For the unfcented fictions of the loom;
Who, fatisfied with only pencil'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

Th' inferior wonders of an artift's hand!
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire—
None more admires-the painter's magic skill,
Who fhows me that which I shall never fee,
Conveys a distant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on Englifh walls :

But imitative ftrokes can do no more

Than please the eye-sweet Nature ev'ry fenfe.
The air falubrious of her lofty hills,
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And mufic of her woods-no works of man
May rival thefe; these all bespeak a pow'r
Peculiar, and exclufively her own.
Beneath the open fky fhe spreads the feaft;
'Tis free to all-'tis ev'ry day renew'd;
Who fcorns it ftarves defervedly at home.

He does not fcorn it, who, imprison'd long
In fome unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To fallow fickness,which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:

His cheeks recovers foon its healthful hue;
His eye relumines its extinguish'd fires;

He walks, he leaps, he runs-is wing'd with joy,
And riots in the sweets of ev'ry breeze.

He does not fcorn it, who has long endur'd
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam'd
With acrid falts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the fhip's tall fide he ftands, poffefs'd
With vifions prompted by intense desire :
Fair fields appear below, fuch as he left
Far diftant, fuch as he would die to find-
He feeks them headlong, and is feen no more.

The spleen is feldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And fullen fadness, that o'erfhade, distort,

And mar, the face of beauty, when no cause
For fuch immeasurable wo appears,

Thefe Flora banishes, and gives the fair

Sweet fimiles, and bloom lefs tranfient than her own. It is the conftant revolution, ftale

And taftelefs, of the fame repeated joys,

That palls and fatiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down,
Health fuffers, and the fpirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from its own choice- at the full feast
Is famifh'd-finds no mufic in the fong,
No smartness in the jeft; and wonders why,
Yet thousands still defire to journey on,
Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.
The paralytic, who can hold her cards,
But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand

To deal and fhuffle, to divide and fort,

Her mingled fuits and fequences; and fits,
Spectatress both and fpectacle, a fad
And filent cypher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once feated, fit,
Through downright inability to rife,

Till the ftout bearers lift the corpfe again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet ev❜n thefe
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
That overhangs a torrent to a twig.

They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die,

Yet fcorn the purposes for which they live.

Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the dread,
The flavish dread of folitude, that breeds

Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,
And their invet'rate habits, all forbid.

Whom call we gay? That honour has been long

The boast of mere pretenders to the name.
The innocent are gay--the lark is gay,

· That dries his feathers, faturate with dew,
Beneath the rofy cloud, while yet the beams
Of day-spring overfhoot his humble neft.
The peasant too, a witness of his fong,
Himself a fongfter, is as gay as he.

But fave me from the gaiety of thofe

Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And fave me too from their's whofe haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs
For property stripp'd off by cruel chance ;
From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,
The mouth with blafphemy, the heart with woe.

The earth was made fo various, that the mind Of defultory man, ftudious of change,

And pleas'd with novelty, might be indulg'd.
Profpects, however lovely, may be seen

Tiil half their beauties fade; the weary fight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, flides off,`
Faftidious, feeking less familiar fcenes.