See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing, See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw : Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite : Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper ftage : And beads and pray’r-books are thc toys of age : Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before ; 'Till tir’d he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er. Mean-while opinion gilds with varying rays Those painted clouds that beautify our days ; Each want of happiness by hope supply'd, And each vacuity of sense by pride : These build as fast as knowledge can destroy ; In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy ; One prospect lost, another still we gain ; And not a vanity is given in vain ; Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thinc. See! and confess, one comfort ftill must rise, 'Tis this, tho' man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE. POPE. National CharaEters. FAR to the right where Appenine ascends, , Bright as the summer, Italy extends ; Her uplands Noping deck the mountain's side, Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ; While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between, With venerable grandeur mark the scene. Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, The fons of Italy were surely blest. Whatever fruits in different climes are found, That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground; Whatever blooms in torrid traĉts appear, Whose bright succession decks the varied year ; Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives that blossom but to die ; These These here difporting own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil ; While sea-born gales their gelid wings ex pand To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, And sensual bliss is all this nation knows. In Aorid beauty groves and fields appear, Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign ; Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain ; Though grave, yet trilling; zealous, yet untrue ; And ev’n in penance planning fins ancw. All evils here contaminate the mind, That opulence departed leaves behind ; For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, When commerce proudly fourish'd through the state : At her command the palace learnt to rise, Again the long-fall'n column fought the skies; The B 3 The canvass glow'd beyond e'en nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form. Till, more unsteady than the fouthern gale, Commerce on other shores display'd her fale ; While nought remain'd of all that riches gave, But towns unmann'd, and lords without a flave : And late the nation found with fruitless skill Its former strength was but plethoric ill. Yet ftill the loss of wealth is here supplied By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride; From these the feeble heart and long-fallin mind, An easy compensation seem to find. Here may be seen in bloodless pomp array’d, guild, While While low delights, fucceeding fast behind, sway, pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. My soul turn from them, turn me to survey Where rougher climes à nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread; No product here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the foldier and his sword. No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, But meteors glare, and stormy glooms in veft. Yet still, eyen here, Content can spread a charin, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though |
