Yet thousands still desire to journey on, Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. The paralytic, who can hold her cards, But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand Her, mingled suits and sequences; and sits, And silent cypher, while her proxy plays. Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again. They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die, Yet scorn the purposes for which they live. Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the dread, The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame, And their invet'rate habits, all forbid. Whom call we gay? That honour has been long That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, But save me from the gaiety of those Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed; From gaiety that fills the bones with pain, The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleas'd with novelty, might be indulg'd. Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight, Then snug enclosures in the shelter'd vale, Not senseless of its charms, what still we love, Conspicuous many a league, the mariner, Bound homeward, and in hope already there, The common, overgrown with fern, and rough ! With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound. A serving maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea, and died. Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves To distant shores; and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy, too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, And dream of transports she was not to know. She heard the doleful tidings of his death- And never smil'd again! and now she roams The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, And there, unless when charity forbids, The livelong night. A tatter'd Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown She begs an idle pin of all she meets, And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food, Though press'd with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, Though pinch'd with cold, asks never.-Kate is craz'd! I see a column of slow rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel-flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloin'd |