Ask what is human life-the sage replies,

With disappointment low'ring in his eyes,
A painful passage o'er a restless flood,
A vain pursuit of fugitive false good,
A scene of fancied bliss and heart-felt care,
Closing at last in darkness and despair.
The poor, inur'd to drudg'ry and distress,
Act without aim, think little, and feel less,
And no where, but in feign'd Arcadian scenes,
Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.
Riches are pass'd away from hand to hand,
As fortune, vice, or folly may command;
As in a dance the pair that take the lead
Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed,

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So shifting and so various is the plan,

By which Heav'n rules the mix'd affairs of man:

Vicissitude wheels round the motley crowd,

The rich grow poor, the poor become purse proud; Bus'ness is labour, and man's weakness such,

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Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
The very sense of it foregoes it's use,
By repetition pall'd, by age obtuse.
Youth lost in dissipation, we deplore,
Through life's sad remnant, what no sighs restore;
Our years, a fruitless race without a prize,
Too many, yet too few to make us wise.
Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff,
Lothario cries, What philosophic stuff-
O querulous and weak!-whose useless brain
Once thought of nothing, and now thinks in vain;
Whose eye reverted weeps o'er all the past, 31
Whose prospect shows thee a disheart'ning waste;
Would age in thee resign his wintry reign,
And youth invigorate that frame again,

Renew'd desire would grace with other speech Joys always priz'd, when plac'd within our reach.

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For lift thy palsied head, shake off the gloom, That overhangs the borders of thy tomb, See Nature gay, as when she first began With smiles alluring her admirer man; She spreads the morning over eastern hills, Earth glitters with the drops the night distils: The Sun obedient at her call appears, To fling his glories o'er the robe she wears; Banks cloth'd with flow'rs, groves fill'd with

sprightly sounds,

The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds,

Streams edg'd with osiers, fatt'ning ev'ry field

Where'er they flow, now seen and now conceal'd;

From the blue rim where skies and mountains

meet,

Down to the very turf beneath thy feet,
Ten thousand charms, that only fools despise,
Or pride can look at with indiff'rent eyes,

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All speak one language, all with one sweet voice

Cry to her universal realm, Rejoice!

Man feels the spur of passions and desires,

And she gives largely more than he requires;

Not that his hours devoted all to Care,

Hollow-ey'd Abstinence, and lean Despair,

The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, sight,

She holds a paradise of rich delight;

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But gently to rebuke his awkward fear,

To prove that what she gives, she gives sincere,

To banish hesitation, and proclaim

His happiness, her dear, her only aim.

'Tis grave Philosophy's absurdest dream,

That Heav'n's intentions are not what they seem,

That only shadows are dispens'd below,

And Earth has no reality but wo.

Thus things terrestrial wear a diff'rent hue, As youth or age persuades; and neither true: 70 So Flora's wreath through colour'd crystal seen, The rose or lily appears blue or green,

But still th' imputed tints are those alone
The medium represents, and not their own.
To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress'd,
To read the news, or fiddle, as seems best,
Till half the world comes rattling at his door,
To fill the dull vacuity till four;

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And, just when ev'ning turns the blue vault gray,
To spend two hours in dressing for the day;
To make the Sun a bauble without use,
Save for the fruits his heav'nly beams produce;
Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,
Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not;

Through mere necessity to close his eyes

Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise; Is such a life, so tediously the same,

So void of all utility or aim,

That poor JONQUIL, with almost ev'ry breath

Sighs for his exit, vulgarly call'd death;

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For he, with all his follies, has a mind

Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind,