Still is the toiling hand of Care; The panting herds repose; Yet hark how through the peopled air And float amid the liquid noon; To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Alike the busy and the gay But flutter through life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest; Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the wat'ry glade, 40 35 330 25 5 ΙΟ 15 20 And ye that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among His silver-winding way: Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, To breathe a second spring. Say, father Thames-for thou hast seen The paths of pleasure trace,— The captive linnet which enthral? To chase the rolling circle's speed, While some, on earnest business bent, 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; This racks the joints; this fires the veins; 85 Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah, why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies, Thought would destroy their paradise. 1742. HYMN TO ADVERSITY Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth To thee he gave the heav'nly birth, And bade to form her infant mind. 95 100 1747. 5 ΙΟ Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore; What sorrow was thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good: Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend; Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand! 15 20 25 330 Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thund'ring voice and threat'ning mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: Thy form benign, O goddess, wear, Thy philosophic train be there, To soften, not to wound, my heart; The gen'rous spark extinct revive, What others are to feel, and know myself a man. 1742. 1748. |