Say not, O man! for it becomes thee not,
This evil shall not happen to my lot.

Him I esteem most virtuous of mankind
Who bears offences with a patient mind.

As in a round wide view from some tall hill,
Central and isolate, it happeneth oft
The furthest things on all sides eyeable
Are village temples tapering to the skies,
Be such, too, the horizon of the soul;
And every ultimate object, unto Heaven
Calmly aspiring, indicate its end,
And sanctify the limits of our life.
For as in gentlest exhalations earth
Breathes forth the glistening steams which high in air
Glow, sunlipped, into clouds of rosy gold,
Or seek again her breast in fruitful dew;
So of our aspirations and desires,

The rose is weeping for her love,
The Nightingale;
And he is flying fast above,
To her he will not fail.
Already golden eve appears,
He wings his way along;
Ah! look, he comes to kiss her tears,
And soothe her with his song.

The moon in pearly light may steep
The still blue air;
The rose hath ceased to droop and weep,
For lo! her love is there.
He sings to her, and o'er the trees
She hears his sweet notes swim;
The world may weary; she but sees
Her love, and hears but him.

Blest are the wealthy who abound in sense,
Which gives a noble sanction to expence:
This, this should be the son of fortune's care,
The weight of wealth with equal mind to bear;
For riches oft deprave the human will,
And turn the bias of the mind to ill.

Folly, Vice and Pride,
My Pen must deride,
Where-ever they are known to reign;
Tho' with Fortune blest,
And in Titles drest,
It shall ne'er damp the Critic Strain:
I despise the Set,
Who, themselves forget,
And are of Fortune's Favours vain,

2.

View our Royal King,
See all Virtues spring
Within his lovely sacred Breast;
Nature's Favourite,
Form'd Love to excite,
With Fortune's Bounties amply blest:
His Example's fair,

No good in life the race of men can see,
Spring from one root, as branches from the tree;
But near the good we find the evil still,
And frequent good arises out of ill.

Chap. III. paraphrased

When, in a glorious terrible array,
From Paran's tow'ring height th' Almighty took his way,
Borne on a cherub's wings her rode,
Intolerable day proclaim'd the God;
No earthly cloud
Could his effulgent brightness shroud;
Glory, and Majesty, and Power,
March'd in a dreadful pomp before;
Behind a grim and meagre train,
Pining Sickness, frantic Pain,
Stalk'd wildly on! with all the dismal band
Which heaven in anger sends to scourge a guilty land.

How sweet and pleasant, to a man endued
With moral goodness, is deep solitude?
Pensive to rove, not meditating harm,
And live in affluence at his country farm.
For in large cities where the many bide,
Self-cankering envy dwells, and high-blown pride:
There lull'd in all the luxury of ease,
They live at large, licentious as they please;
Yet soon these pleasures pall, and quick decay,
Like the light blaze that crackling dies away.

Happy the bard, the drama must confess,
Who first converted prologues to address;
And found the way to charm the critic fury,
By gentle supplication to the jury:
Thus when some Richard burns with tragic rage,
Or mad Ophelia pants to tread the stage;
Thanks to the mode — and writers only know it,
Their dulness is preceded by the poet;
And crimson blushes, starts, and trembling fears,
Are partly hush'd ere " Sir or ma'am " appears;
But why o'er reason should our fears prevail,
Where Mercy reigns, and Justice holds the scale?