Classic Poem

" Is this thy daily course? The glaring sun
Breaks in at ev'ry chink; the cattle run
To shades, and noontide rays of summer shun;
Yet plung'd in sloth we lie; and snore supine,
As fill'd with fumes of undigested wine. "
This grave advice some sober student bears,
And loudly rings it in his fellow's ears.
The yawning youth, scarce half awake, essays
His lazy limbs and dozy head to raise;
Then rubs his gummy eyes, and scrubs his pate,
And cries: " I thought it had not been so late:
My clothes; make haste: why when! " If none be near,
He mutters first, and then begins to swear:
And brays aloud, with a more clam'rous note,
Than an Arcadian ass can stretch his throat.
With much ado, his book before him laid,
And parchment with the smoother side display'd,
He takes the papers; lays 'em down again,
And with unwilling fingers tries the pen:
Some peevish quarrel straight he strives to pick;
His quill writes double, or his ink's too thick:
Infuse more water; now't is grown so thin,
It sinks, nor can the character be seen.
O wretch, and still more wretched ev'ry day!
Are mortals born to sleep their lives away?
Go back to what thy infancy began,
Thou who wert never meant to be a man:
Eat pap and spoon-meat; for thy gewgaws cry:
Be sullen, and refuse the lullaby.
No more accuse thy pen; but charge the crime
On native sloth, and negligence of time.
Think'st thou thy master, or thy friends, to cheat?
Fool, 't is thyself, and that's a worse deceit.
Beware the public laughter of the town;
Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown.
A flaw is in thy ill-bak'd vessel found;
'T is hollow, and returns a jarring sound.
Yet, thy moist clay is pliant to command;
Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand:
Now take the mold; now bend thy mind to feel
The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.
But thou hast land; a country seat, secure
By a just title; costly furniture;
A fuming-pan thy Lares to appease:
What need of learning when a man's at ease?
If this be not enough to swell thy soul,
Then please thy pride, and search the herald's roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree
Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree;
And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long-degree;
Who, clad in purple, canst thy censor greet,
And loudly call him cousin in the street,
Such pageantry be to the people shown;
There boast thy horse's trappings, and thy own:
I know thee to thy bottom; from within
Thy shallow center, to thy outmost skin:
Dost thou not blush to live so like a beast,
So trim, so dissolute, so loosely dress'd?
But 't is in vain: the wretch is drench'd too deep,
His soul is stupid, and his heart asleep;
Fatten'd in vice, so callous, and so gross,
He sins, and sees not, senseless of his loss
Down goes the wretch at once, unskill'd to swim,
Hopeless to bubble up and reach the water's brim.
Great Father of the Gods, when, for our crimes,
Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times;
Some tyrant king, the terror of his age,
The type, and true vicegerent of thy rage;
Thus punish him: set Virtue in his sight,
With all her charms adorn'd, with all her graces bright;
But set her distant, make him pale to see,
His gains outweigh'd by lost felicity!
Sicilian tortures, and the brazen bull,
Are emblems, rather than express the full
Of what he feels; yet what he fears is more:
The wretch, who sitting at his plenteous board,
Look'd up, and view'd on high the pointed sword
Hang o'er his head, and hanging by a twine,
Did with less dread, and more securely dine.
Ev'n in his sleep he starts, and fears the knife,
And, trembling, in his arms takes his accomplice wife:
Down, down he goes; and from his darling friend
Conceals the woes his guilty dreams portend.
When I was young, I, like a lazy fool,
Would blear my eyes with oil to stay from school,
Averse from pains, and loth to learn the part
Of Cato, dying with a dauntless heart;
Tho' much my master that stern virtue prais'd,
Which o'er the vanquisher the vanquish'd rais'd;
And my pleas'd father came with pride to see
His boy defend the Roman liberty.
But then my study was to cog the dice,
And dext'rously to throw the lucky sice;
To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away;
And watch the box, for fear they should convey
False bones, and put upon me in the play;
" Careful, besides, the whirling top to whip,
And drive her giddy, till she fell asleep.
Thy years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn
What's good or ill, and both their ends discern:
Thou, in the Stoic Porch, severely bred,
Hast heard the dogmas of great Zeno read;
Where on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand,
The conquer'd Medians in trunk-breeches stand;
Where the shorn youth to midnight lectures rise,
Rous'd from their slumbers to be early wise;
Where the coarse cake, and homely husks of beans,
From pamp'ring riot the young stomach weans;
And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run
To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun.
And yet thou snor'st; thou draw'st thy drunken breath,
Sour with debauch; and sleep'st the sleep of death:
Thy chaps are fallen, and thy frame disjoin'd;
Thy body as dissolv'd as is thy mind.
Hast thou not yet propos'd some certain end,
To which thy life, thy ev'ry act may tend?
Hast thou no mark at which to bend thy bow?
Or like a boy pursu'st the carrion crow
With pellets, and with stones, from tree to tree:
A fruitless toil, and liv'st extempore?
Watch the disease in time; for, when within
The dropsy rages and extends the skin,
In vain for hellebore the patient cries,
And fees the doctor; but too late is wise:
Too late for cure, he proffers half his wealth;
Conquest and Gibbons cannot give him health.
Learn, wretches, learn the motions of the mind,
Why you were made, for what you were design'd;
And the great moral end of humankind.
Study thyself, what rank or what degree
The wise Creator has ordain'd for thee;
And all the offices of that estate
Perform, and with thy prudence guide thy fate.
Pray justly, to be heard; nor more desire
Than what the decencies of life require.
Learn what thou ow'st thy country, and thy friend;
What's requisite to spare, and what to spend:
Learn this; and after, envy not the store
Of the greas'd advocate, that grinds the poor.
Fat fees from the defended Umbrian draws,
And only gains the wealthy client's cause;
To whom the Marsians more provision send,
Than he and all his family can spend.
Gammons, that give a relish to the taste,
And potted fowl, and fish come in so fast,
That, ere the first is out, the second stinks,
And moldy mother gathers on the brinks.
But here some captain of the land or fleet,
Stout of his hands, but of a soldier's wit,
Cries: " I have sense to serve my turn, in store;
And he's a rascal who pretends to more.
Damme, whate'er those book-learn'd block-heads say,
Solon's the veriest fool in all the play.
Top-heavy drones, and always looking down,
(As overballasted within the crown!)
Mutt'ring betwixt their lips some mystic thing,
Which, well examin'd, is flat conjuring,
Mere madmen's dreams: for what the schools have taught,
Is only this, that nothing can be brought
From nothing; and, what is, can ne'er be turn'd to naught.
Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accouter'd, they are seen,
And made the May-game of the public spleen? "
Proceed, my friend, and rail; but hear me tell
A story, which is just thy parallel.
A spark, like thee, of the man-killing trade,
Fell sick, and thus to his physician said:
" Methinks I am not right in ev'ry part;
I feel a kind of trembling at my heart:
My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong;
Besides, a filthy fur upon my tongue. "
The doctor heard him, exercis'd his skill;
And, after, bade him for four days be still.
Three days he took good counsel, and began
To mend, and look like a recov'ring man;
The fourth, he could not hold from drink, but sends
His boy to one of his old trusty friends,
Adjuring him, by all the pow'rs divine,
To pity his distress, who could not dine
Without a flagon of his healing wine.
He drinks a swilling draught; and, lin'd within,
Will supple in the bath his outward skin:
Whom should he find but his physician there,
Who, wisely, bade him once again beware:
" Sir, you look wan, you hardly draw your breath;
Drinking is dangerous, and the bath is death. "
" 'T is nothing, " says the fool. " But, " says the friend,
" This nothing, sir, will bring you to your end.
Do I not see your dropsy-belly swell?
Your yellow skin? " — " No more of that; I'm well.
I have already buried two or three
That stood betwixt a fair estate and me,
And, doctor, I may live to bury thee.
Thou tell'st me, I look ill, and thou look'st worse. "
" I've done, " says the physician; " take your course. "
The laughing sot, like all unthinking men,
Bathes and gets drunk; then bathes and drinks again.
His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm,
And breathing thro' his jaws a belching stream,
Amidst his cups with fainting shiv'ring seiz'd,
His limbs disjointed, and all o'er diseas'd,
His hand refuses to sustain the bowl,
And his teeth chatter, and his eyeballs roll,
Till, with his meat, he vomits out his soul:
Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew
Of hireling mourners, for his funeral due.
Our dear departed brother lies in state,
His heels stretch'd out, and pointing to the gate;
And slaves, now manumiz'd, on their dead master wait.
They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole;
And there 's an end of a luxurious fool.
" But what's thy fulsome parable to me?
My body is from all diseases free:
My temperate pulse does regularly beat;
Feel, and be satisfied, my hands and feet:
These are not cold, nor those oppress'd with heat.
Or lay thy hand upon my naked heart,
And thou shalt find me hale in ev'ry part. "
I grant this true: but, still, the deadly wound
Is in thy soul; 'tis there thou art not sound.
Say, when thou seest a heap of tempting gold,
Or a more tempting harlot dost behold;
Then, when she casts on thee a sidelong glance,
Then try thy heart, and tell me if it dance.
Some coarse cold salad is before thee set;
Bread, with the bran perhaps, and broken meat:
Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat.
These are not dishes for thy dainty tooth:
What, hast thou got an ulcer in thy mouth?
Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore,
That beet and radishes will make thee roar?
Such is th' unequal temper of thy mind;
Thy passions in extremes, and unconfin'd:
Thy hair so bristles with unmanly fears,
As fields of corn that rise in bearded ears;
And, when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow,
The rage of boiling caldrons is more slow;
When fed with fuel and with flames below.
With foam upon thy lips, and sparkling eyes,
Thou say'st and dost in such outrageous wise,
That mad Orestes, if he saw the show,
Would swear thou wert the madder of the two.