Forbear to envy. Such is that room which one rude beam divides, , § 123. The Reason for describing the Vices of And naked rafters form the floping sides ; the Village. CRABBE. Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen, YET why, you aik, these humble crimes relate, And larh and mud are all that lie between; Why make the poor as guilty as the great ? How near in vice che lowest are allied; So fhall the man of pow'r and pleasure fee And each in all the kindred vices trace CRABBE. Who, a short time in varicd fortune paft, Die, and are equal in the dust at last. thosc you reckon great; All pride and bus'ness, bustle and conceit; And know, amid thosé bletlings they possess, They are, like you, the victims of distress; While Sloth with many a pang torments her llave, Has long with fortune held uncqual strife, Known to no human love, no human care, The friendless, homeless object of despair ; Nor from fad freedom send to ladder chains. Thore last of woes his cvil days have wrought; Reliure with focial mercy, and with me, The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore ; Who, then no more by golden prospects led, Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, CRABEE. Bent o'er her babc, her eye dissolv'd in dew, The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears ! § 131. Epifle to a young Gentleman, on his For this he fends the murmuring nurse, who calls leaving Eton School. By Dr. ROBERTS. The holy stranger to these dismal walls; now a nobler scene auakes thy care, And doth not he, the pious man, appear, Since inanhood dawning, to fair Gruntist'wrs, Where once in life's gay spring I lov'd in roam, H h 2 ار SINCE give! A: a At undeserved praise? Perish the slave The dregs and feculence of ev'ry land. Say, gentle youth, remember'ít thou the day Or seen with Icast reproach ; and virtue, taught All her rcficéted features. Bacon there Each rrovince of her art her equal care. She ploughs a blazen field, and clothes a foil As docs the voice of well-deferv'd report So fterile with what charms foc'er she will, Strike with fivcet mclody the conscious soul. The richest tocnory, and the loveliest forms, On ev'ry object thro' the giddy world Where finds philviophy her cagle eye, In London. Where her implements exact, Measures an atom, and now girds a world? In London. 'Where has comincrce such a mart, So rich, to throug'd, so drain'd, and to supplied [ipifc May yet be foul, fo witty yet not witc. The!c virtues still be thine ; nor ever Icarn It is not foemnly, nor of good report, To look with cold eye on the charities That she is lluik in discipline; inore prompt And liberty, and oft-times honour too, Nor is it well, nor can it come to good, That, through profane and infidel contempt § 132. Great Cities, and London in particular, Of holy writ, she has presum'd t'annul allowed their due Praise. CowPER. And abrogate, as roundly as the may, BUT tho' true worth and virtue in the mild The total ordinance and will of God; And genial foil of cultivated life Advancing fashion to the poit of truth, God a a God made the country and man made the town. Their good old friend ; and Discipline at length, cap well lin'd with logic not his own, In chariots and sedaus, know no fatigue With parrot tongue perform'd the scholar's part, But that of idleness, and taste no scenes Proceeding soon a graduated Dunce. But such as art contrives, poffefs ye still Then Compromise had place, and Scrutiny Your element ; there only ye can thinc, Became stone-blind, Precedence went in truck, There only minds like yours can do no harm. And he was competent whosc purse was fo. Our groves were planted to console at noon A dissolution of all bonds ensued : The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve The curbs invented for the mulish mouth The moon-beam, siding softly in between Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish; Grew rusty by disuse; and maffy gates Birds warbling, all the music. We can spare Forgot their office, op’ning with a touch; The fplendour of your lamps; they but eclipse Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade; Our cofter satellite. Your fongs confound The taffel'd cap and the spruce band a jest, Our more harmonicus notes. The thrush departs A mock'ry of the world. What need of these Scar'd, and th' offended nightingale is mute. For gamesters, joekies, brothellers impure, There is a public mischief in your mirth ; Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, oft'ner seen It plagues pour country. Folly such as yours, With belted waist, and pointers at their heels, Gracd with a sword, and worthier of a fan, Than in the bounds of duty? What was learn'd, Has made, which cnemies could ne'er have done, If aught was learn'd in childhood, is forgot ; Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you, And luch expence as pinches parents blue, And mortifies the lib'ral hand of love, And vicious plealurcs; buys the boy a name, $ 133. The Want of Difcipline in the English That fits a ftigma on his father's house, Universities. Cow PER. And cleaves through lifc infeparably close To him that wcars it. What can after-games When learning, virtue, picty, and truth, Of riper joys, and commerce with the world, Were precious, and inculcated with care, The lewd vain world that must receive him toon, There dwelt a lage calld Discipline. His head Add to such crudition thus acquir'd, Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er, Where science and where virtue are profess'd? Büljoke him past the bounds of freak ith youth, They may confirm his habits, river fátt But strong for service still, and unimpair'd. His folly; but to spoil him is a task Ilis eye was mcck and gentle, and a imile That bids defiance to th’united pow'rs Play'd on his lips, and in his speech was hcard Of fashion, dillipation, taverns, stews. Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love. Now, blame we most the nurslings or the nurse? The occupation dearest to his heart The children crook’d, and twisted, and deform’d Was to encourage goodnels. He would stroke Through want of carc, or her whose winking eye The head of modeft and ingenuous worth And lumb’ring ofcitancy mars the brood ? That bluth'd at its own prailc, and press the youth The nurse no doubt, Regardless of her charge, Close to his side that pleas’d him. Learning grew, She needs herself correction ; needs to learn, Bencath his care, a thriving vigorous plant; That it is dang'rous sporting with the world, The mind was well inforın d, the pailions held With things fo facred as a nation's trust, Subordinate, and diligence was choice. The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge. Ifcer it chanc'd, as lometimes chance it must, That one among to many overleap'd § 134. Happy the Freedom of the Man whom The limits of controul, his gentle cye Grace makes free-His Relish of the Works of Grew ftern, and darted a severe rebuke; God-Address to the Creator. Cow PER. His frown was full of terror, and his voice He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chairs As left him not till penitence had won That hellish foes confcd'rate for his harm Loft favour back again, and clos'd the breach. Can wind around him, but he casts it off But Discipline, a faithful servant long, With as much ease as Samson his green withes. Declin'd at length into the vale of years : He looks abroad into the varied field A pally struck his arm; his Iparkling eyc Of Nature; and tho'poor, perhaps, compar'd Was quench'd in rheums of age; his voice un- With those whose mansions glitter in his light, ftrung Calls the delightful scen’ry all his own. With a propriety that none can feel, But a But who, with filial confidence inspir’d, Of ignorance vill then the overlook'd, The unambiguous footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, niil your garners, ye that reap With which heaven rang, when cv'ry star, in hafte Sent forth a voice, and all the fons of God “ That navigate a sea that knows no ttorms, “ Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, “ And systeins of whose birth no tidings yet “ And to poflcís a brighter heaven than yours? “ Pants to return, and when he sees afar (rocks “ Radiant with joy towards the happy land ; " From toilsome life to never-ending reft. eye thall be instructed ; and thine heart, Illuminates ; thy lamp, mysterious word ! With incans that were pot till by thce employ'd, A tcaching voice; buí 'tis the praise of thine, Yet deemd oracular, lure down to death The uninform’d and hcedlcts tons of men. Challenging human fcrutiny, and prov'd To G а To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws. And defolates a nation at a blast. Of homogencal and discordant springs Gods luchas guilt makes welcome, Gods that sleep, And principles; of cautes, how they work Or disregard our follies, or that fit By necessary laws their sure effects, Amus'i lpectators of this bustling Itage. Of action and re-action. He has found Thce we rejcct, unable to bide The source of the discafe that Nature fecis, Thy purity, till pure as thou art pure, And bids the world take heart, and banish fcar. Made luch by thee, we love thce for that cause Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause For which we shunn'd and hated thee before. Suspend th'effect or heal it ? Has not God Then we are free: then liberty like day Still wrought by means since first he madetheworld? Breaks on the foul, and by a fiáth from Heaven And did he not of old employ his means Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. To drown it: What is his creation lets A voice is heard that mortal cars hcar not Than a capacious reservoir of incans Till thou haft touch'd them; 'tis the voice of song, Form'd for his use, and ready at his will? A loud Hofanna sent from all thy works, Go, dress thine eyes with eye-lalve; ask of him, Which he that hears it with a thout repeats, Or ask of whomfoever he has taught, Aud adds his rapture to the gen’ral praise. And learn, tho'late, the genuine caule of all. In that blest moment, Nature throwing wide Her vil opakc, disclotes with a smile The Author of her beauties, who, retir'd § 136. Rural Sounds as well as Sig bts delightful. Behind his own creation, works unicen Cow PER }}v the impure, and hears his pow'r denied. NOR rural fights alone, but rural sounds Thou art ihe fource and centre of all minds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore Their only point of rest, Eternal Word! The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, From the departing, they are lost, and rove That livecp thie Ikirt of fome far-fjrcading wood At random, without honour, hope, or peace. Of ancient growth, make music not unlike From thee is all that soothes the life of man, The dath of occan on his winding thore, His high endeavour, and his glad success, And lull the fpirit while they fill the mind, Ilis strength to fuffer, and his will to serve. Unnumber'd branches waving in the blatt, But, ()! thou bounteous Giver of all good, And all their leaves fast futt'ring all at once. Thou art of all thy gifts thyfelf the crown! Nor less composure waits upon the roar Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor; Of dittant floods, or on the softer voice And with thce rich, take what thou wilt away. Of neighb'ring fountain, or of rills that flip Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length § 135. That Philofopby which fiops at Secondary In marted grafs, that with a livelier green Cavfis, reproved. COW PER. Betrays the secret of their filent courie. HAPPY the man who fees a God employd Naturc inanimate cmploys sweet founds, In all the good and ill that chequer life! But animated nature liveeter still, Rcfolving all events, with their cffetts To footh and satisfy the human ear. And manifold results, into the will Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one And arbitration wise of the Supreme. The live-long night: nor these alone, whose notes Did not his eye rule all things, and intend Nice-finger d art must emulate in vain, The least of our concerns (since from the least But cawing rooks, and kites that swim fublime The greatest oft originate); could chance In still repeated circles, screaming loud, Find place in his dominion, or dispose The jay, the pye, and even the boding owl One lawlets particle to thwart his plan; That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Then God might be surpris d, and unforeseen Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, Contingence might alarm him, and disturb Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, The smooth and equal course of his affairs. And only there, pleale highly for thcir lake. This truth, philofophy, though eagle-eyed In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ; And, having found his instrument, forgets $ 137. The Wearifomeness of wbat is commonly Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, called a Life of Pleasure. COW PER. Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims THE Spleen is feldom felt where Flora reigus; hot men The lowring eye, the petulance, the frown, That live an atheist life; involves the heaven And sullen sadness, that o'erthade, distort, In tempefts; quits his grasp upon the winds, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause And gives them all their fury; bids a plague For such immeasurable woe appears; Kindle a fiery bile upon the skin, These Flora banishes, and gives the fair And putrefy the breath of blooming health. Sweet smiles and bloom, less transient than her own. He calls for famine ; and the meagre fiend It is the constant revolution, ftale jsous mildew from between his thrivell'd lips, And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, And taints the golden ear: he springs his mines, " That palls and satiates, and makes languid life A pedlar's |