Let Sloth lie softening till high noon in down, Or, lolling, fan her in the sultry town, Unnerv'd with rest; and turn her own disease, Or foster others in luxurious ease:
I mount the courser, call the deep-mouth'd hounds, The fox unkennell'd flies to covert grounds;
I lead where stags through tangled thickets tread, And shake the saplings with their branching head; I make the falcons wing their airy way,
And soar to seize, or stooping strike their prey;
To snare the fish I fix the luring bait;
To wound the fowl I load the gun with fate:
"Tis thus through change of exercise I range,
And strength and pleasure rise from every change.
Here, beauteous Health! for all the year remain,
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus again.
Oh come! thou goddess of my rural song,
And bring thy daughter, calm Content, along;
Dame of the ruddy cheek and laughing eye,
From whose bright presence clouds of sorrow fly:
For her I mow my walks, I plat my bow'rs,
Clip my low hedges, and support my flow'rs;
To welcome her, this summer seat I dress'd,
And here I court her when she comes to rest;
When she from exercise to learned ease
Shall change again, and teach the change to please.
Now friends conversing my soft hours refine,
And Tully's Tusculum revives in mine:
Now to grave books I bid the mind retreat,
And such as make me rather good than great:
Or o'er the works of easy fancy rove,
Where flutes and innocence amuse the grove:
The native Bard that on Sicilian plains
First sung the lowly manners of the swains;
Or Maro's muse that in the fairest light
Paints rural prospects and the charms of sight;
These soft amusements bring Content along,
And fancy, void of sorrow, turns to song.
Here, beauteous Health! for all the year remain,
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus again,
WHEN in the river cows for coolness stand,
And sheep for breezes seek the lofty land, A youth, whom sop taught that every tree, Each bird, and insect, spoke as well as he; Walk'd calmly musing in a shady way, Where flowering hawthorns broke the sunny ray, And thus instructs his moral pen to draw A scene, that obvious in the field he saw.
Near a low ditch, where shallow waters meet, Which never learn'd to glide with liquid feet, Whose naiads never prattle as they play, But, screen'd with hedges, slumber out the day, There stands a slender fern's aspiring shade, Whose answering branches regularly laid,
Put forth their answering boughs and proudly rise Three stories upward, in the nether skies.
For shelter here, to shun the noon-day heat, 'An airy nation of the flies retreat; Some in soft airs their silken pinions ply, And some from bough to bough delighted fly, Some rise, and circling light to perch again; A pleasing murmur hums along the plain. So, when a stage invites to pageant shows, (If great and small are like) appear the beaux; In boxes some with spruce pretension sit, Some change from seat to seat within the pit, Some roam the scenes, or, turning, cease to roam; Preluding music fills the lofty dome.
When thus a Fly (if what a Fly can say
Deserves attention) rais'd the rural lay:
Where late Amintor made a nymph a bride,
Joyful I flew by young Favonia's side,
Who, mindless of the feasting, went to sip
The balmy pleasure of the shepherd's lip.
I saw the wanton, where I stoop'd to sup,
And half resolv'd to drown me in the cup;
Till brush'd by careless hands, she soar'd above: Cease, Beauty! cease to vex a tender love."
Thus ends the youth, the buzzing meadow rung, And thus the rival of his music sung:
When suns by thousands shone in orbs of dew, I, wafted soft, with Zephyretta flew ;
Saw the clean pail, and sought the milky cheer,
While little Daphne seiz'd my roving dear.
Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame,
Yet sat indulging as the danger came;
But the kind huntress left her free to soar:
Ah! guard, ye lovers, guard a mistress more.'
Thus from the fern, whose high projecting arms
The fleeting nation bent with dusky swarms,
The swains their love in easy music breathe,
When tongues and tumult stun the field beneath :
Black Ants in teams come darkening all the road,
Some call to march, and some to lift the load;
They strain, they labour, with incessant pains,
Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains.
The Flies struck silent, gaze with wonder down:
The busy burghers reach their earthy town;
Where lay the burdens of a wintry store,
And thence unwearied part in search of more.
Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's loftiest point ascends,
Wipes the salt due that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace:
Ye foolish nurselings of the summer air,
These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear;
Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and love,
Your Cupid's quiver, and his Mother's dove;
Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And sing but seldom, if they love to sing;
Else, when the flowerets of the season fail,
And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale,
Though one would save ye, not one grain of wheat
Should pay such songsters idling at my gate.'
He ceas'd: the Flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the Mayor's speech, and fell to sing again.
AN ALLEGORY ON MAN.
A Thoughtful being, long and spare,
Our race of mortals call him Care:
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the gods have call'd him too)
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, though no one bought.
This being by a model bred
In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contriv'd a shape impower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.
The man rose staring, like a stake;
Wondering to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The business he was made to do;
That pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely show'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky.
But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a Poet's God:
(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother Earth's oblig'd to quake :)
He saw old mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,
Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes:
As yet with wreaths alone she dress'd!
And trail'd a landscape-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd, her weighty head.
Her honours made, 'Great Jove! (she cried)
This thing was fashion'd from my side;
His hands, his heart, his head are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine ?"
"Nay rather ask, (the Monarch said)
What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy part's an idle shape of clay.'
"Halves, more than halves! (cried honest Care) Your pleas would make your titles fair;
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.'
Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause as Man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age.
As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the fabling ancients sung,
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old sire Eternity.
A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before;
By which our almanacs are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carried, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was pied;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;
And Spring's new months his train adorn!
The other Seasons were unborn.
Known by the Gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where since his hours a dial made;
Then leaning heard the nice debate,
And thus pronounc'd the words of Fate :-
Since body from the parent Earth,
And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth,
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