The mind not taught to think, no useful store
To fix reflection, dreads the vacant hour.
Turn'd on its felf its num'rous wants are seen,
And all the mighty void that lies within!
Yet cannot wisdom stamp our joys complete;
'Tis conscious virtue crowns the bleft retreat.
Who feels not that, the private path must shun,
And fly to public view t' escape his own;
In life's gay scenes uneafy thoughts suppress,
And lull each anxious care in dreams of peace.
'Midst foreign objects not employ'd to roam,
Thought, fadly active, ftill corrodes at home:
A ferious moment breaks the false repose,
And guilt in all its naked horror shows.
He who would know retirement's joy refin'd,
The fair recefs muft feek with cheerful mind:
No Cynic's pride, no bigot's heated brain,
No fruftrate hope, nor love's fantastic pain,
With him must enter the fequefter'd cell,
Who means with pleasing solitude to dwell;
But equal paffions let his bofom rule,
A judgment candid, and a temper cool,
Enlarg'd with knowledge, and in confcience clear,
Above life's empty hopes, and death's vain fear.
Such he must be who greatly lives alone;
Such Portio is, in crowded fcenes unknown.
For public life with every talent born,
Portio far off retires with decent fcorn;
Though without bufinefs, never unemploy'd,
And life, as more at leifure, more enjoy'd :
For who like him can various fcience tafte,
His mind fhall never want an endless feast,
In his bleft ev'ning walk may'ft thou, may I,
Oft friendly join in sweet society;
Our lives like his in one fmooth current flow,
Nor fwell'd with tempeft, nor too calmly flow,
Whilft he, like fome great fage of Rome or Greece,
Shall calm each rifing doubt, and speak us peace,
Correct each thought, each wayward wish controul,
And stamp with every virtue all the foul.
Ah! how unlike is Umbrio's gloomy fcene,
Eftrang'd from all the cheerful ways of men!
There fuperftition works her baneful pow'r,
And darkens all the melancholy hour.
Unnumber'd fears corrode and haunt his breaft,
With all that whim or ign'rance can fuggeft.
In vain for him kind nature pours her fweets;
The vifionary faint no joy admits,
But feeks with pious fpleen fantastic woes,
And for heav'n's fake heav'n's offer'd good foregoes.
Whate'er's our choice we still with pride prefer,
And all who deviate, vainly think must err:
Clodio in books and abstract notions lost,
Sees none but knaves and fools in honor's post;
Whilst Syphax, fond on fortune's fea to fail,
And boldly drive before the flatt'ring gale,
(Forward her dang'rous ocean to explore,)
Condemns as cowards those who make the shore.
Not fo my friend impartial,-man he views
Useful in what he fhuns as what pursues ;
Sees different turns to gen'ral good confpire,
The hero's paffion and the poet's fire;
Each figure plac'd in nature's wife design,
With true proportion and exacteft line:
Sees lights and fhades unite in due degree,
And form the whole with faireft fymmetry.
Who, the purple ev❜ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet fings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the foreft with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy fifter Muse;
Now while Phoebus riding high
Gives luftre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landskip bright and strọng;
Grongar, in whose moffy cells
Sweetly mufing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whofe filent fhade,
For the modeft Mufes made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sate upon a flow'ry bed,
With my hand beneath my head;
While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead, and over wood,
From house to houfe, from hill to hill,
'Till Contemplation had her fill.
About his chequer'd fides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
and grottoes where I lay,
And viftoes fhooting beams of day:
Wide and wider fpreads the vale;
As circles on a smooth canal;
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, all of height,
Withdraw their fummits from the fkies,
And leffen as the others rife ;
Still the prospect wider fpreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads,
Still it widens, widens ftill,
And finks the newly-risen hill.
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