НОРЕ. doceas iter, et sacra ostea pandas. VIRG. En. 6. Ask what is human life-the sage replies, A scene of fancied bliss and heart-felt care, The poor, inured to drudgery and distress, As in a dance the pair that take the lead Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed, · So shifting and so various is the plan, By which Heaven rules the mixt affairs of man: Vicissitude wheels round the motley crowd, The rich grow poor, the poor become purse-proud; Business is labour, and man's weakness such, Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much, The very sense of it foregoes its use, By repetition palled, by age obtuse. Youth lost in dissipation we deplore, Through life's sad remnant, what no sighs restore; Our years, a fruitless race without a prize, Too many, yet too few to make us wise. Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff, Lothario cries, What philosophic stuff Oh querulous and weak!-whose useless brain Renewed desire would grace with other speech Joys always prized, when placed within our reach. For lift thy palsied head, shake off the gloom, She spreads the morning over eastern hills, To fling his glories over the robe she wears; Banks clothed with flowers, groves filled with sprightly sounds, The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds, Streams edged with hosiers, fattening every field Wherever they flow, now seen and now concealed; From the blue rim where skies and mountains meet, Down to the very turf beneath thy feet, Ten thousand charms, that only fools despise, Or pride can look at with indifferent eyes, All speak one language, all with one sweet voice Cry to her universal realm, Rejoice! Man feels the spur of passions and desires, Not that his hours devoted all to care, Hollow-eyed abstinence, and lean despair, The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, sight, She holds a paradise of rich delight; But gently to rebuke his awkward fear, To prove that what she gives, she gives sincere, To banish hesitation, and proclaim His happiness, her dear, her only aim. 'Tis grave philosophy's absurdest dream, That heav'n's intentions are not what they seem, That only shadows are dispensed below, And earth has no reality but woe. Thus things terrestrial wear a different hue, As youth or age persuades; and neither true: But still the imputed tints are those alone To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undressed, And, just when evening turns the blue vault gray, Save for the fruits his heavenly beams produce; Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise; Is such a life, so tediously the same, So void of all utility or aim, That poor JONQUIL, with almost every breath Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, |