are one.

Here we could fit and pafs the hour,
And pity kingdoms, and their kings,.
And smile at all their fhining things,.
Their toys of ftate, and images of power ; .
Virtue fhould dwell within our feat,
Virtue alone could make it sweet,

Nor is herself feeure, but in a clofe retreat.

While she withdraws from public praise,
Envy perhaps would ceafe to rail,
Envy itself may innocently gaze
At beauty in a vail :

But if fhe once advance to light,

Her charms are loft in Envy's fight,

And Virtue stands the mark of universal spight.

To Jo HN HARTOPP, Efq; afterwards Sir JOHN HAR TOP P, Bart.

THE DISDAIN.

HARTOPP, I love the soul that dares

Tread the temptations of his years

Beneath his youthful feet :

Fleetwood and all thy heavenly line

Look through the stars, and smile divine
Upon an heir fo great.

Young Hartopp knows this noble theme,
That the wild scenes of busy life,

The noife, th' amufements, and the ftrife,
Are but the vifions of the night,
Gay phantoms of delufive light,
Or a vexatious dream.

Flesh is the vileft and the leaft

Ingredient of our frame:

We're born to live above the beast,

Or quit the manly name.

1700.

Pleafures