Thou art not known where Pleasure is ador'd,
That reeling goddess, with the zoneless waist
And wand'ring eyes, still leaning on the arm
Of Novelty, her fickle, frail support;

For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding in the calm of truth-tried love,

Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.
Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made
Of honour, dignity, and fair renown!
Till prostitution elbows us aside

In all our crowded streets; and senates seem
Conven'd for the purposes of empire less
Than to release the adultress from her bond.
Th' adul'tress! what a theme for angry verse!
What provocation to th' indignant heart
That feels for injur'd love! but I disdain
The nauseaus task to paint her as she is,
Cruel, abandon'd, glorying in her shame?
No:-let her pass, and charioted along
In guilty splendour, shake the publick ways;
The frequency of crimes has wash'd them white,
And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch,
Whom matrons now of character unsmirch'd
And chaste themselves, are not asham'd to own.
Virtue and vice had bound'ries in old time,
Not to be pass'd: and she that had renounc'd
Her sex's honour, was renounc'd herself
By all that priz'd it; not for prud'ry's sake

But dignity's, resentful of the wrong.

"Twas hard perhaps on here and there a waif, Desirous to return and not receiv'd:

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But was a wholesome rigour in the main,

And taught th' unblemish'd to preserve with care
That purity, whose loss was loss of all.

Men too were nice in honour in those days,

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And judg'd offenders well. Then he that sharp'd,
And pocketed a prize by fraud obtain❜d,

Was mark'd and shunn'd as odious. He that sold

His country, or was slack when she requir'd
His ev'ry nerve in action and at stretch,
Paid with the blood that he had basely spar'd
The price of his default. But now—yes, now
We are become so candid and so fair,
So lib'ral in construction, and so rich
In Christian charity, (good natur'd age!)
That they are safe; sinners of either sex
Transgress what laws they may.

bred,

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Well dress'd, well

Well equipag'd, is ticket good enough,
To pass as readily through ev'ry door.
Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,

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(And no man's hatred ever wrong'd her yet,) May claim this merit still-that she admits

The worth of what she mimicks, with such care,
And thus gives virtue indirect applause;
But she has burnt her mask, not needed here,
Where vice has such allowance, that her shifts
And specious semblances have lost their use.

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I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd
My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by one who had himself

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Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore,

And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts,

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He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.

Since then, with few associates, in remote

And silent woods I wander, far from those
My former partners of the peopled scene;
With few associates, and not wishing more.
Here much I ruminate, as much I may,
With other views of men and manners now
That once, and others of a life to come.
I see that all are wand'rers, gone astray
Each in his own delusions; they are lost

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In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd

And never won.

Dream after dream ensues;

And still they dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed. Rings the world

With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind

And add too thirds of the remaining half,

And find the total of their hopes and fears
Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay,
As if created only like the fly,

That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon,
To sport their season, and be seen no more.
The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise,

And pregnant with discoveries new and rare.

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Some write a narrative of wars, and feats

Of heroes little known; and call the rant
A history: describe the man, of whom

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His own coevals took but little note,

And paint his person, character, and views,

As they had known him fro:n his mother's womb.
They disentangle from the puzzled skein,

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In which obscurity has wrapp'd them up,

The threads of politick and shrewd design,

That ran through all his purposes, and charge
His mind with meanings that he never had,

Or, having kept conceal'd. Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there

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Extract a register, by which we learn,

That he who made it and reveal'd it's date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

Some, more acute, and more industrious still,
Contrive creation; travel nature up

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To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,
And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix'd,
And planetary some; what gave them first
Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light.
Great contest follows, and much learn'd dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,

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And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend

THE GARDEN.

The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws
To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.
Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums
Should ever tease the lungs, and blear the sight
Of oracles like these? Great pity, too,
That having wielded th' elements, and built
A thousand systems, each in his own way,
They should go out in fume, and be forgot!
Ah! what is life thus spent? and what are they
But frantick, who thus spend it? all for smoke.—
Eternity, for bubbles, proves at last

A senseless bargain. When I see such games
Play'd by the creatures of a pow'r who swears
That he will judge the Earth, and call the fool
To a sharp reck'ning, that has liv'd in vain;
And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well,
And prove it in th' infallible result

So hollow and so false-I feel my heart

Dissolve in pity, and account the learn'd,

If this be learning, most of all deceiv'd.

Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps,

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While thoughtful man is plausibly amused.

Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I,

From reveries so airy, from the toil

Of dropping buckets into empty wells,

And growing old in drawing nothing up!

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"Twere well, says one, sage, erudite, profound,

Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose,

And overbuilt with most impending brows,

'Twere well, could you permit the World to live
As the world pleases: what's the World to you?
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk
As sweet as charity from human breasts.
I think, articulate-I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a man.

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Now then should I and any man that lives

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Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein,

Take of the crimson stream meand'ring there;
And catechise it well: apply thy glass,
Search it, and prove now if it be not blood
Congenial with thine own: and, if it be,
What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose
Keen enough, wise and skillful as thou art,
To cut the link of brotherhood, by which
One common Maker bound me to the kind?
True; I am no proficient, I confess,

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In arts like your's. I cannot call the swift

And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,

And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath;
I cannot analyze the air, nor catch

The parallax of yonder luminous point,

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That seems half quench'd in the immense abyss:

Such powers I boast not-neither can I rest

A silent witness of the headlong rage,

Or heedless folly, by which thousands die,

Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.

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God never meant that man should scale the Heav'ns

By strides of human wisdom. In his works

Though wondrous, he commands us in his word
To seek him rather where his mercy shines.
The mind, indeed, enlighten'd from above,
Views him in all; ascribes to the grand cause
The grand effect; acknowledges with joy
His manner, and with rapture tastes his style.
But never yet did philosophick tube,

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That brings the planets home into the eye

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Of observation, and discovers, else

Not visible, his family of worlds,

Discover him that rules them; such a veil

Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth,
And dark in things divine. Full often too,
Our wayward intellect, the more we learn
Of nature, overlooks her author more;
From instrumental causes proud to draw
Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake.

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