The captive linnet which enthral ?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?
While some, on earnest business bent,
Their murm'ring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty;
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast :
Their buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day :
Yet see, how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd'rous band,
Ah, tell them they are men!
These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart ;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise;
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye.
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen :
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring 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,
The 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 foly to be wise.
3. ODE TO VICISSITUDE.
Now the golden Morn aloft Waves her dew-bespangled wing, With vermil cheek, and whisper soft She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground;
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest tenderest green.
New-born flocks in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstacy;
And lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow,
No yesterday, nor morrow know;
'Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward, and reverted eyes.
Smiles on past Misfortune's brow
Soft Reflection's hand can trace;
And o'er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace :
While Hope prolongs our happier hour:
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.
Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastis'd by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again :
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
Daughter of Jove, relentless pow'r,
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 learnt to melt at others' woe.
Scar'd 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 receiv'd,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.
Wisdom in sable garb array'd,
Immers'd 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 general 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,
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 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 myself a man.
CLXXXVI. RICHARD WEST, 1716-1742.
Health is at best a vain precarious thing,
And fair-faced youth is ever on the wing;
'Tis like the stream, beside whose watery bed
Some blooming plant exalts his flowery head;
Nursed by the wave the spreading branches rise,
Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies;
The waves the while beneath in secret flow,
And undermine the hollow bank below;
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way,
Bare all the roots and on their fibres prey.
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride,
And sinks untimely in the whelming tide.
CLXXXVII. DAVID GARRICK, 1716-1770.
1. PROLOGUES.
Prologues precede the piece, in mournful verse,
As undertakers walk before a hearse;
Whose doleful march may strike the hardened mind,
And wake its feelings-for the dead behind.
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.
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