IX.

'Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay: See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

X.

'Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, The swarming songsters of the careless grove, Ten thousand throats! that, from the flowering

thorn,

Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love, Such grateful kindly raptures them emove :

They neither plough, nor sow; ne, fit for flail, E'er to the barn the nodden sheaves they drove; Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.

XI.

Outcast of nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain, Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall, And of the vices, an inhuman train, That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: For when hard-hearted interest first began To poison earth, Astræa left the plain; Guile, violence, and murder seized on man, And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers

ran.

XII.

'Come, ye, who still the cumberous load of life Push hard up hill; but as the farthest steep

You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, Down thunders' back the stone with mighty

sweep,

And hurls your labours to the valley deep,

For ever vain : come, and, withouten fee,
I in oblivion will your sorrows steep,

Your cares, your toils; will steep you in a sea Of full delight: O come, ye weary wights, to me!

XIII.

'With me, you need not rise at early dawn, To pass the joyless day in various stounds; Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn, And sell fair honour for some paltry pounds; Or through the city take your dirty rounds, To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay, Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds; Or prowl in courts of law for human prey, In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway.

XIV.

'No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call, From village on to village sounding clear; To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matrons squall; No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear; No hammers thump; no horrid blacksmith sear, Ne noisy tradesmen your sweet slumbers start, With sounds that are a misery to hear: But all is calm, as would delight the heart Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art.

C

XV.

'Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent ease, Good-natured lounging, sauntering up and down: They who are pleased themselves must always please;

On others' ways they never squint a frown,
Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town:
Thus, from the source of tender Indolence,
With milky blood the heart is overflown,

Is soothed and sweeten'd by the social sense; For interest, envy, pride, and strife are banish'd hence.

XVI.

'What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm; Above the reach of wild ambition's wind, Above those passions that this world deform, And torture man, a proud malignant worm ? But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, And gently stir the heart, thereby to form A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray [gay. Across the enliven'd skies, and make them still more

XVII.

'The best of men have ever loved repose :

They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;

Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows, Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day. Ev'n those whom fame has lent her fairest ray, The most renown'd of worthy wights of yore, From a base world at last have stolen away : So Scipio, to the soft Cumaan shore Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before.

XVIII.

'But if a little exercise you choose,

Some zest for ease, 'tis not forbidden here:
Amid the groves you may indulge the Muse,
Or tend the blooms, and deck the vernal year;
Or softly stealing, with your watery gear,
Along the brooks, the crimson-spotted fry
You may delude: the whilst, amused, you hear
Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr's
sigh,

Attuned to the birds, and woodland melody.

XIX.

"O grievous folly! to heap up estate,
Losing the days you see beneath the sun;
When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting Fate,
And gives the untasted portion you have won,
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone,
To those who mock you, gone to Pluto's reign,
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun:
But sure it is of vanities most vain,

To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.'

XX.

He ceased. But still their trembling ears retain'd The deep vibrations of his witching song; That, by a kind of magic power, constrain'd To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng. Heaps pour'd on heaps, and yet they slipt along, In silent ease; as when beneath the beam Of summer-moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silver'd with the gleam, The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream:

XXI.

By the smooth demon so it order'd was,
And here his baneful bounty first began:
Though some there were who would not further
pass,

And his alluring baits suspected han.

The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man.
Yet through the gate they cast a wishful eye:
Not to move on, perdie, is all they can :
For, do their very best, they cannot fly,
But often each way look, and often sorely sigh.

XXII.

When this the watchful wicked wizard saw, With sudden spring he leap'd upon them straight; And, soon as touch'd by his unhallow'd paw, They found themselves within the cursed gate; Full hard to be repass'd, like that of Fate. Not stronger were of old the giant-crew, Who sought to pull high Jove from regal state; Though feeble wretch he seem'd, of sallow hue: Certes, who bides his grasp, will that encounter rue.

XXIII.

For whomsoe'er the villain takes in hand,
Their joints unknit, their sinews melt apace;
As lithe they grow as any willow-wand,
And of their vanish'd force remains no trace:
So when a maiden fair, of modest grace,
In all her buxom blooming May of charms,
Is seized in some losel's hot embrace,
She waxeth very weakly as she warms,

Then sighing yields her up to love's delicious harms.