Unsought, unwished, the curious scenery flows,
Presiding dulness nods, and nods to doze!

But come, ye GOOD, to mark her living power,

Whom nature fashioned in a happier hour,

Whose tender nerves, to nicer sense alive,

Feel in each touch electric life revive;

If high in wish, your ardent souls explore
Each secret haunt of wisdom's treasured lore;

If proud in bliss, at Hymen's brightened shrine
Ye close the mutual hope in joy divine;

Or, sad reverse! if cursed with every pain,

Which crowds convulsion thro the trembling vein,

Doomed lone and friendless life's drear paths to rove,

The scorn of pride, or prey of injured love;

Retire, and own SECLUSION's power to shed

The cheering beam round merit's drooping head,

Retire, and there the moral lesson prest

Shall teach in blessing, how the heart is blest.

Why will ye tell of all the world can give?

Say, can it teach the science, how to live?
How best in generous deeds the soul employ,
And form its views to virtue's blameless joy?
Here all the glory lies, to fortune known,

And here the cottage emulates the throne.
What tho the courtly pomp of eastern pride
Deck the rich couch, and o'er the feast preside,
What tho from suppliant crowds the sceptre claim
Unrivalled honours and unquestioned fame;

Can these, where avarice haunts the pining mind,
Calm the fierce rage, which preys on human kind?
Can these, where conscience fills with deep dismay,
Reverse the gloom, and change the night to day?
Can these, where anguish holds her fiery reign,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?

O'er the proud scene the sword of haggard care

Hangs to destroy, suspended by a hair!

Search the wide world, or, versed in classic lore,

Mark the dread truth on PUTEOLI's shore ;

Mid gorgeous domes, and flattery's servile host,
Ambitious SYLLA roams a restless ghost; (5)

In vain debauch her syren forms assumes,

Care haunts his soul with visionary glooms,

The world's proud conqueror asks a moment's ease,

Cursed in decline, and loathsome in disease.

Alas! no balms the courted crowd dispense
To heal the aching throes of sickened sense ;
There morbid interest plies her ceaseless art
To dull affection, and seduce the heart;
There harsh disdain, to human misery steeled,
With secret triumph hears the fault revealed;
Or if perchance a gleam of pity shine,

Its dubious aspect marks some base design.

Yea, tho the generous smile, the polished grace,

Like fair APEGA, ask a false embrace, (6)

Too oft its victim finds, the glittering toy

Lure to deceive, and flatter to destroy.

The lovely maid, whose native virtues flow
Chaste, as the airy web of printless snow,
If in sad hour, the prey of treacherous toil,
Her rifled honour fall some plunderer's spoil,
How vain the hope to hide from public fame
Her deep contrition and ingenuous shame!
Where'er she turns, the circled crime prevails,
In smiles reproaches, and in sneers assails,
And, like some troubled ghost, in thin disguise

The pointed insult meets her downcast eyes.

In vain may eloquence in mercy plead

To

spare the person, yet detest the deed, (7) Ungenerous censure dooms to deadlier woe

The wretch, who suffered, than who dealt the blow.

Poor, wandering outcast, tho with arrowy sway Imbittered memory haunt the fatal day,

When life's bright visions with pollution fled,

And virtue sickened with the tears she shed;

No more returned the scenes of festive mirth,
When youth and fancy cheered the social hearth,
Or, tripped with truant steps the verdant heath,
To watch the sunbeam, as it blushed in death :
Yet shall meek SOLITUDE with temperate sway
Gild the deep shade, and light the closing day,
Lull the keen pangs, thy bleeding breast that tore,
And hallow transports, life can ne'er restore.

So to the picture's many coloured face Time's secret touch imparts a ripening grace, Mellows each tint, and still, as dies the blaze,

Each softer beauty on the canvass plays.