Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supply'd; The woods, the mountains, and the warbling

maze

Of the wild brooks!-But fondly wandering wide, My Muse, resume the task that yet doth thee abide.

One great amusement of our household was,
In a huge crystal magic globe to spy,
Still as you turn'd it, all things that do pass
Upon this ant-hill Earth; where constantly
Of idly-busy men the restless fry

Run bustling to and fro with foolish haste,
In search of pleasure vain that from them fly,
Or which obtain'd, the caitiffs dare not taste:
When nothing is enjoy'd, can there be greater
waste?

But what most show'd the vanity of life, Was to behold the nations all on fire, In cruel broils engag'd, and deadly strife: Most Christian kings, inflam'd by black desire, With honourable ruffians in their hire, Cause war to rage, and blood around to pour: Of this sad work when each begins to tire, They sit them down just where they were before, Till for new scenes of woe peace shall their force

restore.

To number up the thousands dwelling here, An useless were, and eke an endless task; From kings, and those who at the helm appear, To gypsies brown in summer-glades who bask.) Yea, many a man, perdic, I could unmask, Whose desk and table make a solemn show, With tape-ty'd trash, and suits of fools that ask For place or pension laid in decent row; But these I passen by, with nameless numbers moe.

Of all the gentle tenants of the place, There was a man of special grave remark : A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face, Pensive, not sad, in thought involv'd, not dark; As soot this man could sing as morning-lark, And teach the noblest morals of the heart: But these his talents were yburied stark; Of the fine stores he nothing would impart, Which or boon Nature gave, or Nature-painting Art.

To noontide shades incontinent he ran,
Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound;
Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began,-
Amid the broom he bask'd him on the ground,
Where the wild thyme and camomoil are found:
There would he linger, till the latest ray
Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound;
Then homeward through the twilight shadows

stray,

Sauntering and slow. So had he passed many a day!

Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they past: For oft the heavenly fire, that lay conceal'd Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast, And all its native light anew reveal'd: Oft as he travers'd the cerulean field, And markt the clouds that drove before the wind, Ten thousand glorious systems would he build, Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind; But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.

With him was sometimes join'd, in silent walk, (Profoundly silent, for they never spoke,) One shyer still, who quite detested talk: Oft, stung by spleen, at once away he broke, To groves of pine, and broad o'ershadowing oak; There, inly thrill'd, he wander'd all alone, And on himself his pensive fury wroke, Ne ever utter'd word, save when first shone The glittering star of eve- "Thank Heaven! the day is done."

Here lurk'd a wretch, who had not crept abroad
For forty years, ne face of mortal seen;
In chamber brooding like a loathly toad:
And sure his linen was not very clean.

Alas! the change! from scenes of joy and rest, To this dark den, where Sickness toss'd alway. Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep opprest, Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay, Heaving his sides, and snored night and day; To stir him from his traunce it was not eath, And his half-open'd eyne he shut straightway: He led, I wot, the softest way to death, And taught withouten pain and strife to yield the breath.

Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
Soft-swoln and pale, here lay the Hydropsy:
Unwieldy man; with belly monstrous round,
For ever fed with watery supply;
For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And moping here did Hypochondria sit,
Mother of Spleen, in robes of various dye,
Who vex'd was full oft with ugly fit; [a wit.
And some her frantic deem'd, and some her deem'd

A lady proud she was, of ancient blood,
Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen low:
She felt, or fancy'd in her fluttering mood,
All the diseases which the spittles know,
And sought all physic which the shops bestow.
And still new leeches and new drugs would try,
Her humour ever wavering to and fro;
For sometimes she would laugh, and some-
times cry,

Then sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not why.

Fast by her side a listless maiden pin'd, With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings; Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, Yet lov'd in secret all forbidden things. And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings; The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks, A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings; Whilst Apoplexy cramm'd Intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.

CANTO II.

The knight of arts and industry, And his achievements fair; That by his castle's overthrow, Secur'd, and crowned were.

ESCAP'D the castle of the sire of sin,

Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find?
For all around, without, and all within,
Nothing save what delightful was and kind,
of goodness savouring and a tender mind,
E'er rose to view. But now another strain,
Of doleful note, alas! remains behind :
I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain,
nd of the false enchanter, Indolence, complain.

Is there no patron to protect the Muse, And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil? To every labour its reward accrues, And they are sure of bread who swink and moil; But a fell tribe th' Aonian hive despoil, As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee: Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil, Ne for the other Muses meed decree, hey praised are alone, and starve right merrily.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny : You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, [face; Through which Aurora shows her brightening You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.

Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder song; Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth, Dragging the lazy languid line along, Fond to begin, but still to finish loth, Thy half-writ scrolls all eaten by the moth: Arise, and sing that generous imp of Fame, Who with the sons of softness nobly wroth, To sweep away this human lumber came, Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame.

In Fairy-land there liv'd a knight of old,
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well yclep'd,
A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor: he neither sow'd nor reap'd,
Ne stores in summer for cold winter heap'd;
In hunting all his days away he wore;

Now scorch'd by June, now in November steep'd,
Now pinch'd by biting January sore,

He still in woods pursued the libbard and the boar.

As he one morning, long before the dawn,
Prick'd through the forest to dislodge his prey,
Deep in the winding bosom of a lawn,
With wood wild-fring'd, he mark'd a taper's ray,
That from the beating rain, and wintery fray,
Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy;

There, up to earn the needments of the day,
He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy :
Her he compress'd, and fill'd her with a lusty boy.

Amid the green-wood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a knight of muchel fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed,
The Knight of Arts and Industry by name.
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream;
His tasteful well-earn'd food the sylvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:
The same to him glad summer, or the winter breme.

So pass'd his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that thro' the commons run :
For him no tender parents troubled were,
He of the forest seem'd to be the son,
And certes had been utterly undone ;
But that Minerva pity of him took,
With all the gods that love the rural wonne,

That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook; Ne did the sacred Nine disdain a gentle look.

Of fertile genius him they nurtur'd well,
In every science, and in every art,
By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel,
That can or use, or joy, or grace impart,
Disclosing all the powers of head and heart:
Ne were the goodly exercises spar'd,

That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert,
And mix elastic force with firmness hard:
Was never knight on ground mote be with him
compar❜d.

Successive had; but now in ruins grey They lie, to slavish sloth and tyranny a prey.

To crown his toils, sir Industry then spread
The swelling sail, and made for Britain's coast.
A sylvan life till then the natives led,
In the brown shades and green-wood forest lost,
All careless rambling where it lik'd them most:
Their wealth the wild-deer bouncing through the
glade;

They lodg'd at large, and liv'd at Nature's cost Save spear, and bow, withouten other aid; Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast inay'd.

He lik'd the soil, he lik'd the clement skies, He lik'd the verdant hills and flowery plains, "Be this my great, my chosen isle," he cries, "This, whilst my labours Liberty sustains, This queen of Ocean all assault disdains." Nor lik'd he less the genius of the land,To freedom apt and persevering pains, Mild to obey, and generous to command, Temper'd by forming Heaven with kindest, firms hand.

Here, by degrees, his master-work arose, Whatever arts and industry can frame: Whatever finish'd Agriculture knows, Fair queen of arts! from Heaven itself who came When Eden flourished in unspotted fame: And still with her sweet Innocence we find, And tender Peace, and joys without a name, That, while they ravish, tranquillize the mind: Nature and Art, at once, delight and use c bin'd.

The towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts, And bade the fervent city glow with toil; Bade social Commerce raise renowned marts, Join land to land, and marry soil to soil, Unite the Poles, and, without bloody spoil, Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores; Or, should despotic rage the world embroil, Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores, [mours While o'er th' encircling deep Britannia's thunder

The drooping Muses then he westward call'd,
From the fam'd city by Propontic sea,
What time the Turk th' enfeebled Grecian
thrall'd;

Thence from their cloister'd walks he set them free,

And brought them to another Castalie, Where Isis many a famous noursling breeds; Or where old Cam soft-paces o'er the lea In pensive mood, and tunes his Doric reeds, The whilst his flocks at large the lonely shepherd feeds.

The tidings reach'd to where, in quiet hall,
The good old knight enjoy'd well-earn'd repose.
"Come, come, sir Knight! thy children on thee
call:

Come, save us yet, ere ruin round us close!
The demon Indolence thy toils o'erthrows."
On this the noble colour stain'd his cheeks,
Indignant, glowing through the whitening snows
Of venerable eld; his eye full speaks

domain !

His days, the days of unstain'd nature, roll'd, Replete with peace and joy, like patriarchs of old.

Witness, ye lowing herds, who gave him milk;
Witness, ye flocks, whose woolly vestments far
Exceed soft India's cotton, or her silk;
Witness, with autumn charg'd, the nodding car,
That homeward came beneath sweet evening's

star,

Or of September moons the radiance mild.
O, hide thy head, abominable War!
Of crimes and ruffian-idleness the child

From Heaven this life ysprung, from Hell thy glories vild!

Nor from this deep retirement banish'd was
Th' amusing care of rural industry.
Still as with grateful change the seasons pass,
New scenes arise, new landskips strike the eye,
And all th' enliven'd country beautify:
Gay plains extend where marshes slept before;
O'er recent meads th' exulting streamlets fly;
Dark frowning heaths grow bright with Ceres'
store,
[shore.

And woods imbrown the steep, or wave along the

As nearer to his farm you made approach,
He polish'd nature with a finer hand :
Yet on her beauties durst not art incroach;
'Tis art's alone these beauties to expand.
In graceful dance immingled, o'er the land,
Pan, Paleas, Flora, and Pomona play'd:
Here too brisk gales the rude wild common fann'd
An happy place; where free, and unafraid,
Amid the flowering brakes each coyer creature
stray'd.

But in prime vigour what can last for ay?
That soul-enfeebling wizard Indolence,
I whilom sung, wrought in his works decay :
Spread far and wide was his curs'd influence;

He came, the bard, a little druid-wight, Of wither'd aspect; but his eye was keen, With sweetness mix'd. In russet brown bedight, As is his sister of the copses green, He crept along, unpromising of mien. Gross he who judges so. His soul was fair, Bright as the children of yon azure sheen. True comeliness, which nothing can impair, Dwells in the mind: all else is vanity and glare.

"Come," quoth the knight, "a voice has reach'd mine ear:

The demon Indolence threats overthrow
To all that to mankind is good and dear :
Come, Philomelus; let us instant go,
O'erturn his bowers, and lay his castle low.
Those men, those wretched men! who will be