Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake,
And not soon spent, though in an arduous task;
The pow'r of fancy and strong thought are their's;
Ev'n age itself seems privileg'd in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The vet'ran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almost without decay.

Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Farthest retires....an idol, at whose shrine
Who oft'nest sacrifice are favour'd least.

The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws,
Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there should be found,
Who, self-imprison'd in their proud saloons,

Renounce the odours of the open field
For the unscented fictions of the loom;
Who satisfied with only pencil'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

Th' inferior wonders of an artist's hand!
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire....
None more admires....the painter's magic skill
Who shows me that which I shall never see,
Conveys a distant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls;
But imitative strokes can do no more

Than please the eye....sweet Nature ev'ry sense.

The air salubrious of her lofty hills,

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And music of her woods....no works of man
May rival these; these all bespeak a pow'r
Peculiar, and exclusively her own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast ;
'Tis free to all....'tis ev'ry day renew'd;
Who scorns it starves deservedly at home.
He does not scorn it, who imprison'd long
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light;

His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue;
His eye relumines its extinguish'd fires;
He walks, he leaps, he runs....is wing'd with joy,
And riots in the sweets of ev'ry breeze.
He does not scorn it, who has long endur'd
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam'd
With acrid salts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possess'd
With visions prompted by intense desire :
Fair fields appear below, such as he left
Far distant, such as he would die to find.....
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,

And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,

And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears,

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own. It is the constant revolution, stale

And tasteless, of the same repeated joys,

That palls and satiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health suffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from its own choice....at the full feast
Is famish'd....finds no music in the song,
No smartness in the jest; and wonders why.
Yet thousands still desire to journey on,
Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.
The paralytic, who can hold her cards,
But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand
To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort,
Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits,
Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad
And silent cypher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once seated, sit,
Though downright inability to rise,
Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet ev'n these
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
That overhangs a torrent, to a twig.
They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die,

Yet scorn the purposes for which they live.
Then wherefore not renounce them? No....the dread,
The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds
Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,
And their invet'rate habits, all forbid.

Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay....the lark is gay, That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest. The peasant too, a witness of his song Himself a songster, is as gay as he.

But save me from the gaiety of those

Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And save me too from their's whose haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs
For property stripp'd off by cruel chance;
From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,
The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.

The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change,
And pleas'd with novelty, might be indulg❜d.
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen
Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off,
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes.

C