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| WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d, | |
| And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind, | |
| Her eye intent on all the mazy plan, | |
| She form’d of various parts the various Man. | |
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| Then first she calls the useful many forth; | 5 |
| Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth: | |
| Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth, | |
| And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth: | |
| Each prudent cit a warm existence finds, | |
| And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds. | 10 |
| Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet, | |
| The lead and buoy are needful to the net: | |
| The caput mortuum of gross desires | |
| Makes a material for mere knights and squires; | |
| The martial phosphorus is taught to flow, | 15 |
| She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough, | |
| Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs, | |
| Law, physic, politics, and deep divines; | |
| Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles, | |
| The flashing elements of female souls. | 20 |
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| The order’d system fair before her stood, | |
| Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good; | |
| But ere she gave creating labour o’er, | |
| Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more. | |
| Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter, | 25 |
| Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter; | |
| With arch-alacrity and conscious glee, | |
| (Nature may have her whim as well as we, | |
| Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it), | |
| She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet: | 30 |
| Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow, | |
| When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow; | |
| A being form’d t’ amuse his graver friends, | |
| Admir’d and prais’d-and there the homage ends; | |
| A mortal quite unfit for Fortune’s strife, | 35 |
| Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life; | |
| Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give, | |
| Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live; | |
| Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan, | |
| Yet frequent all unheeded in his own. | 40 |
| But honest Nature is not quite a Turk, | |
| She laugh’d at first, then felt for her poor work: | |
| Pitying the propless climber of mankind, | |
| She cast about a standard tree to find; | |
| And, to support his helpless woodbine state, | 45 |
| Attach’d him to the generous, truly great: | |
| A title, and the only one I claim, | |
| To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham. | |
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| Pity the tuneful Muses’ hapless train, | |
| Weak, timid landsmen on life’s stormy main! | 50 |
| Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, | |
| That never gives—tho’ humbly takes enough; | |
| The little fate allows, they share as soon, | |
| Unlike sage proverb’d Wisdom’s hard-wrung boon: | |
| The world were blest did bliss on them depend, | 55 |
| Ah, that “the friendly e’er should want a friend!” | |
| Let Prudence number o’er each sturdy son, | |
| Who life and wisdom at one race begun, | |
| Who feel by reason and who give by rule, | |
| (Instinct’s a brute, and sentiment a fool!) | 60 |
| Who make poor “will do” wait upon “I should”— | |
| We own they’re prudent, but who feels they’re good? | |
| Ye wise ones hence! ye hurt the social eye! | |
| God’s image rudely etch’d on base alloy! | |
| But come ye who the godlike pleasure know, | 65 |
| Heaven’s attribute distinguished—to bestow! | |
| Whose arms of love would grasp the human race: | |
| Come thou who giv’st with all a courtier’s grace; | |
| FRIEND OF MY LIFE, true patron of my rhymes! | |
| Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. | 70 |
| Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid, | |
| Backward, abash’d to ask thy friendly aid? | |
| I know my need, I know thy giving hand, | |
| I crave thy friendship at thy kind command; | |
| But there are such who court the tuneful Nine— | 75 |
| Heavens! should the branded character be mine! | |
| Whose verse in manhood’s pride sublimely flows, | |
| Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose. | |
| Mark, how their lofty independent spirit | |
| Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit! | 80 |
| Seek not the proofs in private life to find | |
| Pity the best of words should be but wind! | |
| So, to heaven’s gates the lark’s shrill song ascends, | |
| But grovelling on the earth the carol ends. | |
| In all the clam’rous cry of starving want, | 85 |
| They dun Benevolence with shameless front; | |
| Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays— | |
| They persecute you all your future days! | |
| Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain, | |
| My horny fist assume the plough again, | 90 |
| The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more, | |
| On eighteenpence a week I’ve liv’d before. | |
| Tho’, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift, | |
| I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift: | |
| That, plac’d by thee upon the wish’d-for height, | 95 |
| Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, | |
| My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight. | |
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