ODE ON SOLITUDE.

Written when the Author was about Twelve Years old.

Happy the man whose wish and care,
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer, yield him shade,

In winter, fire.
Bless'd, who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night ; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation ;
And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.
Thus let me live; unseen, anknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Stcal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

ODE.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

VITAL spark of heav'nly flame !

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame : :
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flyingi.

Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature ! cease thy strife, ..
And let me languish into life.

II.
Hark! they whisper ; angels say,
• Sister Spirit, come away."
What is this absorbs me quite ? :

Steals my senses, shuts my sight, .
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ?
Tell me, my Soul! can this be Deathi .

. III. . . The world recedes; it disappears ! Heav'n opens on my eyes ! my ears

With sounds seraphic ring: .
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly!
O Grave ! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?
POPE. VOL. 111. I. .

THE SATIRES

OF
DR. JOHN DONNE.
DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S, VERSIFIED.

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura ncgarit
Versiculos natura magis factos, cteuntes
Mollius?

HOR.

· SATIRE II.

Yes; thank my stars ! as early as I knew -
This Town, I had the sense to hate it too :
Yet here, as ev'n in hell, there must be still
One giant-vice so excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho smiles at other whores.

I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
I brought (no doubt) th’ Excise and Army in:

SATIRE II. Sir; though (I thank God for it) I do hate Perfectly all this Town: yet there's one state In all ill things, so excellently best, That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the rest. Though poetry, indeed, be such a sin, As I think, that brings dcarth and Spaniards in :

Catch'd, like the plague, or love, the Lord knows

bow, But that the cure is starving, all allow. Yet like the Papist's is the poet's state, Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate !

Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give Himself a dinner, makes an actor live : The thief condemn'd, in law already dead, So prompts, and saves, a rogue who cannot read. Thus as the pipes of some carv'd organ move, The gilded puppets dance, and mount above, Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow; Th' inspiring bellows lic and pant below.

One sings the fair : but songs no longer move ; No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love :

Though, like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starv'd out; yet their state
Is poor, disarm’d, like Papists, not worth hate.
One (like a wretch, which at bar judg'd as dead,
Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read,
And saves his life) gives idiot actors means,
(Starving himself) to live by's labor'd scenes.
As in some organs puppets dance above,
And bellows pant below which them do move,
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's

charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms.

F ?

In love's, in Nature's, spite the siege they hold, And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.

These write to lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat : Those/ write, because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched, indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on other's wit: 'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before; His rank digestion inakes it wit no more : Sense pass’d through him no longer is the same ; For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs Who live like

S n , or who die like Chartres, Out cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir, Qut-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear ;

Rams and slings now are silly battery ;
Pistolets are the best artillery :
And they who write to lords rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at doors for meat ?
And they who write, because all write, have still
Th' excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
But he is worst who (beggarly) doth chaw
Others' wits' fruits, and his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spue
As his own things; and they're his own, 'ris truc :
For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, th' excrement is his owa.,
But these do me no harm, nor they which use
To....... out-usure Jews,