Who ne'er to flatter will descend,
Nor bend the knee to power,
A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, My inmost soul to see;
And that my friendship prove as strong For him as his for me.
I want the seals of power and place, The ensigns of command; Charged by the People's unbought grace To rule my native land. Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask But from my country's will, By day, by night, to ply the task Her cup of bliss to fill.
I want the voice of honest praise To follow me behind,
And to be thought in future days The friend of human kind, That after ages, as they rise, Exulting may proclaim In choral union to the skies
Their blessings on my name.
The titulado 's oft disgraced
By public hate or private frown, And ne whose hand the creature raised Has yet a foot to kick him down.
The drudge who would all get, all save, Like a brute beast, both feeds and lies; Prone to the earth, he digs his grave, And in the very labor dies.
Excess of ill-got, ill-kept pelf
Does only death and danger breed ; Whilst one rich worldling starves himself With what would thousand others feed.
By which we see that wealth and power, Although they make men rich and great, The sweets of life do often sour, And gull ambition with a cheat.
Nor is he happier than these, Who, in a moderate estate, Where he might safely live at ease, Has lusts that are immoderate.
For he, by those desires misled, Quits his own vine's securing shade, To expose his naked, empty head To all the storms man's peace invade.
Nor is he happy who is trim,
Tricked up in favors of the fair, Mirrors, with every breath made dim,
Birds, caught in every wanton snare. Woman, man's greatest woe or bliss,
Does oftener far than serve, enslave, And with the magic of a kiss
Destroys whom she was made to save.
O fruitful grief, the world's disease! And vainer man, to make it so, Who gives his miseries increase By cultivating his own woe!
There are no ills but what we make
By giving shapes and names to things, Which is the dangerous mistake
That causes all our sufferings.
We call that sickness which is health, That persecution which is grace, That poverty which is true wealth, And that dishonor which is praise. Alas! our time is here so short
That in what state soe'er 't is spent, Of joy or woe, does not import, Provided it be innocent.
But we may make it pleasant too,
If we will take our measures right, And not what Heaven has done undo By an unruly appetite.
The world is full of beaten roads, But yet so slippery withal, That where one walks secure 't is odds A hundred and a hundred fall.
Untrodden paths are then the best, Where the frequented are unsure; And he comes soonest to his rest Whose journey has been most secure.
It is content alone that makes
Our pilgrimage a pleasure here; And who buys sorrow cheapest takes An ill commodity too dear.
THE TOUCHSTONE.
A MAN there came, whence none could tell, Bearing a Touchstone in his hand, And tested all things in the land
By its unerring spell.
A thousand transformations rose From fair to foul, from foul to fair : The golden crown he did not spare,
Nor scorn the beggar's clothes.
Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, Were many changed to chips and clods; And even statues of the Gods
Crumbled beneath its touch.
Then angrily the people cried, "The loss outweighs the profit far; Our goods suffice us as they are:
We will not have them tried."
And, since they could not so avail To check his unrelenting quest, They seized him, saying, "Let him test
How real is our jail!"
But though they slew him with the sword, And in a fire his Touchstone burned, Its doings could not be o'erturned,
And when, to stop ail future harm, They strewed its ashes on the breeze, They little guessed each grain of these Conveyed the perfect charm.
FROM "THE WINTER WALK AT NOON:" "THE TASK," BOOK VI.
He is the happy man whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects, more illustrious in her view; And, occupied as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain, He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems Her honors, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose power is such that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed. Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed, And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing.
CYRIACK, this three years' day, these eyes, though
To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot: Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man or woman, yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied In Liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew ; The conscious stone to beauty grew.
Know'st thou what wove yon wood bird's nest Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads ? Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone; And Morning opes with haste her lids, To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For, out of Thought's interior sphere, These wonders rose to upper air; And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.
These temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass. The passive Master lent his hand To the vast Soul that o'er him planned; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires. The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost. I know what say the fathers wise, The Book itself before me lies, Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. His words are music in my ear, I see his cowled portrait dear; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be.
FROM AN ESSAY ON MAN," EPISTLE IV.
O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow? Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reaped in iron harvests of the field? Where grows ?- where grows it not? If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere ;
'T is nowhere to be found, or everywhere: "T is never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.
Ask of the learned the way? The learned are
This bids to serve, and that to shun, mankind; Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ; Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain; Some, swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain ; Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in everything, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness"
Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease.
THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are ; Whose soul is still prepared for death, Not tied unto the world with care Of public fame or private breath;
« VorigeDoorgaan » |