Let those toil for gold who please,
Or, for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? An empty bubble;
Gold? a shining, constant trouble.
Let them for their country bleed!
What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?
Man's not worth a moment's pain;
Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.
Then let me, sequester'd fair,
To your sybil grot repair; ́
On yon hanging cliff it stands,
Scoop'd by nature's plastic hands,
Bosom'd in the gloomy shade
Of cypress not with age decay'd;
Where the owl still hooting sits,
Where the bat incessant flits;
There in loftier strains I'll sing
Whence the changing seasons spring;
Tell how storms deform the skies,
Whence the waves subside and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,
Weigh the planets in a scale ;

Bend, great God, before thy shrine ;
The bournless inacrocosm's thine.

Since in each scheme of life I've fail'd,
And disappointment seems entail'd;
Since all on earth I valued most,
My guide, my stay, my friend is lost;
O Solitude, now give me rest,
And hush the tempest in my breast.
O gently deign to guide my feet
To your hermit-trodden seat;
Where I may live at last my own,
Where I at last may die unknown.
I spoke she turn'd her magic ray;
And thus she said, or seem'd to say;

Youth, you're mistaken, if u think to find
In shades, a med'cine for a troubled mind:
Wan grief will haunt you wheresoe'er you go,
Sigh in the breeze, and in the streamlet flow.
There, pale inaction pines his life aw

And satiate mourns the quick return of ay:

There, naked frenzy laughing wild with pain,
Or bares the blade, or plunges in the main :
There, superstition broods o'er all her fears,
And yells of demons in the zephyr hears.
But if a hermit you're resolv'd to dwell,
And bid to social life a last farewell;
"Tis impious.-

God never made an independent man ;
"Twould jar the cond

of his general plan.

See every part of that stupendous whole,
"Whose body nature is, and God the soul;”
To one great end the general good conspire,
From matter, brute, to man,
to seraph, fire.
Should man through nature solitary roam,
His will his sovereign, every where his home,
What force would guard him from the lion's jaw?
What swiftness wing him from the panther's paw?
Or should fate lead him to some safer shore,
Where panthers never prowl, nor lions roar,
Where liberal nature all her charms bestows,

Suns shine, birds sing, flowers bloom, and water flows,
Fool, dost thou think he'd revel on the store,
Absolve the care of Heaven, nor ask for more?
Though waters flow'd, flow'rs bloom'd, and Phoebus shone,
He'd sigh, he'd murmur, that he was alone.
For know, the Maker on the human breast
A sense of kindred, country, man, impress'd.

Though nature's works the ruling mind declare,
And well deserve inquiry's serious care,
The God (whate'er misanthropy may say,)
Shines, beams in man with most unclouded ray.
What boots it thee to fly from pole to pole?
Hang o'er the sun, and with the planets roll?`
What boots through space's furthest bourns to roam?
If thou, O man, a stranger art at horse.
Then know thyself, the human mind survey;
The use, the pleasure, will the toil repay.

Nor study only, practice what you know;
Your life, your knowledge, to mankind you owe.
With Plato's olive wreath the bays entwine;
Those who in study, should in practice shine.
Say, does the leaned lord of Hagley's shade,
Charm man so rch by mossy fountains laid,