This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every laboring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff' rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

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. No more ;-where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best! 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 Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade to form her infant mind.

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 learn'd 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 flattʼring foe; By vain prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

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!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band, (As by the impious thou art seen,) With thund'ring voice and threat' ning mien,

With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty :

Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there.

To soften, not to wound, my heart. The gen'rous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know my self a Man.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.

From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress

take :

The laughing flowers that round them blow

Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds

along,

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,