| |
| QUIVERING fears, heart-tearing cares, | |
| Anxious sighs, untimely tears, | |
| Fly, fly to courts! | |
| Fly to fond worldlings’ sports | |
| Where strained sardonic smiles are glozing still, | 5 |
| And grief is forced to laugh against her will; | |
| Where mirth’s but mummery, | |
| And sorrows only real be! | |
| |
| Fly from our country pastimes, fly, | |
| Sad troop of human misery! | 10 |
| Come, serene looks, | |
| Clear as the crystal brooks, | |
| Or the pure azured heaven, that smiles to see | |
| The attendance of our poverty! | |
| Peace, and a secure mind, | 15 |
| Which all men seek, we only find. | |
| |
| Abusèd mortals! did you know | |
| Where joy, heart’s ease, and comforts grow, | |
| You’d scorn proud towers, | |
| And seek them in these bowers | 20 |
| Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake, | |
| But blustering care could never tempest make, | |
| Nor murmurs e’er come nigh us, | |
| Saving of fountains that glide by us. | |
| |
| Here’s no fantastic mask, nor dance | 25 |
| But of our kids that frisk and prance: | |
| Nor wars are seen | |
| Unless upon the green | |
| Two harmless lambs are butting one another— | |
| Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother: | 30 |
| And wounds are never found, | |
| Save what the ploughshare gives the ground. | |
| |
| Here are no false entrapping baits | |
| To hasten too-too hasty Fates; | |
| Unless it be | 35 |
| The fond credulity | |
| Of silly fish, which worldling-like still look | |
| Upon the bait, but never on the hook: | |
| Nor envy, unless among | |
| The birds, for prize of their sweet song. | 40 |
| |
| Go, let the diving Negro seek | |
| For gems hid in some forlorn creek; | |
| We all pearls scorn | |
| Save what the dewy morn | |
| Congeals upon each little spire of grass, | 45 |
| Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass; | |
| And gold ne’er here appears | |
| Save what the yellow Ceres bears. | |
| |
| Blest silent groves! O may ye be | |
| For ever mirth’s best nursery! | 50 |
| May pure contents | |
| For ever pitch their tents | |
| Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains, | |
| And peace still slumber by these purling fountains; | |
| Which we may every year | 55 |
| Find when we come a-fishing here! | |
| |
