In wit alone 't has been munificent,
Of which so just a share to each is sent,
That the most avaricious are content.
For none e'er thought (the due division's such)
His own too little or his friend's too much.
3. ABSENCE.
While in divine Panthea's charming eyes,
I view the naked boy that basking lies,
I grow a God! so blest, so blest am I,
With sacred rapture and immortal joy!
But, absent, if she shines no more,
And hides the suns that I adore,
Strait, like a wretch despairing, I
Sigh, languish in the shade, and die.
Oh! I were lost in endless night,
If her bright presence brought not light;
Then I revive, blest as before,
The Gods themselves cannot be more!
Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,
But savage man alone does man betray;
Press'd by necessity, they kill for food:
Man undoes man to do himself no good.
With teeth and claws by nature arm'd, they hunt
Nature's allowance to supply their want;
But man with smiles, embraces, friendship, praise,
Unhumanly his fellow's life betrays :
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love they fight and tear,
While wretched man is still in arms for fear:
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid :
By fear to fear successively betray'd:
Base fear, the source whence his best passions came,
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame:
The good he acts, the ills he does endure,
'Tis all for fear, to make himself secure :
Merely for safety, after fame we thirst:
For all men would be cowards if they durst.
And honesty's against all common sense;
Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defence:
Mankind's dishonest; if you think it fair
Among known cheats to play upon the square,
You'll be undone :
Nor can weak truth your reputation save;
The knaves will all agree to call you knave:
Long shall he live insulted o'er, oppress'd,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.
LXXXIII. OTWAY.
1. THE WILD BOAR.
Forth from the thicket rush'd another boar,
So large, he seem'd the tyrant of the woods,
With all his dreadful bristles rais'd up high:
They seem'd a grove of spears upon his back
Foaming he came at me, where I was posted,
Whetting his huge long tusks, and gaping wide,
As he already had me for his prey;
Till brandishing my well-pois'd javelin high,
With this bold executing arm I struck
The ugly brindled monster to the heart.
2. AMBITION.
Ambition is at distance
A goodly prospect, tempting to the view;
The height delights us, and the mountain-top
Looks beautiful, because 'tis nigh to heaven;
But we ne'er think how sandy's the foundation,
What storms will batter, and what tempests shake us.
3. MIDNIGHT.
Now all is hushed, as nature were retired.
And the perpetual motion standing still;
So much she from her work appears to cease,
And every jarring element's at peace;
All the wild herds are in their coverts couched :
The fishes to their banks or ooze repaired,
And to the murmurs of the waters sleep;
The circling air's at rest, and feels no noise,
Except of some short breaths upon the trees,
Rocking the harmless birds that rest upon them.
4. MORNING.
Wish'd morning's come: and now upon the plains,
And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,
The happy shepherds leave their homely huts,
And with their pipes proclaim the new-born-day.
The lusty swain comes with his well-fill'd scrip
Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls,
With much content and appetite he eats,
To follow in the field his daily toil,
And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits.
The beasts that under the warm hedges slept,
And weather'd out the cold bleak night, are up;
And, looking towards the neighbouring pastures, raise
Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good morrow.
The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees,
Assemble all in choirs; and with their notes
Salute and welcome up the rising sun.
LXXXIV. SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE.
1. TO THE ALMIGHTY.
Hail, King Supreme! of power immense abyss!
Father of light! Exhaustless source of bliss!
Thou uncreated self-existent cause,
Controlled by no superior being's laws;
Ere infant light essayed to dart the ray,
Smiled heavenly sweet, and tried to kindle day;
Ere the wide fields of ether were displayed,
Or silver stars cerulean spheres inlaid;
Ere yet the eldest child of time was born,
Or verdant pride young nature did adorn,
Thou art and didst eternity employ
In unmolested peace, in plenitude of joy.
In its ideal frame the world designed From ages past lay finished in thy mind, Conformed to this divine-imagined plan With perfect art th' amazing work began.
Thy glance survey'd the solitary plains,
Where shapeless shade inert and silent reigns:
Then in the dark and undistinguished space,
Unfruitful, unenclosed, and wild of face,
Thy compass for the world marked out the destined
Then didst Thou through the fields of barren night
Go forth, collected in creating might.
Where Thou almighty vigour didst exert,
Which emicant did this and that way dart
Thro' the black bosom of the empty space :
The gulfs confess th' Omnipotent embrace,
And pregnant grown with elemental seed,
Unfinish'd orbs, and worlds in embryo breed
From the crude mass, Omniscient Architect,
Thou for each part materials didst select,
And with a master-hand Thy world erect.
Labour'd by Thee, the globes, vast lucid buoys,
By Thee uplifted float in liquid skies.
By Thy cementing word their parts cohere,
And roll by Thy impulsive nod in air.
Thou in the vacant didst the earth suspend,
Advance the mountains, and the vales extend;
People the plains with flocks, with beasts the wood,
And store with scaly colonies the flood.
Next man arose at Thy creating word,
Of Thy terrestrial realms vice-regent lord,
His soul more artful labour, more refined,
And emulous of bright seraphic mind,
Ennobled by Thy image spotless shone,
Praised Thee her Author, and adored Thy throne:
Able to know, admire, enjoy her God,
She did her high felicity applaud.
It makes a toy press with prodigious weight,
And swells a mole-hill to a mountain's height.
For melancholy men lie down and groan,
Press'd with the burden of themselves alone.
Crush'd with fantastick mountains they despair;
Their heads are grown vast globes too big to bear.
A little spark becomes a raging flame,
And each weak blast a storm too fierce to tame.
So peevish is the quarrelsome disease,
No prosperous fortune can procure it ease.
Some absent happiness they still pursue,
Dislike the present good, and long for new.
3. BELLONA.
There stands a rock, dash'd with the breaking wave
Of troubled Styx, where in a gloomy cave
Flowing with gore, the fierce Bellona dwells;
And, bound with adamantine fetters, yells :
Around stand heaps of mossy skulls and bones,
Whence issue loud laments and dreadful groans:
Torn limbs and mangled bodies are her food;
Her drink, whole bowls of wormwood, gall, and blood : Long curling snakes her head with horrour crown, And on her squabild back hang lolling down.
This gripes a bloody dart, the other hand
Grasps of infernal fire a flaming brand.
Treason and Usurpation, near allied,
Haughty Ambition, elevated Pride,
And Cruelty, with bloody garlands crown'd,
Rapine and Desolation stand around.
With these, Injustice, Violence, Rage, remain,
And ghastly Famine with her meagre train.
LXXXV. NATHANIEL LEE.
Not purple violets in the early spring
Such grateful sweets, such tender beauties bring;
The orient blush, which does her cheeks adorn,
Makes coral pale, vies with the rosy morn:
Cupid has ta'en a surfeit from her eyes,
Whene'er she smiles, in lambent fire he fries,
And when she weeps, in pearls dissolv'd he dies.
To my charm'd ears no more of woman tell; Name not a woman and I shall be well:
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