These shall the fury Passions tear, And Shame that sculks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try Lo, in the vale of years beneath A griesly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85 That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, 90 To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, 49. 50. THE SHRUBBERY O happy shades! to me unblest! And heart that cannot rest, agree! This glassy stream, that spreading pine, Foregoes not what she feels within, CC. 5 10 And slights the season and the scene. Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour Bound in thy adamantine chain The proud are taught to taste of pain, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 5 When first thy Sire to send on earth And bade to form her infant mind. What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb array'd Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye, that loves the ground, And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Still on thy solemn steps attend : Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 35 Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thundering voice, and threatening mien, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty; 40 The generous spark extinct revive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. T. Gray 45 I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain Society, Friendship, and Love Ye winds that have made me your sport, How fleet is a glance of the mind! And the swift-wingéd arrows of light. 52. 53. Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from Heaven as some have feign'd they drew, That ere through age or woe I shed my wings I In verse as musical as thou art true, But thou hast little need. There is a Book A chronicle of actions just and bright- TO THE SAME The twentieth year is well-nigh past 5 10 W. Cowper CCIV. |