From Lydia's monarch should the search | Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, descend, By Solon caution'd to regard his end, And Swift expires a driveller and a show! The teeming mother, anxious for her race, Begs for each birth the fortune of a face; Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring; And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king. Ye nymphs of rosy lips and radiant eyes, And ask the latest fashion of the heart; What care, what rules, your heedless charms shall save, Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave? Against your fame with fondness hate Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? Still raise for good the supplicating voice, But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant With heaven; fond earth, thou boast'st; mind? false world, thou ly'st. Thy babbling tongue tells golden tales Of endless treasure; Thy bounty offers easy sales Of lasting pleasure; Thou ask'st the conscience what she ails, And swear'st to ease her; There's none can want where thou supply'st: There's none can give where thou deny'st. Alas! fond world, thou boast'st; false world, thou ly'st. What well-advised ear regards What earth can say? Thy words are gold, but thy rewards Thy cunning can but pack the cards, Thy game at weakest, still thou vy'st; Thou art not what thou seem'st; false world, thou ly'st. Thy tinsel bosom seems a mint Of new-coin'd treasure: A paradise, that has no stint, No change, no measure; A painted cask, but nothing in't, Vain earth that falsely thus comply'st What mean dull souls, in this high meas Go, since I needs must die, Go, tell the court it glows Tell men of high condition That rule affairs of state, And if they once reply, Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending, Tell honor how it alters, Tell wit how much it wrangles And when they do reply, Straight give them both the lie. Tell physic of her boldness, Tell skill it is pretension, Tell charity of coldness, Tell law it is contention. Then the few whose spirits float above the | I am going to my own hearthstone, wreck of happiness Bosom'd in yon green hills aloneAre driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean A secret nook in a pleasant land, of excess: Whose groves the frolic fairies plann'd, The magnet of their course is gone, or only Where arches green, the livelong day, points in vain Echo the blackbird's roundelay, The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall And vulgar feet have never trod,— A spot that is sacred to thought and God. never stretch again. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home, death itself comes down; I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome, It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not And when I am stretch'd beneath the dream its own; pines, That heavy chill has frozen o'er the foun- Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and pride of man, tain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis At the sophist schools, and the learned where the ice appears. Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath. Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene, As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me! GOOD-BYE. LORD BYRON. GOOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home; Long I've been toss'd like the driven foam, Good-bye to flattery's fawning face, To crowded halls, to court and street, clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit. When man in the bush with God may meet? RALPH WALDO EMERSON. NO AGE CONTENT WITH HIS OWN LAID in my quiet bed, I saw within my troubled head And every thought did show So lively in mine eyes, I saw the little boy In thought, how oft that he The young man eke that feels His bones with pains oppress'd, The rich old man that sees His end draw on so sore, Whereat full oft I smiled, To see how all these three, |