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695

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-condemn'd 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 ordain'd
Should best secure them and promote them most;
Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive
Forsaken, or through folly not enjoy'd 25.
Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles,
And chaste, though unconfined, whom I extol;
Not as the prince in Sushan, when he call'd
Vain-glorious of her charms his Vashti forth
To grace the full pavilion. His design

25 On every thorn delightful wisdom grows,
In every rill a sweet instruction flows;
But some untaught, ne'er hear the whispering rill,
In spite of sacred leisure blockheads still.

700

705

710

715

Young.

Satire i.

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 renew'd,
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 26
Attract us, and neglected Nature pines
Abandon'd, as unworthy of our love.

720

725

730

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 preferr'd to smoke, to the eclipse
That metropolitan volcanoes make,

735

Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long, And to the stir of commerce, driving slow,

741

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 undebauch'd. But we have bid farewell
To all the virtues of those better days,
And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once

26 Tower'd cities please us then

And the busy hum of men.

L'Allegro.

745

Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds
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 auctioneer'd away.

750

755

The country starves, and they that feed the o'ercharged
And surfeited lewd town with her fair dues,

By a just judgement 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 whisker'd 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 agueish 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 directing wand,
Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,

760

765

770

775

Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades,
Even as he bids. The enraptured owner smiles. 780
'Tis finish'd! And yet finish'd as it seems,
Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show,
A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.

Drain'd to the last poor item of his wealth,

He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplish'd plan 785
That he has touch'd, retouch'd, many a long day
Labour'd, and many a night pursued in dreams,
Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heaven
He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy 28.

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,

790

795

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 29,
Well-managed, shall have earn'd its worthy price. 800

27 The pile is finish'd; every toil is past,
And full perfection is arrived at last ;

When lo! my Lord to some small corner runs,
And leaves state rooms to strangers and to duns.

28 The man who builds, and wants therewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.

Young. Satire i.

29 When men grow great from their revenue spent, And fly from bailiffs into parliament.

Young. Satire i.

Oh innocent compared with arts like these,
Crape and cock'd 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 incurr'd

By endless riot, vanity, the lust
Of pleasure and variety, dispatch,

As duly as the swallows disappear,

805

810

816

The world of wandering knights and 'squires to town.
London ingulfs 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, doom'd to a cold jail

820

And groat per diem if his patron frown.
The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp

Were character'd on every statesman's door,

"BATTER'D 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

825

830

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