The Task. Book III. The Garden.

As one who, long in thickets and in brakes     Entangled, winds now this way and now that     His devious course uncertain, seeking home;     Or, having long in miry ways been foiled     And sore discomfited, from slough to slough     Plunging, and half despairing of escape,     If chance at length he find a greensward smooth     And faithful to the foot, his spirits rise,     He chirrups brisk his ear-erecting steed,     And winds his way with pleasure and with ease;     So I, designing other themes, and called     To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due,     To tell its slumbers and to paint its dreams,     Have rambled wide. In country, city, seat     Of academic fame, howe'er deserved,     Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last.     But now with pleasant pace, a cleanlier road     I mean to tread. I feel myself at large,     Courageous, and refreshed for future toil,     If toil await me, or if dangers new.     Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflect     Most part an empty ineffectual sound,     What chance that I, to fame so little known,     Nor conversant with men or manners much,     Should speak to purpose, or with better hope     Crack the satiric thong? 'Twere wiser far     For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes,     And charmed with rural beauty, to repose,     Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine     My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains;     Or when rough winter rages, on the soft     And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air     Feeds a blue flame and makes a cheerful hearth;     There, undisturbed by folly, and apprised     How great the danger of disturbing her,     To muse in silence, or at least confine     Remarks that gall so many to the few,     My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed     Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault     Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.     Domestic happiness, thou only bliss     Of Paradise that has survived the fall!     Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure,     Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm     Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets     Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect     Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup.     Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms     She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,     Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.     Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored,     That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist     And wandering 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     Convened for purposes of empire less,     Than to release the adult'ress from her bond.     The adult'ress! what a theme for angry verse,     What provocation to the indignant heart     That feels for injured love! but I disdain     The nauseous task to paint her as she is,     Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame.     No; let her pass, and charioted along     In guilty splendour shake the public ways;     The frequency of crimes has washed them white,     And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch     Whom matrons now of character unsmirched     And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own.     Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time     Not to be passed; and she that had renounced     Her sex's honour, was renounced herself     By all that prized it; not for prudery's sake,     But dignity's, resentful of the wrong.     'Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif     Desirous to return, and not received;     But was a wholesome rigour in the main,     And taught the unblemished to preserve with care     That purity, whose loss was loss of all.     Men, too, were nice in honour in those days,     And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped,     And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained,     Was marked and shunned as odious. He that sold     His country, or was slack when she required     His every nerve in action and at stretch,     Paid with the blood that he had basely spared     The price of his default. But now,--yes, now,     We are become so candid and so fair,     So liberal in construction, and so rich     In Christian charity (good-natured age!)     That they are safe, sinners of either sex,     Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, well bred,     Well equipaged, is ticket good enough     To pass us readily through every door.     Hypocrisy, detest her as we may     (And no man's hatred ever wronged her yet),     May claim this merit still--that she admits     The worth of what she mimics 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.     I was a stricken deer that left the herd     Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt     My panting side was charged, when I withdrew     To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.     There was I found by one who had himself     Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,     And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.     With gentle force soliciting the darts     He drew them forth, and healed 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     Than once, and others of a life to come.     I see that all are wanderers, gone astray     Each in his own delusions; they are lost     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 two-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 the 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.     Some write a narrative of wars, and feats     Of heroes little known, and call the rant     A history; describe the man, of whom     His own coevals took but little note,     And paint his person, character, and views,     As they had known him from his mother's womb;     They disentangle from the puzzled skein,     In which obscurity has wrapped them up,     The threads of politic and shrewd design     That ran through all his purposes, and charge     His mind with meanings that he never had,     Or, having, kept concealed. Some drill and bore     The solid earth, and from the strata there     Extract a register, by which we learn     That He who made it and revealed its date     To Moses, was mistaken in its age.     Some, more acute and more industrious still,     Contrive creation; travel nature up     To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,     And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixt,     And planetary some; what gave them first     Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light.     Great contest follows, and much learned dust     Involves the combatants, each claiming truth,     And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend     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 the 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 frantic who thus spend it? all for smoke--     Eternity for bubbles proves at last     A senseless bargain. When I see such games     Played by the creatures of a Power who swears     That He will judge the earth, and call the fool     To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain,     And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well,     And prove it in the infallible result     So hollow and so false--I feel my heart     Dissolve in pity, and account the learned,     If this be learning, most of all deceived.     Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps     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!     'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound,     Terribly arched 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.     How then should I and any man that lives     Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein,     Take of the crimson stream meandering there,     And catechise it well. Apply your 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 skilful 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,     In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift     And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,     And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath;     I cannot analyse the air, nor catch     The parallax of yonder luminous point     That seems half quenched 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.     God never meant that man should scale the heavens     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, enlightened 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 philosophic tube,     That brings the planets home into the eye     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:     But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray     Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal     Truths undiscerned but by that holy light,     Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised     In the pure fountain of eternal love,     Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees     As meant to indicate a God to man,     Gives HIM His praise, and forfeits not her own.     Learning has borne such fruit in other days     On all her branches. Piety has found     Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer     Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.     Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!     Sagacious reader of the works of God,     And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine,     Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,     And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom     Our British Themis gloried with just cause,     Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised,     And sound integrity not more, than famed     For sanctity of manners undefiled.     All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades     Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind;     Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;     The man we celebrate must find a tomb,     And we that worship him, ignoble graves.     Nothing is proof against the general curse     Of vanity, that seizes all below.     The only amaranthine flower on earth     Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.     But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put     To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.     And wherefore? will not God impart His light     To them that ask it?--Freely--'tis His joy,     His glory, and His nature to impart.     But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,     Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.     What's that which brings contempt upon a book     And him that writes it, though the style be neat,     The method clear, and argument exact?     That makes a minister in holy things     The joy of many, and the dread of more,     His name a theme for praise and for reproach?--     That, while it gives us worth in God's account,     Depreciates and undoes us in our own?     What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,     That learning is too proud to gather up,     But which the poor and the despised of all     Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?     Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.     Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man,     Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,     Domestic life in rural leisure passed!     Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,     Though many boast thy favours, and affect     To understand and choose thee for their own.     But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss,     Even as his first progenitor, and quits,     Though placed in paradise, for earth has still     Some traces of her youthful beauty left,     Substantial happiness for transient joy.     Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse     The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest,     By every pleasing image they present,     Reflections such as meliorate the heart,     Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;     Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight     To fill with riot and defile with blood.     Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes     We persecute, annihilate the tribes     That draw the sportsman over hill and dale     Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares;     Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again,     Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;     Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song     Be quelled in all our summer months' retreats;     How many self-deluded nymphs and swains,     Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,     Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,     And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!     They love the country, and none else, who seek     For their own sake its silence and its shade;     Delights which who would leave, that has a heart     Susceptible of pity, or a mind     Cultured and capable of sober thought,     For all the savage din of the swift pack,     And clamours of the field? Detested sport,     That owes its pleasures to another's pain,     That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks     Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued     With eloquence, that agonies inspire,     Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs!     Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find     A corresponding tone in jovial souls.     Well--one at least is safe. One sheltered hare     Has never heard the sanguinary yell     Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.     Innocent partner of my peaceful home,     Whom ten long years' experience of my care     Has made at last familiar, she has lost     Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,     Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.     Yes--thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand     That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor     At evening, and at night retire secure     To thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarmed;     For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged     All that is human in me to protect     Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.     If I survive thee I will dig thy grave,     And when I place thee in it, sighing say,     I knew at least one hare that had a friend.     How various his employments, whom the world     Calls idle, and who justly in return     Esteems that busy world an idler, too!     Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,     Delightful industry enjoyed at home,     And nature in her cultivated trim     Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad--     Can he want occupation who has these?     Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?     Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,     Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,     Not waste it; and aware that human life     Is but a loan to be repaid with use,     When He shall call His debtors to account,     From whom are all our blessings; business finds     Even here: while sedulous I seek to improve,     At least neglect not, or leave unemployed,     The mind He gave me; driving it, though slack     Too oft, and much impeded in its work     By causes not to be divulged in vain,     To its just point--the service of mankind.     He that attends to his interior self,     That has a heart and keeps it; has a mind     That hungers and supplies it; and who seeks     A social, not a dissipated life,     Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve     No unimportant, though a silent task.     A life all turbulence and noise may seem,     To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;     But wisdom is a pearl with most success     Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.     He that is ever occupied in storms,     Or dives not for it or brings up instead,     Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.     The morning finds the self-sequestered man     Fresh for his task, intend what task he may.     Whether inclement seasons recommend     His warm but simple home, where he enjoys,     With her who shares his pleasures and his heart,     Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph     Which neatly she prepares; then to his book     Well chosen, and not sullenly perused     In selfish silence, but imparted oft     As aught occurs that she may smile to hear,     Or turn to nourishment digested well.     Or if the garden with its many cares,     All well repaid, demand him, he attends     The welcome call, conscious how much the hand     Of lubbard labour needs his watchful eye,     Oft loitering lazily if not o'erseen,     Or misapplying his unskilful strength.     Nor does he govern only or direct,     But much performs himself; no works indeed     That ask robust tough sinews, bred to toil,     Servile employ--but such as may amuse,     Not tire, demanding rather skill than force.     Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees     That meet, no barren interval between,     With pleasure more than even their fruits afford,     Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel.     These, therefore, are his own peculiar charge,     No meaner hand may discipline the shoots,     None but his steel approach them. What is weak,     Distempered, or has lost prolific powers,     Impaired by age, his unrelenting hand     Dooms to the knife. Nor does he spare the soft     And succulent that feeds its giant growth,     But barren, at the expense of neighbouring twigs     Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick     With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left     That may disgrace his art, or disappoint     Large expectation, he disposes neat     At measured distances, that air and sun     Admitted freely may afford their aid,     And ventilate and warm the swelling buds.     Hence Summer has her riches, Autumn hence,     And hence even Winter fills his withered hand     With blushing fruits, and plenty not his own,     Fair recompense of labour well bestowed     And wise precaution, which a clime so rude     Makes needful still, whose Spring is but the child     Of churlish Winter, in her froward moods     Discovering much the temper of her sire.     For oft, as if in her the stream of mild     Maternal nature had reversed its course,     She brings her infants forth with many smiles,     But, once delivered, kills them with a frown.     He therefore, timely warned, himself supplies     Her want of care, screening and keeping warm     The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweep     His garlands from the boughs. Again, as oft     As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild,     The fence withdrawn, he gives them ev'ry beam,     And spreads his hopes before the blaze of day.     To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd,     So grateful to the palate, and when rare     So coveted, else base and disesteemed--     Food for the vulgar merely--is an art     That toiling ages have but just matured,     And at this moment unessayed in song.     Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice long since,     Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard,     And these the Grecian in ennobling strains;     And in thy numbers, Philips, shines for aye     The solitary Shilling. Pardon then,     Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame!     The ambition of one meaner far, whose powers     Presuming an attempt not less sublime,     Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste     Of critic appetite, no sordid fare,     A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce.     The stable yields a stercoraceous heap     Impregnated with quick fermenting salts,     And potent to resist the freezing blast.     For ere the beech and elm have cast their leaf     Deciduous, and when now November dark     Checks vegetation in the torpid plant     Exposed to his cold breath, the task begins.     Warily therefore, and with prudent heed     He seeks a favoured spot, that where he builds     The agglomerated pile, his frame may front     The sun's meridian disk, and at the back     Enjoy close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedge     Impervious to the wind. First he bids spread     Dry fern or littered hay, that may imbibe     The ascending damps; then leisurely impose,     And lightly, shaking it with agile hand     From the full fork, the saturated straw.     What longest binds the closest, forms secure     The shapely side, that as it rises takes     By just degrees an overhanging breadth,     Sheltering the base with its projected eaves.     The uplifted frame compact at every joint,     And overlaid with clear translucent glass,     He settles next upon the sloping mount,     Whose sharp declivity shoots off secure     From the dashed pane the deluge as it falls.     He shuts it close, and the first labour ends.     Thrice must the voluble and restless earth     Spin round upon her axle, ere the warmth     Slow gathering in the midst, through the square mass     Diffused, attain the surface. When, behold!     A pestilent and most corrosive steam,     Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast,     And fast condensed upon the dewy sash,     Asks egress; which obtained, the overcharged     And drenched conservatory breathes abroad,     In volumes wheeling slow, the vapour dank,     And purified, rejoices to have lost     Its foul inhabitant. But to assuage     The impatient fervour which it first conceives     Within its reeking bosom, threatening death     To his young hopes, requires discreet delay.     Experience, slow preceptress, teaching oft     The way to glory by miscarriage foul,     Must prompt him, and admonish how to catch     The auspicious moment, when the tempered heat,     Friendly to vital motion, may afford     Soft fermentation, and invite the seed.     The seed selected wisely, plump and smooth     And glossy, he commits to pots of size     Diminutive, well filled with well-prepared     And fruitful soil, that has been treasured long,     And drunk no moisture from the dripping clouds:     These on the warm and genial earth that hides     The smoking manure, and o'erspreads it all,     He places lightly, and, as time subdues     The rage of fermentation, plunges deep     In the soft medium, till they stand immersed.     Then rise the tender germs upstarting quick     And spreading wide their spongy lobes; at first     Pale, wan, and livid; but assuming soon,     If fanned by balmy and nutritious air     Strained through the friendly mats, a vivid green.     Two leaves produced, two rough indented leaves,     Cautious he pinches from the second stalk     A pimple, that portends a future sprout,     And interdicts its growth. Thence straight succeed     The branches, sturdy to his utmost wish,     Prolific all, and harbingers of more.     The crowded roots demand enlargement now     And transplantation in an ampler space.     Indulged in what they wish, they soon supply     Large foliage, overshadowing golden flowers,     Blown on the summit of the apparent fruit.     These have their sexes, and when summer shines     The bee transports the fertilising meal     From flower to flower, and even the breathing air     Wafts the rich prize to its appointed use.     Not so when winter scowls. Assistant art     Then acts in nature's office, brings to pass     The glad espousals and insures the crop.     Grudge not, ye rich (since luxury must have     His dainties, and the world's more numerous half     Lives by contriving delicates for you),     Grudge not the cost. Ye little know the cares,     The vigilance, the labour, and the skill     That day and night are exercised, and hang     Upon the ticklish balance of suspense,     That ye may garnish your profuse regales     With summer fruits, brought forth by wintry suns.     Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwart     The process. Heat and cold, and wind and steam,     Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming flies     Minute as dust and numberless, oft work     Dire disappointment that admits no cure,     And which no care can obviate. It were long,     Too long to tell the expedients and the shifts     Which he, that fights a season so severe,     Devises, while he guards his tender trust,     And oft, at last, in vain. The learned and wise     Sarcastic would exclaim, and judge the song     Cold as its theme, and, like its theme, the fruit     Of too much labour, worthless when produced.     Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.     Unconscious of a less propitious clime     There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,     While the winds whistle and the snows descend.     The spiry myrtle with unwithering leaf     Shines there and flourishes. The golden boast     Of Portugal and Western India there,     The ruddier orange and the paler lime,     Peep through their polished foliage at the storm,     And seem to smile at what they need not fear.     The amomum there with intermingling flowers     And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts     Her crimson honours, and the spangled beau,     Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long,     All plants, of every leaf, that can endure     The winter's frown if screened from his shrewd bite,     Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims,     Levantine regions these; the Azores send     Their jessamine; her jessamine remote     Caffraria: foreigners from many lands,     They form one social shade, as if convened     By magic summons of the Orphean lyre.     Yet such arrangement, rarely brought to pass     But by a master's hand, disposing well     The gay diversities of leaf and flower,     Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms,     And dress the regular yet various scene.     Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van     The dwarfish, in the rear retired, but still     Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand.     So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome,     A noble show, while Roscius trod the stage;     And so, while Garrick, as renowned as he,     The sons of Albion, fearing each to lose     Some note of Nature's music from his lips,     And covetous of Shakespeare's beauty, seen     In every flash of his far-beaming eye.     Nor taste alone and well-contrived display     Suffice to give the marshalled ranks the grace     Of their complete effect. Much yet remains     Unsung, and many cares are yet behind     And more laborious; cares on which depends     Their vigour, injured soon, not soon restored.     The soil must be renewed, which often washed     Loses its treasure of salubrious salts,     And disappoints the roots; the slender roots,     Close interwoven where they meet the vase,     Must smooth be shorn away; the sapless branch     Must fly before the knife; the withered leaf     Must be detached, and where it strews the floor     Swept with a woman's neatness, breeding else     Contagion, and disseminating death.     Discharge but these kind offices (and who     Would spare, that loves them, offices like these?)     Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased,     The scent regaled, each odoriferous leaf,     Each opening blossom, freely breathes abroad     Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets.     So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,     All healthful, are the employs of rural life,     Reiterated as the wheel of time     Runs round, still ending, and beginning still.     Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knoll     That, softly swelled and gaily dressed, appears     A flowery island from the dark green lawn     Emerging, must be deemed a labour due     To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste.     Here also grateful mixture of well-matched     And sorted hues (each giving each relief,     And by contrasted beauty shining more)     Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous spade,     May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home,     But elegance, chief grace the garden shows     And most attractive, is the fair result     Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.     Without it, all is Gothic as the scene     To which the insipid citizen resorts,     Near yonder heath; where industry misspent,     But proud of his uncouth, ill-chosen task,     Has made a heaven on earth; with suns and moons     Of close-rammed stones has charged the encumbered soil,     And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust.     He, therefore, who would see his flowers disposed     Sightly and in just order, ere he gives     The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds,     Forecasts the future whole; that when the scene     Shall break into its preconceived display,     Each for itself, and all as with one voice     Conspiring, may attest his bright design.     Nor even then, dismissing as performed     His pleasant work, may he suppose it done.     Few self-supported flowers endure the wind     Uninjured, but expect the upholding aid     Of the smooth-shaven prop, and neatly tied     Are wedded thus, like beauty to old age,     For interest sake, the living to the dead.     Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffused     And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair;     Like virtue, thriving most where little seen.     Some, more aspiring, catch the neighbour shrub     With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch,     Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon     And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well     The strength they borrow with the grace they lend.     All hate the rank society of weeds,     Noisome, and very greedy to exhaust     The impoverished earth; an overbearing race,     That, like the multitude made faction-mad,     Disturb good order, and degrade true worth.     Oh blest seclusion from a jarring world,     Which he, thus occupied, enjoys! Retreat     Cannot, indeed, to guilty man restore     Lost innocence, or cancel follies past;     But it has peace, and much secures the mind     From all assaults of evil; proving still     A faithful barrier, not o'erleaped with ease     By vicious custom raging uncontrolled     Abroad and desolating public life.     When fierce temptation, seconded within     By traitor appetite, and armed with darts     Tempered in hell, invades the throbbing breast,     To combat may be glorious, and success     Perhaps may crown us, but to fly is safe.     Had I the choice of sublunary good,     What could I wish that I possess not here?     Health, leisure; means to improve it, friendship, peace,     No loose or wanton though a wandering muse,     And constant occupation without care.     Thus blest, I draw a picture of that bliss;     Hopeless, indeed, that dissipated minds     And profligate abusers of a world     Created fair so much in vain for them,     Should seek the guiltless joys that I describe,     Allured by my report; but sure no less     That self-condemned they must neglect the prize,     And what they will not taste, must yet approve.     What we admire we praise; and when we praise     Advance it into notice, that, its worth     Acknowledged, others may admire it too.     I therefore recommend, though at the risk     Of popular disgust, yet boldly still,     The cause of piety and sacred truth     And virtue, and those scenes which God ordained     Should best secure them and promote them most;     Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive     Forsaken, or through folly not enjoyed.     Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles,     And chaste, though unconfined, whom I extol.     Not as the prince in Shushan, when he called,     Vain-glorious of her charms, his Vashti forth,     To grace the full pavilion. His design     Was but to boast his own peculiar good,     Which all might view with envy, none partake.     My charmer is not mine alone; my sweets,     And she that sweetens all my bitters, too,     Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form     And lineaments divine I trace a hand     That errs not, and find raptures still renewed,     Is free to all men--universal prize.     Strange that so fair a creature should yet want     Admirers, and be destined to divide     With meaner objects even the few she finds.     Stript of her ornaments, her leaves and flowers,     She loses all her influence. Cities then     Attract us, and neglected Nature pines,     Abandoned, as unworthy of our love.     But are not wholesome airs, though unperfumed     By roses, and clear suns, though scarcely felt,     And groves, if unharmonious yet secure     From clamour and whose very silence charms,     To be preferred to smoke--to the eclipse     That Metropolitan volcanoes make,     Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long,     And to the stir of commerce, driving slow,     And thundering loud with his ten thousand wheels?     They would be, were not madness in the head     And folly in the heart; were England now     What England was, plain, hospitable, kind,     And undebauched. But we have bid farewell     To all the virtues of those better days,     And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once     Knew their own masters, and laborious hands     That had survived the father, served the son.     Now the legitimate and rightful lord     Is but a transient guest, newly arrived     And soon to be supplanted. He that saw     His patrimonial timber cast its leaf,     Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price     To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again.     Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile,     Then advertised, and auctioneered away.     The country starves, and they that feed the o'er-charged     And surfeited lewd town with her fair dues,     By a just judgment strip and starve themselves.     The wings that waft our riches out of sight     Grow on the gamester's elbows, and the alert     And nimble motion of those restless joints,     That never tire, soon fans them all away.     Improvement too, the idol of the age,     Is fed with many a victim. Lo! he comes--     The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears.     Down falls the venerable pile, the abode     Of our forefathers, a grave whiskered race,     But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead,     But in a distant spot; where more exposed     It may enjoy the advantage of the North     And aguish East, till time shall have transformed     Those naked acres to a sheltering grove.     He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn,     Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise,     And streams, as if created for his use,     Pursue the track of his directed wand     Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,     Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades,     Even as he bids. The enraptured owner smiles.     'Tis finished. And yet, finished as it seems,     Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show,     A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.     Drained to the last poor item of his wealth,     He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan     That he has touched and retouched, many a day     Laboured, and many a night pursued in dreams,     Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heaven     He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy.     And now perhaps the glorious hour is come,     When having no stake left, no pledge to endear     Her interests, or that gives her sacred cause     A moment's operation on his love,     He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal     To serve his country. Ministerial grace     Deals him out money from the public chest,     Or, if that mine be shut, some private purse     Supplies his need with an usurious loan,     To be refunded duly, when his vote,     Well-managed, shall have earned its worthy price.     Oh, innocent compared with arts like these,     Crape and cocked pistol and the whistling ball     Sent through the traveller's temples! He that finds     One drop of heaven's sweet mercy in his cup,     Can dig, beg, rot, and perish well-content,     So he may wrap himself in honest rags     At his last gasp; but could not for a world     Fish up his dirty and dependent bread     From pools and ditches of the commonwealth,     Sordid and sickening at his own success.     Ambition, avarice, penury incurred     By endless riot, vanity, the lust     Of pleasure and variety, despatch,     As duly as the swallows disappear,     The world of wandering knights and squires to town;     London engulfs them all. The shark is there,     And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the leech     That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he     That with bare-headed and obsequious bows     Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail     And groat per diem if his patron frown.     The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp     Were charactered on every statesman's door,     'BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.'     These are the charms that sully and eclipse     The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe     That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts,     The hope of better things, the chance to win,     The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused,     That, at the sound of Winter's hoary wing,     Unpeople all our counties of such herds     Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose     And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast     And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.     Oh thou resort and mart of all the earth,     Chequered with all complexions of mankind,     And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see     Much that I love, and more that I admire,     And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair     That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh     And I can weep, can hope, and can despond,     Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee!     Ten righteous would have saved a city once,     And thou hast many righteous.--Well for thee--     That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else,     And therefore more obnoxious at this hour     Than Sodom in her day had power to be,     For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain.