But with his clumsy port the wretch has loft His ignorance and harmless manners too! To fwear, to game, to drink; to fhow at home, By lewdness, idleness, and fabbath-breach, The great proficiency he made abroad; T'aftonish and to grieve his gazing friends;
To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart; To be a peft where he was useful once; Are his fole aim, and all his glory, now!
Man in fociety is like a flow'r
Blown in its native bed: 'tis there alone His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out; there only reach their proper ufe. But man, affociated and leagu'd with man By regal warrant, or felf-join'd by bond For int'reft-fake, or fwarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flow'rs felected from the rest, and bound And bundled clofe to fill fome crowded vafe, Fades rapidly, and, by compreffion marr'd, Contracts defilement not to be endur❜d. Hence charter'd boroughs are fuch public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combin'd,
Become a loathfome body, only fit For diffolution, hurtful to the main. Hence merchants, unimpeachable of fin Against the charities of domestic life, Incorporated, feem at once to lofe Their nature; and, difclaiming all regard For mercy and the common rights of man, Build factories with blood, conducting trade At the fword's point, and dyeing the white robe Of innocent commercial justice red.
Hence, too, the field of glory, as the world Mifdeems it, dazzled by its bright array, With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp, Enchanting mufic and immortal wreaths, Is but a fchool where thoughtieffness is taught On principle, where foppery atones For folly, gallantry for ev'ry vice.
Bat, flighted as it is, and by the great Abandon'd, and, which ftill I more regret, Infected with the manners and the modes It knew not once, the country wins me still I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan, That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly blifs, But there I laid the fcene. There early stray'd
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice
Had found me, or the hope of being free. My very dreams were rural; rural, too, The first-born efforts of my youthful muse, Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells
Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs. No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd To Nature's praifes. Heroes and their feats Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe Of Tityrus, affembling, as he fang, The ruftic throng beneath his fav'rite beech. Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms: New to my taste, his Paradise surpass'd The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue To fpeak its excellence. I danc'd for joy. I marvel'd much that, at fo ripe an age As twice fev'n years, his beauties had then firft Engag'd my wonder; and, admiring ftill, And still admiring, with regret suppos'd The joy half loft because not fooner found. There, too, enamour'd of the life I lov'd, Pathetic in its praife, in its pursuit Determin'd, and poffeffing it at last
With transports such as favour'd lovers feel, I ftudied, priz'd, and wish'd that I had known,
Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaim'd By modern lights from an erroneous taste, I cannot but lament thy fplendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
I ftill revere thee, courtly though retir'd;
Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's filent bow'rs, Not unemploy'd; and finding rich amends
For a loft world in folitude and verfe.
'Tis born with all: the love of Nature's works Is an ingredient in the compound man, Infus'd at the creation of the kind.
And, though th' Almighty Maker has throughout Difcriminated each from each, by strokes
And touches of his hand, with so much art Diversified, that two were never found
Twins at all points-yet this obtains in all,
That all difcern a beauty in his works,
And all can taste them: minds that have been form'd
And tutor'd, with a relish more exact,
But none without fome relish, none unmov'd.
It is a flame that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city-life;
Whatever elfe they fmother of true worth
In human bosoms; quench it, or abate.
The villas with which London stands begirt, Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads, Prove it. A breath of unadult'rate air,
The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer The citizen, and brace his languid frame! Ev'n in the stifling bofom of the town,
A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That footh the rich poffeffor; much confol'd, That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
He cultivates. These ferve him with a hint That Nature lives; that fight-refreshing green Is ftill the liv'ry she delights to wear, Though fickly famples of th' exub'rant whole. What are the cafements lin'd with creeping herbs, The prouder fashes fronted with a range
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling? are they not all proofs That man, immur'd in cities, ftill retains
His inborn inextinguishable thirft
Of rural scenes, compenfating his lofs By fupplemental fhifts, the best he may ?
The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,
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