As one who, long in thickets and in brakes

Entangled, winds now this way and now that

His devious course uncertain, seeking home;

Or, having long in miry ways been foiled

And sore discomfited, from slough to slough

Plunging, and half despairing of escape,

If chance at length he find a greensward smooth

And faithful to the foot, his spirits rise,

He chirrups brisk his ear-erecting steed,

And winds his way with pleasure and with ease;

So I, designing other themes, and called

To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due,

To tell its slumbers and to paint its dreams,

Have rambled wide. In country, city, seat

Of academic fame, howe’er deserved,

Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last.

But now with pleasant pace, a cleanlier road

I mean to tread. I feel myself at large,

Courageous, and refreshed for future toil,

If toil await me, or if dangers new.

Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflect

Most part an empty ineffectual sound,

What chance that I, to fame so little known,

Nor conversant with men or manners much,

Should speak to purpose, or with better hope

Crack the satiric thong? ’Twere wiser far

For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes,

And charmed with rural beauty, to repose,

Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine

My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains;

Or when rough winter rages, on the soft

And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air

Feeds a blue flame and makes a cheerful hearth;

There, undisturbed by folly, and apprised

How great the danger of disturbing her,

To muse in silence, or at least confine

Remarks that gall so many to the few,

My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed

Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault

Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.

Domestic happiness, thou only bliss

Of Paradise that has survived the fall!

Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure,

Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm

Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets

Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect

Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup.

Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms

She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,

Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.

Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored,

That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist

And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm

Of Novelty, her fickle frail support;

For thou art meek and constant, hating change,

And finding in the calm of truth-tried love

Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.

Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made

Of honour, dignity, and fair renown,

Till prostitution elbows us aside

In all our crowded streets, and senates seem

Convened for purposes of empire less,

Than to release the adult’ress from her bond.

The adult’ress! what a theme for angry verse,

What provocation to the indignant heart

That feels for injured love! but I disdain

The nauseous task to paint her as she is,

Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame.

No; let her pass, and charioted along

In guilty splendour shake the public ways;

The frequency of crimes has washed them white,

And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch

Whom matrons now of character unsmirched

And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own.

Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time

Not to be passed; and she that had renounced

Her sex’s honour, was renounced herself

By all that prized it; not for prudery’s sake,

But dignity’s, resentful of the wrong.

’Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif

Desirous to return, and not received;

But was a wholesome rigour in the main,

And taught the unblemished to preserve with care

That purity, whose loss was loss of all.

Men, too, were nice in honour in those days,

And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped,

And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained,

Was marked and shunned as odious. He that sold

His country, or was slack when she required

His every nerve in action and at stretch,

Paid with the blood that he had basely spared

The price of his default. But now,—yes, now,

We are become so candid and so fair,

So liberal in construction, and so rich

In Christian charity (good-natured age!)

That they are safe, sinners of either sex,

Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, well bred,

Well equipaged, is ticket good enough

To pass us readily through every door.

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may

(And no man’s hatred ever wronged her yet),

May claim this merit still—that she admits

The worth of what she mimics with such care,

And thus gives virtue indirect applause;

But she has burnt her mask, not needed here,

Where vice has such allowance, that her shifts

And specious semblances have lost their use.

I was a stricken deer that left the herd

Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt

My panting side was charged, when I withdrew

To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I found by one who had himself

Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,

And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts

He drew them forth, and healed and bade me live.

Since then, with few associates, in remote

And silent woods I wander, far from those

My former partners of the peopled scene,

With few associates, and not wishing more.

Here much I ruminate, as much I may,

With other views of men and manners now

Than once, and others of a life to come.

I see that all are wanderers, gone astray

Each in his own delusions; they are lost

In chase of fancied happiness, still woo’d

And never won. Dream after dream ensues,

And still they dream that they shall still succeed,

And still are disappointed: rings the world

With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind,

And add two-thirds of the remaining half,

And find the total of their hopes and fears

Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay

As if created only, like the fly

That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon,

To sport their season and be seen no more.

The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise,

And pregnant with discoveries new and rare.

Some write a narrative of wars, and feats

Of heroes little known, and call the rant

A history; describe the man, of whom

His own coevals took but little note,

And paint his person, character, and views,

As they had known him from his mother’s womb;

They disentangle from the puzzled skein,

In which obscurity has wrapped them up,

The threads of politic and shrewd design

That ran through all his purposes, and charge

His mind with meanings that he never had,

Or, having, kept concealed. Some drill and bore

The solid earth, and from the strata there

Extract a register, by which we learn

That He who made it and revealed its date

To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

Some, more acute and more industrious still,

Contrive creation; travel nature up

To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,

And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixt,

And planetary some; what gave them first

Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust

Involves the combatants, each claiming truth,

And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend

The little wick of life’s poor shallow lamp

In playing tricks with nature, giving laws

To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.

Is’t not a pity now, that tickling rheums

Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight

Of oracles like these? Great pity, too,

That having wielded the elements, and built

A thousand systems, each in his own way,

They should go out in fume and be forgot?

Ah, what is life thus spent? and what are they

But frantic who thus spend it? all for smoke—

Eternity for bubbles proves at last

A senseless bargain. When I see such games

Played by the creatures of a Power who swears

That He will judge the earth, and call the fool

To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain,

And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well,

And prove it in the infallible result

So hollow and so false—I feel my heart

Dissolve in pity, and account the learned,

If this be learning, most of all deceived.

Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps

While thoughtful man is plausibly amused.

Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I,

From reveries so airy, from the toil

Of dropping buckets into empty wells,

And growing old in drawing nothing up!

’Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound,

Terribly arched and aquiline his nose,

And overbuilt with most impending brows,

’Twere well could you permit the world to live

As the world pleases. What’s the world to you?—

Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk

As sweet as charity from human breasts.

I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,

And exercise all functions of a man.

How then should I and any man that lives

Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein,

Take of the crimson stream meandering there,

And catechise it well. Apply your glass,

Search it, and prove now if it be not blood

Congenial with thine own; and if it be,

What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose

Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art,

To cut the link of brotherhood, by which

One common Maker bound me to the kind?

True; I am no proficient, I confess,

In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift

And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,

And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath;

I cannot analyse the air, nor catch

The parallax of yonder luminous point

That seems half quenched in the immense abyss:

Such powers I boast not—neither can I rest

A silent witness of the headlong rage,

Or heedless folly, by which thousands die,

Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.

God never meant that man should scale the heavens

By strides of human wisdom. In His works,

Though wondrous, He commands us in His Word

To seek Him rather where His mercy shines.

The mind indeed, enlightened from above,

Views Him in all; ascribes to the grand cause

The grand effect; acknowledges with joy

His manner, and with rapture tastes His style.

But never yet did philosophic tube,

That brings the planets home into the eye

Of observation, and discovers, else

Not visible, His family of worlds,

Discover Him that rules them; such a veil

Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth,

And dark in things divine. Full often too

Our wayward intellect, the more we learn

Of nature, overlooks her Author more;

From instrumental causes proud to draw

Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake:

But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray

Through all the heart’s dark chambers, and reveal

Truths undiscerned but by that holy light,

Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees

As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives Him His praise, and forfeits not her own.

Learning has borne such fruit in other days

On all her branches. Piety has found

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer

Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!

Sagacious reader of the works of God,

And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine,

Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,

And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom

Our British Themis gloried with just cause,

Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised,

And sound integrity not more, than famed

For sanctity of manners undefiled.

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades

Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind;

Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;

The man we celebrate must find a tomb,

And we that worship him, ignoble graves.

Nothing is proof against the general curse

Of vanity, that seizes all below.

The only amaranthine flower on earth

Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.

But what is truth? ’twas Pilate’s question put

To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.

And wherefore? will not God impart His light

To them that ask it?—Freely—’tis His joy,

His glory, and His nature to impart.

But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,

Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.

What’s that which brings contempt upon a book

And him that writes it, though the style be neat,

The method clear, and argument exact?

That makes a minister in holy things

The joy of many, and the dread of more,

His name a theme for praise and for reproach?—

That, while it gives us worth in God’s account,

Depreciates and undoes us in our own?

What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,

That learning is too proud to gather up,

But which the poor and the despised of all

Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?

Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.

Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man,

Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,

Domestic life in rural leisure passed!

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,

Though many boast thy favours, and affect

To understand and choose thee for their own.

But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss,

Even as his first progenitor, and quits,

Though placed in paradise, for earth has still

Some traces of her youthful beauty left,

Substantial happiness for transient joy.

Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse

The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest,

By every pleasing image they present,

Reflections such as meliorate the heart,

Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;

Scenes such as these, ’tis his supreme delight

To fill with riot and defile with blood.

Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes

We persecute, annihilate the tribes

That draw the sportsman over hill and dale

Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares;

Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again,

Nor baited hook deceive the fish’s eye;

Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song

Be quelled in all our summer months’ retreats;

How many self-deluded nymphs and swains,

Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,

Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,

And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!

They love the country, and none else, who seek

For their own sake its silence and its shade;

Delights which who would leave, that has a heart

Susceptible of pity, or a mind

Cultured and capable of sober thought,

For all the savage din of the swift pack,

And clamours of the field? Detested sport,

That owes its pleasures to another’s pain,

That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks

Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued

With eloquence, that agonies inspire,

Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs!

Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find

A corresponding tone in jovial souls.

Well—one at least is safe. One sheltered hare

Has never heard the sanguinary yell

Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.

Innocent partner of my peaceful home,

Whom ten long years’ experience of my care

Has made at last familiar, she has lost

Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,

Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.

Yes—thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand

That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor

At evening, and at night retire secure

To thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarmed;

For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged

All that is human in me to protect

Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.

If I survive thee I will dig thy grave,

And when I place thee in it, sighing say,

I knew at least one hare that had a friend.

How various his employments, whom the world

Calls idle, and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler, too!

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,

Delightful industry enjoyed at home,

And nature in her cultivated trim

Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad—

Can he want occupation who has these?

Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?

Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,

Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,

Not waste it; and aware that human life

Is but a loan to be repaid with use,

When He shall call His debtors to account,

From whom are all our blessings; business finds

Even here: while sedulous I seek to improve,

At least neglect not, or leave unemployed,

The mind He gave me; driving it, though slack

Too oft, and much impeded in its work

By causes not to be divulged in vain,

To its just point—the service of mankind.

He that attends to his interior self,

That has a heart and keeps it; has a mind

That hungers and supplies it; and who seeks

A social, not a dissipated life,

Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve

No unimportant, though a silent task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem,

To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;

But wisdom is a pearl with most success

Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.

He that is ever occupied in storms,

Or dives not for it or brings up instead,

Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.

The morning finds the self-sequestered man

Fresh for his task, intend what task he may.

Whether inclement seasons recommend

His warm but simple home, where he enjoys,

With her who shares his pleasures and his heart,

Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph

Which neatly she prepares; then to his book

Well chosen, and not sullenly perused

In selfish silence, but imparted oft

As aught occurs that she may smile to hear,

Or turn to nourishment digested well.

Or if the garden with its many cares,

All well repaid, demand him, he attends

The welcome call, conscious how much the hand

Of lubbard labour needs his watchful eye,

Oft loitering lazily if not o’erseen,

Or misapplying his unskilful strength.

Nor does he govern only or direct,

But much performs himself; no works indeed

That ask robust tough sinews, bred to toil,

Servile employ—but such as may amuse,

Not tire, demanding rather skill than force.

Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees

That meet, no barren interval between,

With pleasure more than even their fruits afford,

Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel.

These, therefore, are his own peculiar charge,

No meaner hand may discipline the shoots,

None but his steel approach them. What is weak,

Distempered, or has lost prolific powers,

Impaired by age, his unrelenting hand

Dooms to the knife. Nor does he spare the soft

And succulent that feeds its giant growth,

But barren, at the expense of neighbouring twigs

Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick

With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left

That may disgrace his art, or disappoint

Large expectation, he disposes neat

At measured distances, that air and sun

Admitted freely may afford their aid,

And ventilate and warm the swelling buds.

Hence S............