THE DISCONTENTED AND UNQUIET.
IMITATED PARTLY FROM CASIMIRE, B. iv. OD. 15.
VARIA, there's nothing here that's free
From wearisome anxiety:
And the whole round of mortal joys
With short possession tires and cloys:
'Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Just from the window to the bed,
We rise to see and to be seen,
Gaze on the world awhile, and then
We
yawn, and stretch to sleep again.
But Fancy, that uneasy guest,
Still holds a lodging in our breast:
She finds or frames vexations still,
Herself the greatest plague we feel.
We take strange pleasure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain,
Assume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath the imaginary weight.
With our dear selves we live at strife,
While the most constant scenes of life
From peevish humours are not free;
Still we affect variety:
Rather than pass an easy day,
We fret and chide the hours away,
Grow weary of the circling sun,
And vex that he should ever run
The same old track, and still, and still
Rise red behind yon eastern hill,
And chides the moon that darts her light
Through the same casement every night.
We shift our chambers, and our homes,
To dwell where trouble never comes;
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods; a hermit saint!
She loathes her patches, pins, and paint,
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn:
But humour, that eternal thorn,
Sticks in her heart: she's hurried still,
"Twixt her wild passions and her will:
Haunted and hagg'd where'er she roves,
By purling streams and silent groves,
Or with her furies or her loves.
Then our own native land we hate,
Too cold, too windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate and repair
To France or Italy for air;
In vain we change, in vain we fly;
Go, Sylvia, mount the whirling sky,
Or ride upon the feather'd wind
In vain; if this diseased mind
Clings fast, and still sits close behind.
Faithful disease, that never fails
Attendance at her lady's side,
Over the desert or the tide,
On rolling wheels, or flying sails.
Happy the soul that virtue shows
To fix the place of her repose,
Needless to move; for she can dwell
In her old grandsire's hall as well.
Virtue that never loves to roam,
But sweetly hides herself at home,
And easy on a native throne
Of humble turf sits gently down.
Yet should tumultuous storms arise,
And mingle earth, and seas, and skies,
Should the waves swell, and make her roll
Across the line, or near the pole,
Still she's at peace; for well she knows
To launch the stream that duty shows,
And makes her home where'er she goes.
Bear her, ye seas, upon your breast,
Or waft her, winds, from east to west
On the soft air; she cannot find
A couch so easy as her mind,
Nor breathe a climate half so kind.
AFTERWARDS SIR JOHN HARTOPP, BART.
CASIMIRE, BOOK I. ODE 4, IMITATED.
"Vive jucundæ metuens juventæ," &c.
LIVE, my dear Hartopp, live to-day,
Nor let the sun look down and say,
"Inglorious here he lies;"
Shake off your ease, and send your name
To immortality and fame,
By every hour that flies.
Youth's a soft scene, but trust her not;
Her airy minutes, swift as thought,
Slide off the slippery sphere;
Moons with their months make hasty rounds, The sun has pass'd his vernal bounds,
And whirls about the year.
Let folly dress in green and red,
And gird her waist with flowing gold,
Knit blushing roses round her head,
Alas! the gaudy colours fade,
The garment waxes old.
Hartopp, mark the withering rose,
And the pale gold how dim it shows!
Bright and lasting bliss below
Is all romance and dream; Only the joys celestial flow
In an eternal stream.
The pleasures that the smiling day
With large right hand bestows,
Falsely her left conveys away,
And shuffles in our woes.
So have I seen a mother play,
And cheat her silly child,
She gave and took a toy away,
The infant cried and smil❜d.
Airy chance, and iron fate,
Hurry and vex our mortal state,
And all the race of ills create;
Now fiery joy, now sullen grief,
Commands the reins of human life,
The wheels impetuous roll;
The harness'd hours and minutes strive,
And days with stretching pinions drive
Down fiercely on the goal.
Not half so fast the galley flies
O'er the Venetian sea,
When sails and oars, and labouring skies,
Contend to make her way.
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