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Knowledge their food, and love their rest;

But flesh, the unmanageable beast,

Resists the pity of thine eyes,

And music of thy tongue.

Then let the worms of grov'ling mind
Round the short joys of earthly kind,
In restless windings, roam;

Howe hath an ample orb of soul,
Where shining worlds of knowledge roll,
Where love, the centre and the pole,
Completes the heaven at home.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT AND RELIEF.

VIRTUE, permit my fancy to impose

Upon my better powers:

She casts sweet fallacies on half our woes,
And gilds the gloomy hours.

How could we bear this tedious round

Of waning moons, and rolling years,

Of flaming hopes, and chilling fears,
If (where no sovereign cure appears)
No opiates could be found.

Love, the most cordial stream that flows,

Is a deceitful good;

Young Doris, who nor guilt nor danger knows,

On the green margin stood,

Pleas'd with the golden bubbles as they rose,

And with more golden sands her fancy pav'd the

flood ;

Then, fond to be entirely blest,
And tempted by a faithless youth,
As void of goodness as of truth,
She plunges in, with heedless haste,
And rears the nether mud:

Darkness and nauseous dregs arise

O'er thy fair current, love, with large supplies
Of pain to tease the heart, and sorrow for the eyes.
The golden bliss, that charm'd her sight,

Is dash'd, and drown'd, and lost :

A spark, or glimmering streak, at most, Shines here and there, amidst the night, Amidst the turbid waves, and gives a faint delight.

Recover'd from the sad surprise,
Doris awakes at last,

Grown by the disappointment wise;
And manages with art the unlucky cast;
When the lowering frown she spies

On her haughty tyrant's brow,

With humble love she meets his wrathful eyes,
And makes her sovereign beauty bow;
Cheerful, she smiles upon the grizzly form;
So shines the setting sun on adverse skies,
And paints a rainbow on the storm.
Anon, she lets the sullen humour spend,
And with a virtuous book or friend,

Beguiles the uneasy hours:

Well colouring every cross she meets,
With heart serene, she sleeps and eats,
She spreads her board with fancied sweets,
And strows her bed with flowers.

THE HERO'S SCHOOL OF MORALITY.

THERON, amongst his travels, found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward, as he went,
He trac'd a ruin'd monument.

Mould, moss, and shades had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone,
Yet, e'er he pass'd, with much ado,

He guess'd, and spell'd out SCI-PI-O.

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Enough, " he cried; "I'll drudge no more

"In turning the dull Stoics o'er;

"Let pedants waste their hours of ease

"To sweat all night at Socrates;

"And feed their boys with notes and rules, 66 Those tedious recipes of schools,

"To cure ambition: I can learn

"With greater ease, the great concern
"Of mortals; how we may despise
"All the gay things below the skies.

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"Methinks a mouldering pyramid

Says all that the old sages said; "For me these shatter'd tombs contain "More morals than the Vatican. "The dust of heroes cast abroad,

"And kick'd, and trampled in the road,
"The relics of a lofty mind,

"That lately wars and crowns design'd,
"Tost for a jest from wind to wind,
"Bid me be humble, and forbear
"Tall monuments of fame to rear,

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They are but castles in the air.

"The towering heights, and frightful falls,

"The ruin'd heaps, and funerals,

"Of smoking kingdoms and their kings, "Tell me a thousand mournful things

"In melancholy silence. . . .

"That living could not bear to see

"An equal, now lies torn and dead;

"Here his pale trunk, and there his head; "Great Pompey, while I meditate, "With solemn horror, thy sad fate,

"Thy carcass, scatter'd on the shore "Without a name, instructs me more "Than my whole library before.

"Lie still, my Plutarch, then, and sleep,. "And my good Seneca may keep "Your volumes clos'd for ever too, "I have no further use for you:

"For when I feel my virtue fail,
"And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
"I'll take a turn among the tombs,
"And see whereto all glory comes:
"There the vile foot of every clown
"Tramples the sons of honour down.
"Beggars with awful ashes sport,
"And tread the Cæsars in the dirt."

FREEDOM.

TEMPT me no more. My soul can ne'er comport
With the gay slaveries of a court;

I've an aversion to those charms,
And hug dear liberty in both mine arms.
Go, vassal souls, go, cringe and wait,

And dance attendance at Honorio's gate,

Then run in troops before him, to compose his state;
Move as he moves; and when he loiters stand;
You're but the shadows of a man.

Bend when he speaks; and kiss the ground:
Go, catch the impertinence of sound:
Adore the follies of the great;

Wait till he smiles: But lo, the idol frown'd,
And drove them to their fate.

Thus base-born minds: but as for me,

I can and will be free: