FROM 'THE SPLEEN.'

To cure the mind's wrong bias, Spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green; Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;

Fling but a stone, the giant dies.

Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the Spleen;
And kitten, if the humour hit,

Has harlequined away the fit.

Since mirth is good in this behalf, At some particulars let us laugh.

Witlings, brisk fools, cursed with half-sense,
That stimulates their impotence;

Who buzz in rhyme, and, like blind flies,
Err with their wings for want of eyes;
Poor authors worshipping a calf,
Deep tragedies that make us laugh,
A strict dissenter saying grace,
A lecturer preaching for a place,
Folks, things prophetic to dispense,
Making the past the future tense,
The popish dubbing of a priest,
Fine epitaphs on knaves deceased,
Green-aproned Pythonissa's rage,
Great Esculapius on his stage,
A miser starving to be rich,
The prior of Newgate's dying speech,
A jointured widow's ritual state,
Two Jews disputing tête-à-tête,
New almanacs composed by seers,
Experiments on felons' ears,

Disdainful prudes, who ceaseless ply
The superb muscle of the eye,

A coquette's April-weather face,

A Queenborough mayor behind his mace,

In rainy days keep double guard,
Or Spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest, while their wings are wet.
In such dull weather, so unfit

To enterprise a work of wit,
When clouds one yard of azure sky,
That's fit for simile, deny,

I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But if dull fogs invade the head,
That memory minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,

And on the drowning world remark:
Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day,
And from the hipped discourses gather,
That politics go by the weather:

Then seek good-humoured tavern chums,
And play at cards, but for small sums;

Or with the merry fellows quaff,

And laugh aloud with them that laugh; Or drink a joco-serious cup

With souls who've took their freedom up, And let my mind, beguiled by talk,

In Epicurus' garden walk,

Who thought it heaven to be serene;
Pain, hell; and purgatory, spleen.

Law, licensed breaking of the peace, To which vacation is disease;

A gypsy diction scarce known well
By th' magi, who law-fortunes tell,
I shun; nor let it breed within
Anxiety, and that the Spleen;
Law, grown a forest, where perplex
The mazes, and the brambles vex;
Where its twelve verderers every day
Are changing still the public way:
Yet if we miss our path and err,
We grievous penalties incur ;

And wanderers tire, and tear their skin,
And then get out where they went in.

I rail not with mock-patriot grace
At folks, because they are in place;
Nor, hir'd to praise with stallion pen,
Serve the ear-lechery of men ;
But to avoid religious jars
The laws are my expositors,
Which in my doubting mind create
Conformity to church and state.
I go, pursuant to my plan,
To Mecca with the Caravan ;

And think it right in common sense
Both for diversion and defence.

Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world's a vast design:
Like theirs, who tug in little boat,
To pull to them the ship afloat,
While to defeat their labour'd end,

At once both wind and stream contend: Success herein is seldom seen,

And zeal, when baffled, turns to Spleen, Happy the man, who, innocent, Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;

His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pulled against the tide.
He, paddling by the scuffling crowd,
Sees unconcerned life's wager rowed,
And when he can't prevent foul play,
Enjoys the folly of the fray.

By these reflections I repeal
Each hasty promise made in zeal.
When gospel propagators say,

We're bound our great light to display,
And Indian darkness drive away,
Yet none but drunken watchmen send
And scoundrel link-boys for that end;
When they cry up this holy war,
Which every christian should be for,
Yet such as owe the law their ears,
We find employ'd as engineers:
This view my forward zeal so shocks,
In vain they hold the money-box.
At such a conduct, which intends
By vicious means such virtuous ends,
I laugh off Spleen, and keep my pence
From spoiling Indian innocence.

You, friend, like me, the trade of rhyme Avoid, elaborate waste of time, Nor are content to be undone, To pass for Phoebus' crazy son. Poems, the hop-grounds of the brain, Afford the most uncertain gain; And lotteries never tempt the wise With blanks so many to a prize. I only transient visits pay, Meeting the Muses in my way,

Scarce known to the fastidious dames, Nor skill'd to call them by their names, Nor can their passports in these days, Your profit warrant, or your praise.

On Poems by their dictates writ,
Critics, as sworn appraisers, sit,
And mere upholsterers in a trice
On gems and painting set a price.
These tailoring artists for our lays

Invent cramped rules, and with strait stays
Striving free Nature's shape to hit,
Emaciate sense, before they fit.

*

Forced by soft violence of prayer,

The blithesome goddess soothes my care,
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire.

Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids, that never saw the town,
A serving-man not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,

And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper formed to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys;
And better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May heav'n (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cup-board, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land:

A pond before full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;

Behind, a green like velvet neat,

Soft to the eye, and to the feet;