No borrow'd joys: they're all our own,
While to the world we live unknown,
Or by the world forgot:
Monarchs! we envy not your state,
We look with pity on the great,
And bless our humbler lot.
Our portion is not large indeed,
But then, how little do we need!
For nature's calls are few!
In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,
And make that little do.
We'll therefore relish with content
Whate'er kind Providence has sent,
Nor aim beyond our pow'r;
For if our stock be very small,
'Tis prudent to enjoy it all,
Nor lose the present hour.
To be resign'd when ills betide,
Patient when favours are deny'd,
And pleas'd with favours giv'n,
Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part,
This is that incense of the heart,
Whose fragrance smells to heav'n.
We'll ask no long protracted treat (Since winter life is seldom sweet);
But when our feast is o'er, Grateful from table we'll arise,
Nor grudge our sons, with envious eyes, The relics of our store.
Thus hand in hand through life we'll go, Its chequer'd paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we'll tread; Quit its vain scenes without a tear, Without a trouble or a fear,
And mingle with the dead:
While conscience, like a faithful friend,
Shall through the gloomy vale attend,
And cheer our dying breath;
Shall, when all other comforts cease,
Like a kind angel whisper peace,
And smooth the bed of death.
HAIL, mildly-pleasing Solitude!
Companion of the wise and good;
But from whose holy, piercing eye
The herd of fools and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now, wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky.
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble-forth your oaten strain.
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face:
Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume
The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom,
As, with her Musidora, she
(Her Musidora fond of thee)
Amid the long-withdrawing vale
Awakes the rivall'd nightingale.
Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born; And while meridian fervours beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat: But chief when evening scenes decay, And the faint landscape swims away, Thine is the doubtful soft decline, And that best hour of musing thine. Descending angels bless thy train, The virtues of the sage and swain; Plain Innocence, in white array'd, Before thee lifts her fearless head: Religion's beams around thee shine, And cheer thy glooms with light divine: About thee sports sweet Liberty; And rapt Urania sings to thee.
Oh! let me pierce thy secret cell, And in thy deep recesses dwell. Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill, When Meditation has her fill, I just may cast my careless eyes Where London's spiry turrets rise, Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain, Then shield me in the woods again.
Written in a Country Church-yard.
THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her sacred bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
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