Chiefly where Solitude, sad nurse of Care, CAUSES OF INSANITY. Such phantoms pride, in solitary scenes, Or fear, on delicate self-love creates. From other cares absolved, the busy mind Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon; It finds you miserable, or makes you so. For while yourself you anxiously explore, Timorous self-love, with sickening fancy's aid, Presents the danger that you dread the most, And ever galls you in your tender part. Hence some for love, and some for jealousy, For grim religion some, and some for pride, Have lost their reason: some for fear of want Want all their lives; and others every day For fear of dying suffer worse than death. Ah! from your bosoms banish, if you can, Those fatal guests and first, the demon Fear, That trembles at impossible events; Lest aged Atlas should resign his load, And heaven's eternal battlements rush down. Is there an evil worse than fear itself? And what avails it that indulgent Heaven From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come, If we, ingenious to torment ourselves, Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own? Enjoy the present; nor with needless cares, Of what may spring from blind Misfortune's womb, Appall the surest hour that life bestows. Serene, and master of yourself, prepare For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven. THE BODY'S AILS DISEASE THE MIND, WHICH REACTS ON THE Oft from the body, by long ails mistuned, Vain are the consolations of the wise; SORROW SHOULD SEEK CHANGE, NOT INDULGENCE. — TRAVEL. -WAR. O ye, whose souls relentless love has tamed To soft distress, or friends untimely fallen! Court not the luxury of tender thought; Nor deem it impious to forget those pains That hurt the living, naught avail the dead. Go, soft enthusiast! quit the cypress groves, Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune Your sad complaint. Go, seek the cheerful haunts Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd; Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame, the wish Of nobler minds, and push them night and day. Or join the caravan in quest of scenes New to your eyes, and shifting every hour, Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines. Or, more adventurous, rush into the field Where war grows hot; and, raging through the sky, The lofty trumpet swells the maddening soul: And in the hardy camp and toilsome march Forget all softer and less manly cares. DROWNING CARE OR SORROW IN DRINK ONLY INCREASES WOE. But most, too passive, when the blood runs low, Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves DREADFUL FEELINGS WHEN THE EXCITEMENT OF DRINK PASSES OFF. — PENTHEUS. For, prodigal of life, in one rash night You lavished more than might support three days. A heavy morning comes; your cares return With ten-fold rage. An anxious stomach well May be endured; so may the throbbing head: But such a dim delirium, such a dream, Involves you; such a dastardly despair Unmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus' felt, 1 The grandson of Cadmus, and King of Thebes, driven mad by Bacchus for resisting the introduction of his worship. He was torn to pieces by his mother and two aunts, while they were in a bacchic frenzy. His fate is celebrated in the Bacchae of Euripides. When, baited round Citharon's cruel sides, He saw two suns and double Thebes ascend. And wish that Heaven from mortals had withheld SAD EFFECTS OF DRINKING. FOLLIES; CRIMES; CONTEMPT. PRECEPTS OF A HAPPY LIFE. THE WISE OLD MAN. How to live happiest; how avoid the pains, I could recite. Though old, he still retained THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. PLEASURE AS AN END. Versed in the woes and vanities of life, He pitied man and much he pitied those Whom falsely-smiling Fate has cursed with means To dissipate their days in quest of joy. Our aim is happiness; 't is yours, 't is mine, He said, 't is the pursuit of all that live; Yet few attain it, if 't was ere attained. But they the widest wander from the mark Who through the flowery paths of sauntering joy Seek this coy goddess; that from stage to stage Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue. For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings To counterpoise itself, relentless Fate Forbids that we through gay, voluptuous wilds Should ever roam; and were the Fates more kind, Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale. THE MOST SENSIBLE ARE THE HAPPIEST AND MOST VIRTUous. 'Tis not for mortals always to be blest. But him the least the dull or painful hours MAJESTY OF VIRTUE. SENSE. Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones But at his heart the most undaunted son [dare ; Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms. To nobler uses this determines wealth; This is the solid pomp of prosperous days; The peace and shelter of adversity. And if you pant for glory, build your fame On this foundation, which the secret shock Defies of envy and all-sapping time. The gaudy gloss of Fortune only strikes The vulgar eye: the suffrage of the wise, The praise that's worth ambition, is attained By sense alone, and dignity of mind. VIRTUE IS GOD'S BEST GIFT. WEALTH. THE END OF RICHES Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast Truths as refined as ever Athens heard ; The lawless powers. But other cares are mine : HOPE AN EXCELLENT PHYSICIAN.-FEAR. Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene LOVE; WHOM IT HARMS NOT. REFINED NATURES SHOULD But there are passions grateful to the breast, And yet no friends to life: perhaps they please Or to excess, and dissipate the soul; Or while they please, torment. The stubborn clown, (If love's omnipotence such hearts can mould), ILL CONSEQUENCES OF MUSING TO THE LOVER. To sighs devoted and to tender pains, Pensive you sit, or solitary stray, And waste your youth in musing. Musing first Toyed into care your unsuspecting heart: It found a liking there, a sportful fire, And that fomented into serious love; Which musing daily strengthens and improves Through all the heights of fondness and romance : And you're undone, the fatal shaft has sped, If once you doubt whether you love or no. SAD EFFECTS OF LOVE-SICKNESS. The body wastes away; the infected mind, Sweet Heaven, from such intoxicating charms And some have died for love; and some run mad; And some with desperate hands themselves have slain. CURES FOR LOVE-SICKNESS. VARIETY CONSIDERED. Some to extinguish, others to prevent, A mad devotion to one dangerous fair, TEMPERANCE IN LOVE. AVOID LICENTIOUSNESS; ITS DE TESTABLE EFFECTS. Is health your care, or luxury your aim, To deeds above your strength, impute it not Urge you to feats you well might sleep without; The stores of pleasure, cheerfulness, and health! THE PASSION OF ANGER. ITS ACTION AND EFFECTS COMPARED WITH LOVE, ENVY, FEAR, GRIEF, RAGE, JOY. Who pines with love, or in lascivious flames Consumes, is with his own consent undone ; He chooses to be wretched, to be mad; And warned proceeds, and wilful, to his fate. But there's a passion whose tempestuous sway Tears up each virtue planted in the breast, And shakes to ruins proud philosophy. For pale and trembling Anger rushes in, With faltering speech, and eyes that wildly stare; Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas, [strength. Desperate, and armed with more than mortal How soon the calm, humane, and polished man Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend! Who pines in love, or wastes with silent cares, Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief, Slowly descends, and lingering, to the Shades. But he whom anger stirs drops, if he dies, At once, and rushes apoplectic down; Or a fierce fever hurries him to hell. For, as the body through unnumbered strings Reverberates each vibration of the soul; As is the passion, such is still the pain The body feels: or chronic, or acute. And oft a sudden storm at once o'erpowers The life, or gives your reason to the winds. Such fates attend the rash alarm of fear, And sudden grief, and rage, and joy. TO SOME A FIT OF ANGER USEFUL. WHO SHOULD AVOID IT. -CAUTIONS TO THE IRRITABLE. There are, meantime, to whom the boisterous fit Is health, and only fills the sails of life. ADVICE TO THE CHOLERIC. While choler works, good friend, you may be wrong; Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight. You reason well; see as you ought to see, REMEDIES FOR ANGER.QUELL IT WITH OTHER PASSIONS. Beset with furies of all deadly shapes, Fierce and insidious, violent and slow, With all that urge or lure us on to fate, What refuge shall we seek? what arms prepare? Where reason proves too weak, or void of wiles To cope with subtle or impetuous powers, I would invoke new passions to your aid: With indignation would extinguish fear, With fear or generous pity vanquish rage, And love with pride; and force to force oppose. MUSIC AS A PASSION-QUELLER. -SATIRE OF OPERAS. There is a charm, a power, that sways the breast; Bids every passion revel or be still; Inspires with rage, or all your cares dissolves; Can soothe distraction, and almost despair. That power is music: far beyond the stretch Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage; Those clumsy heroes, those fat-headed gods, Who move no passion justly, but contempt: Who, like our dancers (light indeed and strong!), Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace. The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts; Good heaven! we praise them; we with loudest Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels; [peals And, with insipid show of rapture, die Of idiot notes impertinently long. TRUE MUSIC. ITS EFFECTS. DAVID AND SAUL. - ARION. Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad; 1 Amphion, at whose playing on the lyre the stones of the walls of Thebes are said to have taken their places of their own accord. 2 Orpheus, see his story, p. 235. Rural Ode for January. Sees here established her perennial way; While thro' the midnight, throne-involving cloud, A voice thus forces its resistless way; 'Seek, Powers tumultuous, dignified employ; Go, wreak your rage on man, each blissful scene destroy!' ANTISTROPHE. All obey, and shouts, that tear The vaulted heavens, his mandate hail; Lo! the dreaded, hideous train No more the verdant prospect charms the eye, Nature, o'erwhelmed, seems sunk in icy years; The child of sorrow heaves a pitying sigh.. Yet, holding stern their course, the cheering day, And gladness, peace, and hope, they frighten far away. EPODE. This is thy dreaded sway, Such terrors, Winter, thine. Lo! Superstition rears her gorgon head, And rouse to vulgar view the sheeted dead. On the midnight whirlwind tost, See the spectres, shadowy, pale! The spirits of tempestuous night; Heaven preserve my aching sight! O that again those peace-clad days were known, When o'er our happy plains the sun's mild radiance shone.' STROPHE. Let thy horrors chill their soul, Winter, the crowd may fear thy power; Wisdom spurns thy mad control, She starts not when thy tempests lower. Maid, enlarge my opening mind, Teach me thy pleasures and thy bliss to find; Raise me above their hopes and foolish fear, Who shrink when wintry storms appear. Are there no joys but those which Spring affords? Say, shall not Nature please on every view? Summer prepares the loved autumnal hoards; But has not surly Winter charms for you? Canst thou not still adore that awful God, Who midnight darkness wreathes, and pours his storms abroad? ANTISTROPHE. Calm and studious may I sit, Or the blooming portraits view, And pour instruction on the heart. EPODE. Nor be forgot the band, Who wisdom brought from heaven; Their praise the enduring lip of Time shall sing. To minds like theirs is given To bless their native land, And spurn dull earth, on philosophic wing. Thus the imperial eagle soars. While gazing crowds below admire, He bares his broad breast to meridian fire, Exerting all his cloud-surmounting powers. Oft may I wander o'er poetic plains, With bards of eldest time high converse hold; Oft too may Fancy's wildly-warbled strains Rouse, calm, direct the passion-moulded soul. Such joys for me, till when I see Fair-blooming Spring bedeck the fields; Fly then Despair, and sullen Care, Even gloomy Winter pleasure yields. Despondency Heaven ne'er for man designed, But framed each season's change to rouse and teach his mind. |