There liv'd in primo Georgii (they record) Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife; Him the damn'd doctors and his friends immur'd, They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd; in short, they Whereat the gentleman began to stare— [cur'd ; My friends! (he cried) pox take you for your care! That from a patriot of distinguish'd note Have bled and purg'd me to a simple vote.' Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate: Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late. There is a time when poets will grow dull: I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school: To rules of poetry no more confin'd, I'll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind, Teach every thought within its bounds to roll, And keep the equal measure of the soul. Soon as I enter at my country door, My mind resumes the thread it dropt before; Thoughts which at Hyde-park Corner I forgot, Meet and rejoin me in the pensive grot: There all alone, and compliments apart, I ask these sober questions of my heart: If, when the more you drink the more you crave, You tell the doctor; when the more you have The more you want, why not, with equal ease, The heart resolves this matter in a trice, If there be truth in law, and use can give A property, that's yours on which you live. 2 Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord: Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, An allusion to a dedication by Dr. Kennet to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain. 2 A farm over against Hampton Court. Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln Fen, Yet these are wights who fondly call their own Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power, By sale, at least by death, to change their lord. Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have? Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave. And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall. there are Who, if they have not, think not worth their care. Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please. THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE. TO VENUS. AGAIN? new tumults in my breast? Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne. Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires: There spread round Murray1 all your blooming loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart With every sprightly, every decent part; To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend: Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind : 1 Afterwards Lord Mansfield. Make but his riches equal to his wit. (Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face: His house, embosom'd in the grove, Sacred to social life and social love, Shall glitter o'er the pendent green, Shall call the smiling loves and young desires; And all the kind deceivers of the soul! Absent I follow through th' extended dream; And now you burst (ah, cruel!) from my arms, And swiftly shoot along the mall, Or softly glide by the canal; Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray, And now on rolling waters snatch'd away. |