THE

MINSTREL.

THE HAPPY VILLAGER.

Virtue dwells in Arden's vale; There her hallow'd temples rise; There her incense greets the skies, Grateful as the morning gale; There, with humble Peace, and her, Lives the happy Villager;

There, the golden smiles of morn

Brighter every field adorn;
There the sun's declining ray
Fairer paints the parting day:
There the wood-lark louder sings,
Zephyr moves on softer wings,
Groves in greener honours rise,
Purer azure spreads the skies;
There the fountains clearer flow,
Flowers in brighter beauty blow;

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For, with Peace and Virtue, there
Lives the happy Villager.

Distant still from Arden's vale
Are the woes the bad bewail;
Distant fell Remorse, and Pain,
And frenzy smiling o'er her chain!
Grief's quick pang, Despair's dread groan,
Are in Arden's vale unknown:

For, with Peace and Virtue, there
Lives the happy villager.

In his hospitable cell,

Love, and Truth, and Freedom dwell;
And, with aspect mild and free,
The graceful nymph, Simplicity.
Hail, ye liberal graces, hail!
Natives all of Arden's vale:

For, with Peace and Virtue, there
Lives the happy Villager.

AN ALLEGORY ON MAN.

A thoughtful being, long and spare,
Our race of mortals call him Care,
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the Gods had call'd him too)
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, tho' no one bought.
This being by a model bred

In Jove's eternal sable head,
́Contriv'd a shape, impower'd to breathe,
And be the wordling here beneath.
The Man rose staring like a stake;
Wond'ring to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The bus'ness he was made to do;
That pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely shew'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky,

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a Poet's God,
(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother Earth's oblig'd to quake)
He saw old mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes;

But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before:

As yet with wreaths alone she drest,
And train'd a landskip-painted vest,
Then thrice she rais'd (as Ovid said),
And thrice she bow'd, her weighty head.
Her honours made, great Jove, she cry'd,
This thing was fashion'd from my side;
His hands, his heart, his head are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine?

Nay, rather ask, the Monarch said,
What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?

Thy part's an idle shape of clay.

Halves, more than halves! cry'd honest Care
Your pleas wou'd make your titles fair;
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paints him such as I,
For what the fabling ancients sung
Makes Saturn old when time was young),
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free
From his old sire eternity.

A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within, the mouth before;
His vest, for day and night was py'd;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;