LXXVII.

Fast by her side a listless Maiden pin'd,

With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings; Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, Yet lov'd in secret all forbidden things.

And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings; The fleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks, A wolf now gnaws him, now a ferpent stings: Whilft Apoplexy cramm'd Intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox. CANTO II.

The Knight of Arts and Indusßry,
And his achievements fair,

That by his Caftle's overthrow
Secur'd and crowned were.

I.

ESCAP'D the Castle of the fire of Sin,

Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find?
For all around, without, and all within,
Nothing fave what delightful was and kind,
Of goodness savouring and a tender mind,
E'er rose to view: but now another strain,
Of doleful note, alas! remains behind:
I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain,
And of the falfe enchanter Indolence complain.

II.

Is there no patron to protect the Muse,
And fence for her Parnassus' barren foil ?

To every labour its reward accrues,

And they are fure of bread who swink and moil;
But a fell tribe th' Aonian hive despoil,
As ruthless waspsoft' rob the painful bee:
Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil,
Ne for the Muses other meed decree,

They praised are alone, and starve right merrily.

III.

I care not, Fortune! what you me deny;

You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Thro' which Aurora shews her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve;
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reafon, virtue, nought can me bereave.

IV.

Comethen, my Muse! and raise a bolder song;
Come, lig no more upon the bed of floth,
Dragging the lazy languid line along,
Fond to begin, but still to finish loath,
Thy half-writ scrolls all eaten by the moth:
Arife, and fing that generous imp of fame,
Who with the fons of Softness nobly wroth,
To fweep away this human lumber came,.
Or in a chofen few to rouse the flumbering flame.

V.

In Fairy-land there liv'd a knight of old,
Of feature flern, Selvaggio well yclep'd,
A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor: he neither fow'd nor reap'd,
Ne stores in fummer for cold winter heap'd;
In hunting all his days away he wore;

Now scorch'd by June, now in November steep'd, Now pinch'd by biting January fore,

He still in woods pursu'd the libbard and the boar.

VI.

As he one morning, long before the dawn,
Prick'd thro' the forest to dislodge his prey,
Deep in the winding bofom of a lawn,

With wood wild-fring'd, he mark'd a taper's ray,
That from the beating rain and wintry fray
Did to a lonely cott his steps decoy;
There, up to earn the needments of the day,
He found Dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy;
Her he compress'd, and fill'd her with a lusty boy.

VII.

Amid the green-wood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a knight of muckle fame,
Of active mind and vigorous luftyhed,
The Knight of Arts and Industry by name.
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream;
His tasteful well-earn'd food the sylvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:
The fame to him glad fummer or the winter breme.

VIII.

So pass'd his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that through the commons run,
For him no tender parents troubled were,

He of the forest seem'd to be the fon,

And certes had been utterly undone,

But that Minerva pity of him took,

With all the gods that love the rural wonne,

That teach to tame the foil and rule the crook;
Ne did the facred Nine disdain a gentle look.

IX.

Of fertile genius him they nurtur'd well,
In every science and in every art,

By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel,
That can or use, or joy, or grace, impart,
Disclofing all the powers of head and heart:
Ne were the goodly exercises spar'd,

That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert,
And mix elastic force with firmness hard:

Was never knight on ground mote be with him com

Sometimes, with early morn, he mounted gay
The hunter-steed, exulting o'er the dale,
And drew the roseat breath of orient day;

Sometimes, retiring to the secret vale,

Yclad in steel, and bright with burnish'd mail,
He strain'd the bow, or toss'd the founding spear;
Or darting on the goal, outstripp'd the gale;
Or wheel'd the chariot in its mid-career;

Or ftrenuous wrestled hard with many a tough com

ΧΙ.

At other times he pry'd thro' Nature's store,
Whate'er the in th' ethereal round contains,

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