Thus having wasted half the day,
He trimmed his flight another way.
Methinks, I said, in thee I find
The sin and madness of mankind.
To joys forbidden man aspires,
Consumes his soul with vain desires,
Folly the spring of his pursuit,
And disappointment all the fruit.
While Cynthio ogles, as she passes,
The nymph between two chariot glasses,
She is the pine-apple, and he
The silly unsuccessful bee.
The maid, who views with pensive air
The show-glass fraught with glittering wars,
Sees watches, bracelets, rings, and lockets.
But sighs at thought of empty pockets;
Like thine, her appetite is keen,
But ah, the cruel glass between!
Our dear delights are often such,
Exposed to view, but not to touch;
The sight our foolish heart inflames,
We long for pine-apples in frames;
With hopeless wish one looks and lingers;
One breaks the glass and cuts his fingers:
But they whom truth and wisdoin lead,
Can gather honey from a weed.
HORACE. BOOK II. ODE X.
RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's power
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door
Imbittering all his state.
The tallest pines feel most the power
Of winter blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts, that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.
The well-informed philosopher
Rejoices with a wholesome fear,
And hopes, in spite of pain;
If Winter bellow from the north,
Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth,
And Nature laughs again.
What if thine heaven be overcast,
The dark appearance will not last;
Expect a brighter sky.
The God that strings the silver bow,
Awakes sometimes the muses too,
And lays his arrows by.
If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen;
But O! if fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.
REFLECTION ON THE FOREGOING ODE.
AND this is all? Can Reason do no more,
Than bid me shun the deep, and dread the shore?
Sweet moralist! afloat on life's rough sea,
The christian has an art unknown to thee.
He holds no parley with unmanly fears;
Where duty bids, he confidently steers,
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,
And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all.
THE LILY AND THE ROSE.
THE nymph must lose her female friend,
If more admired than she-
But where will fierce contention end,
If flowers can disagree?
Within the garden's peaceful scene
Appeared two lovely foes
Aspiring to the rank of queen
The Lily and the Rose.
The Rose soon reddened into rage,
And, swelling with disdain,
Appealed to many a poet's page
To prove her right to reign.
The Lily's height bespoke command,
A fair imperial flower;
She seemed designed for Flora's hand,
The sceptre of her power.
This civil bickering and debate
The goddess chanced to hear,
And flew to save, ere yet too late,
The pride of the parterre.
Yours is, she said, the nobler hue,
And yours the statelier mien;
And, till a third surpasses you,
Let each be deemed a queen.
Thus, soothed and reconciled, each seeks
The fairest British fair:
The seat of empire is her cheeks,
They reign united there.
IDEM LATINE REDDITUM
HEU inimicitias quoties parit æmula forma,
Quam raro pulchræ pulchra placere potest
Sed fines ultra solitos discordia tendit,
Cum flores ipsos bilis et ira movent.
Hortus ubi dulces præbet tacitosque recessus
Se rapit in partes gens animosa duas ;
Hic sibi regalis Amaryllis candida cultus,
Illic purpuero vindicat ore Rosa.
Ira Rosam et meritis quæsita superbia tangunt,
Multaque ferventi vix cohibenda sinu,
Dum sibi fautorum ciet undique nomina vatum
Jusque suum, multo carmine fulta, probat.
Altior emicat illa, et celso vertice nutat,
Ceu flores inter non habitura parem,
Fastidique alios, et nata videtur in usus
Imperii, sceptrum, Flora quod ipsa gerat.
Nec Dea non sensit civilis murmura rixæ,
Cui curæ est pictas pandere ruris opes,
Deliciasque suas nunquam non prompta tueri,
Dum licet et locus est, ut tueatur, adest.
Et tibi forma datur procerior omnibus, inquit ;
Et tibi, principibus qui solet esse, color;
Et donec vincat quædam formosior ambas.
Et tibi reginæ nomen, et esto tibi.
His ubi sedatus furor est, petit utraque nympham,
Qualem inter Veneres Anglia sola parit;
Hancpenes imperium est, nihil optant amplius, hujus
Regnant in nitidis, et sine lite, genis.
THE POPLAR FIELD.
THE poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed, since I last took a view Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat, that once lent me a shade.
The blackbird has fled to another retreat,
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charmed me before,
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they.
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.
"Tis a sight to engage me, if any thing can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man:
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.*
IDEM LATINE REDDITUM.
POPULÆ cecidet gratissima copia silvæ,
Conticuere susurri, omnisque evanuit umbra.
Nulle jam levibus se miscent frondibus auræ,
Et nulla in fluvio ramorum ludit imago.
* Mr. Cowper afterwards altered this stanza in the following man
The change both my heart and my fancy employs,
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;
Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures we see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.
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