The wits of modern time had told their beads,
And monkish legends been their only strains;
Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapped in weeds,

Our Shakspeare stroll'd and laugh'd with Warwick swains, Ne had my master Spenser charm'd his Mulla's plains.

"But should to fame your hearts unfeeling be,
If right I read, you pleasure all require;
Then hear how best may be obtain'd this fee,
How best enjoy'd this Nature's wide desire.
Toil, and be glad; let industry inspire
Into your quicken'd limbs her buoyant breath;
Who does not act, is dead: absorpt entire
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath ;
O leaden-hearted Men, to be in love with death!

"O who can speak the vigorous joys of health;
Unclogg'd the body, unobscur'd the mind;
The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth,
The temperate evening falls serene and kind;
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find;
See how the younglings frisk along the meads,
As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind;
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds;

Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce breeds?

66 There are, I see, who listen to my lay,

Who wretched sigh for virtue, but despair.

All may be done, (methinks I hear them say,)
E'en death despis'd, by generous actions fair;
All but for those who to these bowers repair;
Their every power dissolv'd in luxury,
To quit of torpid Sluggishness the lair,

And from the powerful arms of Sloth get free Tis rising from the dead-alas!—it cannot be !

'Would you then learn to dissipate the band
Of these huge threat'ning difficulties dire,
That in the weak man's way like lions stand,
His soul appall, and damp his rising fire?
Resolve, resolve, and to be men aspire.
Exert that noble privilege, alone,

Here to mankind indulg'd; control desire;

Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne,

Speak the commanding word, I will!—and it is done.

"Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise, Your few important days of trial here ?

Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise

Through endless states of being, still more near
To bliss approaching, and perfection clear?
Can you renounce a fortune so sublime?

Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer,

And roll, with vilest brutes, through mud and slime?

No! no! your heaven-touch'd hearts disdain the sordid

crime !"

"Enough! enough!" they cried. Strait from the crowd
The better sort on wings of transport fly;
As when amid the lifeless summits proud
Of Alpine cliffs, where to the gelid sky
Snows pil'd on snows in wintry torpor lie,
The rays divine of vernal Phoebus play,
Th' awaken'd heaps, in streamlets from on high,
Rous'd into action, lively leap away,

Glad-warbling through the vales, in their new being gay.

But far the greater part with rage inflam'd,
Dire-mutter'd curses, and blasphem'd high Jove.
"Ye sons of Hate!" (they bitterly exclaim'd),
"What brought you to this seat of peace and love?
While with kind Nature, here amid the

grove, We passed the harmless sabbath of our time, What to disturb it could, fell men, emove

Your barbarous hearts? Is happiness a crime? Then do the fiends of hell rule in yon heaven sublime."

"Ye impious wretches!" (quoth the knight in wrath),
"Your happiness behold!"-then strait a wand
He wav'd, an anti-magic power that hath
Truth from illusive falsehood to command.
Sudden the landscape sinks on every hand;

The pure quick streams are marshy puddles found ;
On baleful heaths the groves all blacken'd stand;
And o'er the weedy, foul, abhorred ground,

Snakes, adders, toads, each loathsome creature crawls around.

And here and there, on trees by lightning scath'd,
Unhappy wights, who loathed life, yhung;

Or in fresh gore and recent murder bath'd,
They weltering lay; or else, infuriate flung
Into the gloomy flood, while ravens sung

The funeral dirge, they down the torrent roll'd:

These by distemper'd blood to madness stung,

Had doom'd themselves; whence oft, when night controll'd

The world, returning hither their sad spirits howl'd.

Attended by a glad acclaiming train

Of those he rescued had from gaping hell,

Then turn'd the knight, and to his hall again.
Soft pacing, sought of Peace the mossy cell;
Yet down his cheeks the gems of pity fell,
To see the helpless wretches that remain'd,

There left through delves and deserts dire to yell;
Amaz'd, their looks with pale dismay were stain'd,
And spreading wide their hands, they meek repentance feign'd.

But, ah! their scorned day of grace was past;
For (horrible to tell) a desert wild

Before them stretch'd, bare, comfortless, and vast,
With gibbets, bones, and carcases defil'd.

There nor trim field nor lively culture smil'd,

Nor waving shade was seen, nor mountain fair;

But sands abrupt on sands lay loosely pil'd,

Thro' which they floundering toil'd with painful care, Whilst Phoebus smote them sore, and fir'd the cloudless air.

Then, varying to a joyless land of bogs,

The sadden'd country a gray waste appear'd,
Where naught but putrid streams and noisome fogs
Forever hung on drizzly Auster's beard;

Or else the ground by piercing Caurus sear'd,
Was jagg'd with frost, or heap'd with glazed snow:
Thro' these extremes a ceaseless round they steer'd,
By cruel fiends still hurried to and fro,

Gaunt Beggary, and Scorn, with many hell-hounds moe.
The first was with base dunghill rags yclad,
Tainting the gale in which they flutter'd light;
Of morbid hue, his features sunk and sad;
His hollow eyne shook forth a sickly light;
And o'er his lank jaw-bone, in piteous plight,
His black rough beard was matted rank and vile;

Direful to see! an heart-appalling sight!

Meantime foul scurf and blotches him defile,

And dogs, where'er he went, still barked all the while.

The other was a fell despightful fiend:

Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below;
By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancor, keen'd;
Of man alike, if good or bad, the foe;
With nose upturn'd, he always made a show,
As if he smelt some nauseous scent; his eye
Was cold and keen, like blast from boreal snow,
And taunts he casten forth most bitterly.

Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly fry.

E'en so thro' Brentford town, a town of mud,
An herd of bristly swine is prick'd along;

The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud,

Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous song, And oft they plunge themselves the mire among; But aye the ruthless driver goads them on, And aye, of barking dogs the biter throng Makes them renew their unmelodious moan; Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone.