What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, Tell me and I will tell thee what is truth....... O, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd! Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets; Though many boast thy favours, and affect. ) To understand and choose thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Ev'n as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise, (for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left) Substantial happiness for transient joy. Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to nurse! The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest, By ev'ry pleasing image they present, 1 Reflections such as meliorate the heart, Compose the passions, and exalt the mind; Should some contagion, kind to the We persecute, annihilate the tribes poor brutes That draw the sportsman over hill and dale, Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye; Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song, Be quell'd in all our summer-months' retreat; How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurs'ries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town! They love the country, and none else, who seek For their own sake its silence and its shade. Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Susceptible of pity, or a mind Cultur'd and capable of sober thought, For all the savage din of the swift pack, Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs? Has never heard the sanguinary yell Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. Innocent partner of my peaceful home, Whom ten long years' experience of my care Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. · At evening, and at night retire secure To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm'd; Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love. I knew at least one hare that had a friend. How various his employments, whom the world Calls idle; and who justly, in return, Esteems that busy world an idler too! Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, Delightful industry enjoy'd at home, And nature in her cultivated trim Dress'd to his taste, inviting him abroad Can he want occupation who has these? Not waste it; and aware that human life sit Is but a loan to be repaid with use, When He shall call his debtors to account From whom are all our blessings; bus'ness finds Ev'n here: while sedulous I seek t' improve, At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd, The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack Too oft, and much impeded in its work A By causes not to be divulg'd in vain, 2015 m. f To its just point-the service of mankind. He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks A 3 A social, not a dissipated life; Has business; feels himself engag'd t' achieve No unimportant, though a silent, task. A life all turbulence and noise may seem, To him that leads it, wise, and to be prais'd;⠀ But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies. |