Where war grows hot; and, raging through the sky, Who would in pleasure all their hours employ;
The lofty trumpet swells the madd’ning soul: The precepts here of a divine old man
And in the hardy camp and toilsome march

I could recite. Though old, he still retain'd
Forget all softer and less manly cares.

His manly sense, and energy of mind.
But most too passive, when the blood runs low, Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,

He still remember'd that he once was young;
And bravely by resisting conquer fate,

His

easy presence check'd no decent joy. Try Circe's arts; and in the tempting bowl

Him even the dissolute admir’d, for he Of poison’d nectar sweet oblivion swill.

A graceful looseness when he pleas'd put on, Struck by the pow'rful charm, the gloom dissolves And laughing could instruct. Much had he read, In empty air; Elysium opens round,

Much more had seen; he studied from the life, A pleasing phrenzy buoys the lighten'd soul, And in th' original perus'd mankind. And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;

Vers'd in the woes and vanities of life, And what was difficult, and what was dire,

He pitied man: and much he pitied those Yields to your prowess and superior stars :

Whom falsely-smiling fate has curs'd with means The happiest you of all that e'er were mad, To dissipate their days in quest of joy. Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.

Our aim is happiness; 'tis yours, 'tis mine, But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom He said, 'tis the pursuit of all that live; Shuts o'er your head: and, as the thund'ring stream, Yet few attain it, if 'twas e'er attain'd. Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain, But they the widest wander from the mark, Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook ;

Who through the flow'ry paths of saunt’ring joy So, when the frantic raptures in your breast Seek this coy goddess; that froin stage to stage Subside, you languish into mortal man ;

Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue. You sleep, and waking find yourself undone. For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings For prodigal of life in one rash night

To counterpoise itself, relentless fate You lavish'd more than might support three days. Forbids that we through gay voluptuous wilds A heavy morning comes; your cares return

Should ever roam: and, were the fates more kind, With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale. May be endur'd; so may the throbbing head: Were these exhaustless, nature would grow sick, But such a dim delirium, such a dream,

And, cloy'd with pleasure, squeamishly complain Involves you; such a dastardly despair

That all is vanity, and life a dream.
Unmans your soul, as madd’ning Pentheus felt, Let nature rest: be busy for yourself,
When, baited round Cithæron's cruel sides,

And for your friend; be busy even in vain,
Ile saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend. Rather than teaze her sated appetites.
You curse the sluggish port; you curse the wretch, Who never fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys;
The felon, with unnatural mixture first

Who never toils or watches, never sleeps.
Who dar'd to violate the virgin wine.

Let nature rest : and when the taste of joy Or on the fugitive champaign you pour

Grows keen, indulge; but shun satiety. A thousand curses; for to heav'n it rapt

'Tis not for mortals always to be blest. Your soul, to plunge you deeper in despair.

But him the least the dull or painful hours Perhaps you rue even that divinest gift,

Of life

oppress, whom sober sense conducts, The gay, serene, good-natur’d Burgundy,

And virtue, through this labyrinth we tread. Or the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine:

Virtue and sense I mean not to disjoin; And wish that heaven from mortals had withheld Virtue and sense are one: and, trust me, still The grape, and all intoxicating bowls.

A faithless heart betrays the head unsound. Besides, it wounds you sore to recollect

Virtue (for mere good-nature is a fool) What follies in your loose unguarded hour

Is sense and spirit, with humanity: Escap’d. For one irrevocable word,

'Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds; Perhaps that meant no harm, you lose a friend. 'Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just. Or, in the rage of wine, your hasty hand

Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones dare; Performs a deed to haunt you to the grave.

But at his heart the most undaunted son Add that your means, your health, your parts decay; Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms. Your friends avoid you; brutishly transform’d, To noblest uses this determines wealth ; They hardly know you ; or if one remains

This is the solid pomp of prosperous days; To wish you well, he wishes you in heaven.

The peace

and shelter of adversity: Despis’d, unwept you fall, who might have left And if you pant for glory, build your fame A sacred, cherish'd, sadly-pleasing name;

On this foundation, which the secret shock
A name still to be utter'd with a sigh.

Defies of envy and all-sapping time.
Your last ungraceful scene has quite effac'd The gaudy gloss of fortune only strikes
All sense and memory of your former worth. The vulgar eye: the suffrage of the wise,

How to live happiest; how avoid the pains, The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd
The disappointments, and disgusts of those By sense alone, and dignity of mind.

Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, It found a liking there, a sportsul fire, Is the best gift of heaven: a happiness

And that fomented into serious love; That even above the smiles and frowns of fate Which musing daily strengthens and improves, Exalts great nature's favourites: a wealth

Through all the heights of fondness and romance: Thai ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr’d. And you're undone, the fatal shaft has sped, Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn’d;

If once you doubt whether you love or no . Or dealt by chance, to shield a lucky knave, The body wastes away; th' infected mind, Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.

Dissolv'd in female tenderness, forgets But for one end, one much-neglected use,

Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame. Are riches worth your care: (for nature's wants Sweet heaven from such intoxicating charms Are few, and without opulence supply'd.)

Defend all worthy breasts! Not that I deem This noble end is, to produce the soul;

Love always dangerous, always to be shunn'd. To show the virtues in their fairest light;

Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk To make humanity the minister

In wanton and unmanly tenderness, Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast Adds bloom to health ; o'er ev'ry virtue sheds That generous luxury the gods enjoy.

A gay, humane, a sweet and generous grace, Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly sage And brightens all the ornaments of man. Sometimes declaim’d. Of right and wrong he taught But fruitless, hopeless, disappointed, rack'd Truths as refin'd as ever Athens heard;

With jealousy, fatigu'd with hope and fear, And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he preach'd. Too serious, or too languishingly fond, Skill'd in the passions, how to check their sway Unnerves the body and upmans the soul: He knew, as far as reason can controul

And some have died for love; and some run mad; The lawless powers. But other cares are mine:

And some with desperate hands themselves have Form'd in the school of Pæon, I relate

Some to extinguish, others to prevent, (slain. What passions hurt the body, what improve: A mad devotion to one dangerous fair, Avoid them, or invite them, as you may.

Court all they meet; in hopes to dissipate Know then, whatever cheerful and serene

The cares of love amongst an hundred brides. Supports the mind, supports the body too.

Th' event is doubtful: for there are who find Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel

A cure in this; there are who find it not. Is hope; the balm and life-blood of the soul.

'Tis no relief, alas! it rather galls It pleases, and it lasts. Indulgent Heaven

The wound, to those who are sincerely sick. Sent down the kind delusion, through the paths For while from feverish and tumultuous joys Of rugged life, to lead us patient on ;

The nerves grow languid and the soul subsides, And make our happiest state no tedious thing. The tender fancy smarts with every sting, Our greatest good, and what we least can spare, And what was love before is madness now. Is hope: the last of all our evils, fear.

Is health your care, or luxury your aim ?
But there are passions grateful to the breast, Be temperate still: when nature bids, obey;
And yet no friends to life: perhaps they please Her wild impatient sallies bear no curb:
Or to excess, and dissipate the soul;

But when the prurient habit of delight,
Or while they please, torment. The stubborn clown, Or loose imagination, spurs you on
The ill-tam'd ruffian, and pale usurer,

To deeds above your strength, impute it not (If love's omnipotence such hearts can mould) To nature: nature all compulsion hates. May safely mellow into love; and grow

Ah! let not luxury nor vain renown Refinid, humane, and generous, if they can.

Urge you to feats you well might sleep without; Love in such bosoms never to a fault

To make what should be rapture a fatigue, Or pains or pleases. But, ye finer souls,

A tedious task; nor in the wanton arms Form’d to soft luxury, and prompt to thrill

Of twining Laïs melt your manhood down. With all the tumults, all the joys and pains, For from the colliquation of soft joys That beauty gives; with caution and reserve How chang'd you rise! the ghost of what you was! Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose,

Languid, and melancholy, and gaunt, and wan; Nor court too much the queen of charming cares. Your veins exhausted, and your nerves unstrung. For, while the cherish'd poison in your breast Spoil'd of its balm and sprightly zest, the blood Ferments and maddens; sick with jealousy, Grows vapid phlegm; along the tender nerves Absence, distrust, or even with anxious joy, (To each slight impulse tremblingly awake) The wholesome appetites and powers of life

A subtle fiend that mimics all the plagues, Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach lothes Rapid and restless springs from part to part. The genial board: Your cheerful days are gone; The blooming honours of your youth are fallen; The generous bloom that flush'd your cheeks is fled. Your vigour pines ; your vital powers decay; To sighs devoted and to tender pains,

Diseases haunt you; and untimely age Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,

Creeps on ; unsocial, impotent, and lewd. And waste your youth in musing. Musing first Infatuate, impious, epicure! to waste Toy'd into care your unsuspecting heart:

The stores of pleasure, cheerfulness, and health!

Infatuate all who make delight their trade,

Of all that ever taught in prose or song, And coy perdition every hour pursue.

To tame the fiend that sleeps a gentle lamb, Who pines with love, or in lascivious flames And wakes a lion. Unprovok'd and calm, Consumes, is with his own consent undone:

You reason well; see as you ought to see, He chooses to be wretched, to be mad;

And wonder at the madness of mankind: And warn’d proceeds and wilful to his fate.

Seiz'd with the common rage, you soon forget But there's a passion, whose tempestuous sway The speculations of your wiser hours. Tears up each virtue planted in the breast,

Beset with furies of all deadly shapes, And shakes to ruins proud philosophy.

Fierce and insidious, violent and slow:. For pale and trembling anger rushes in,

With all that urge or lure us on to fate: With fault'ring speech, and eyes that wildly stare; What refuge shall we seek? what arms prepare? Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas,

Where reason proves too weak, or void of wiles Desperate, and arm’d with more than human To cope with subtle or impetuous powers, strength.

I would invoke new passions to your aid: How soon the calm, humane, and polish'd man With indignation would extinguish fear, Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend!

With fear or generous pity vanquish rage, Who pines in love, or wastes with silent cares, And love with pride; and force to force oppose. Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief,

There is a charm, a power, that sways the breast; Slowly descends, and ling'ring to the shades. Bids every passion revel or be still; But he whom anger stings, drops, if he dies, Inspires with rage, or all your cares dissolves; At once, and rushes apoplectic down;

Can soothe distraction, and almost despair. Or a fierce fever hurries him to hell.

That power is music: far beyond the stretch For, as the body through unnumber'd strings Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage; Reverberates each vibration of the soul;

Those clumsy heroes, those fat-beaded gods, As is the passion, such is still the pain

Who move no passion justly but contempt: The body feels: or chronic, or acute.

Who, like our dancers (light indeed and strong!) And oft a sudden storm at once o'erpowers

Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace. The life, or gives your reason to the winds.

The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts; Such fates attend the rash alarm of fear,

Good Heaven! we praise them: we, with loudest And sudden grief, and rage, and sudden joy.

peals, There are, mean time, to whom the boist'rous fit Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels; Is health, and only fills the sails of life.

And, with insipid show of rapture, die For where the mind a lorpid winter leads,

Of idiot notes impertinently long. Wrapt in a body corpulent and cold,

But he the Muse's laurel justly shares, And each clogg'd function lazily moves on;

A poet he, and touchi'd with Heaven's own fire; A generous sally spurns th’incumbent load, Who, with bold rage or solemn pomp of sounds, Unlocks the breast, and gives a cordial glow. Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul; But if your wrathful blood is apt to boil,

Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain, Or are your nerves too irritably strung,

In love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains Waive all dispute; be cautious, if you joke; Breathes a gay rapture through your thrilling breast; Keep lent for ever; and forswear the bowl:

Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad, For one rash moment sends you to the shades, Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings. Or shatters ev'ry hopeful scheme of life,

Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old And gives to horror all your days to come.

Appeas'd the fiend of melancholy Saul.
Fate, arm’d with thunder, fire, and ev'ry plague Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,
That ruins, tortures, or distracts mankind,

The man who bade the Theban domes ascend, And makes the happy wretched in an hour,

And tam’d the savage nations with his song; O’erwhelms you not with woes so horrible

And such the Thracian, whose melodious lyre, As your own wrath, nor gives more sudden blows. Tun’d to soft woe, made all the mountains weep; While choler works, good friend, you may be Sootlı'd even th' inexorable powers of hell, wrong;

And half redeem'd his lost Eurydice. Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight. Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, 'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave;

Expels diseases, softens every pain, If honour bids, to-morrow kill or die.

Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague; But calm advice against a raging fit

And hence the wise of ancient days ador'd Avails too little; and it braves the power

One power of physic, melody, and song.

a

CHATTERTON-A. D. 1752470.

a

“ Canynge, awaie! By Godde ynne Heav'n

“ Ynne Londonne citye was I borne, Thatt dydd mee beinge gyve,

Of parents of grete note; I wylle nott taste a bitt of breade

My fadre dydd a nobile armes Whilst thys Syr Charles dothe lyve.

Emblazon onne hys cote: “ By Marie, and alle Seinctes ynne Heav'n,

“ I make ne doubte butt hee ys gone, Thys sunne shall be hys laste."

Where soone I hope to goe; Thenne Canynge dropt a brinie teare,

Where wee for ever shall bee blest, And from the presence paste.

From oute the reech of woe. Wyth herte brymm-fulle of gnawynge grief,

“ Hee taughte mee justice and the laws Hee to Syr Charles dydd goe,

Wyth pitie to unite; And sat hymm dowpe uponne a stoole,

And eke hee taughte mee howe to knowe And teares beganne to flowe.

The wronge cause from the ryghte: “ Wee all must die," quod brave Sir Charles; “ Hee taughte mee wyth a prudent hande “ Whatte bootes ytte howe or whenne;

To feede the hungrie poore, Dethe ys the sure, the certaine fate

Ne lett mye sarvants dryve awaie Of all wee mortall menne.

The hungrie fromm my doore: “ Say why, my friende, thie honest soul

“ And none can saye but alle mye lyfe Runns over att thyne eye;

I have hys wordyes kept; Is ytte for my most welcome doome

And summ'd the actyonns of the daie Thatt thou dost child-lyke crye?"

Eche nyghte before I slept. Quod godlie Canynge,“ I doe weepe,

“ I have a spouse, goe aske of her Thatt thou so soone must dye,

Yff I defyld her bedde? And leave thy sonnes and helpless wyfe;

I have a kynge, and none can laie "Tys thys thatt wettes myne eye.”

Black treason onne my hedde. “ Thenne drie the tears thatt out thyne eye

6 Ynne Lent, and onne the holie eve, From godlie fountaines sprynge;

Fromm tleshe I dydd refrayne; Dethe I despise, and alle the power

Whie should I thenne appeare dismay'd Of Edwarde, traytour kynge.

To leave thys worlde of payne ? “ Whan through the tyrant's welcom means “ Ne, hapless Henrie! I rejoyce I shall resigne my lyfe,

I shall ne see thye dethe; The Godde I serve wylle soone provyde

Most willynglie yone thye just cause For bothe mye sonnes and wyfe.

Doe I resign my brethe. “ Before I sawe the lyghtsome sunne,

“ Oh, fickle people! rewyn'd londe ! Thys was appointed mee;

Thou wylt kenne peace ne moe; Shall mortall manne repyne or grudge

Whyle Richard's sonnes exalt themselves, What Godde ordeynes to bee?

Thye brookes wythe bloude wylle flowe. “ Howe oft ynne battaile have I stoode,

“ Saie, were ye tyr'd of godlie peace, Whan thousands dy'd arounde;

And godlie Henrie's reigne, Whan smokynge streemes of crimson bloode Thatt you dydd choppe your easie daies Imbrew'd the fatten'd grounde:

For those of bloude and peyne? “ Howe dydd I knowe thatt ev'ry darte,

• Whatte though I onne a sledde be drawne, Thatt cutte the airie waie,

And mangled by a hynde, Myghte nott fynde passage toe my harte,

I doe defye the traytour's pow'r, And close myne eyes for aie?

Hee can ne harm my mynde; “ And shall I nowe, forr feere of dethe,

“ Whatte though, uphoisted onne a pole, Looke wanne and bee dysmayde?

Mye lymbes shall rotte ynne ayre, Ne! fromm my herte flie childyshe feere;

And ne ryche monument of brasse Bee alle the manne display'd.

Charles Bawdin's name shall bear; “ Ah, goddelyke Henrie! Godde forefende, “ Yett ynne the holie book above, And guarde thee and thye sonne,

Whyche tyme can't eate awaie, Yff’tis hys wylle; but yff 'tis nott,

There wythe the sarvants of the Lord Why thenne hys wylle bee donne.

Mye name shall lyve for aie. “ My honest friende, my faulte has beene

“ Thenne welcome dethe! for lyfe eterne To serve Godde and mye prynce;

I leave thys mortall lyfe: And thatt I no tyme-server am,

Farewell vayne worlde, and all that's deare, My dethe wylle soone convynce.

Mye sonnes and lovyoge wyfe!