But with his clumfy port the wretch has lost
His ignorance and harmless manners too!
To fwear, to game, to drink; to fhew at home,
By lewdnefs, idlenefs, and Sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
T'aftonish and to grieve his gazing friends;
To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart;
To be a peft where he was useful once;
Are his fole aim, and all his glory, now!
Man in fociety is like a flow'r Blown in its native bed: 'tis there aloneTM His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out; there only reach their proper use. But man, affociated and leagu'd with man By regal warrant, or felf-join'd by bond For int'reft-fake, or fwarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flow'rs felected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill fome crowded vafe. Fades rapidly, and, by compreffion marr'd, Contracts defilement not to be endur'd. Hence charter'd boroughs are fuch public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combin❜d,
Become a loathfome body, only fit
For diffolution, hurtful to the main.
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of fin
Against the charities of domestic life,
Incorporated, feem at once to lofe
Their nature; and, difclaiming all regard
For mercy and the common rights of man,
Build factories with blood, conducting trade
At the fword's point, and dyeing the white robe
Of innocent commercial justice red.
Hence, too, the field of glory, as the world
Mifdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,
With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp,
Enchanting mufic and immortal wreaths,
Is but a fchool where thoughtleffness is taught
On principle, where foppery atones
For folly, gallantry for ev'ry vice.
But, flighted as it is, and by the great Abandon'd, and, which still I more regret, Infected with the manners and the modes It knew not once, the country wins me still.. I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan, That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss, But there I laid the fcene. There early stray'd
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice
Had found me, or the hope of being free.
My very dreams were rural; rural, too,
The first-born efforts of my youthful mufe,
Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells
Ere yet her ear was miftrefs of their pow'rs.
No bard could pleafe me but whofe lyre was tun'd
To nature's praifes. Heroes and their feats
Fatigu'd me, never weary of the pipe
Of Tityrus, affembling, as he fang,
The ruftic throng beneath his fav'rite beech.
Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms:
New to my tafte, his Paradife furpafs'd
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue,
To speak its excellence. I danc'd for joy.
I marvell'd much, that, at fo ripe an age
As twice feven years, his beauties had then first
Engag'd my wonder; and,' admiring ftill,
And ftill admiring, with regret fuppos'd
The joy half lost because not sooner found.
There, too, enamour'd of the life I lov'd,
Pathetic in its praife, in its purfuit
Determin'd, and poffeffing it at last
With transports such as favour'd lovers feel,
I ftudied, priz'd, and wifh'd that I had known,
Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaim'd
By modern lights from an erroneous taste,
I cannot but lament thy fplendid wit
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
I ftill revere thee, courtly though retir'd;
Though stretch'd at eafe in Chertfey's filent bow'rs,
Not unemploy'd; and finding rich, amends
For a loft world in folitude and verse.
'Tis born with all: the love of nature's works
Is an ingredient in the compound man,
Infus'd at the creation of the kind.
And, though th' Almighty Maker has throughout
Difcriminated each from each, by strokes
And touches of his hand, with so much art
Diverfified, that two were never found
Twins at all points-yet this obtains in all,
That all difcern a beauty in his works,
And all can taste them: minds that have been form'd
And tutor'd with a relifh more exact,
But none without fome relish, none unmov'd.
It is a flame that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it: neither bus'nefs, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city-life;
Whatever else they fmother of true worth
In human bofoms; quench it, or abate.
The villas with which London ftands begirt,
Like a fwarth Indian with his belt of beads,
Prove it. A breath of unadult'rate air,
The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer
The citizen, and brace his languid frame!
Ev'n in the ftifling bofom of the town,
A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms
That foothe the rich poffeffor; much confol❜d,
That here and there fome fprigs of mournful mint,
Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
He cultivates. Thefe ferve him with a hint
That nature lives; that fight-refreshing green
Is ftill the liv'ry she delights to wear,
Though fickly famples of th' exub'rant whole.
What are the casements lin❜d with creeping herbs,
The prouder fafhes fronted with a range
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling? are they not all proofs
That man, immur'd in cities, ftill retains
His inborn inextinguishable thirst
Of rural scenes, compenfating his lofs
By fupplemental fhifts, the best he may?
The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,
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