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In ancient times, the sacred Plough employ'd The Kings and awful Fathers of mankind: And some, with whom compared your insect-tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day, Have held the Scale of Empire, ruled the Storm Of mighty War, then, with victorious hand, Disdaining little delicacies, seized The Plough, and, greatly independent, scorned All the vile stores corruption can bestow.

O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein, But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns, And heightens ease with grace.

Her polish'd limbs, Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire; Beyond the pomp of dress; for Loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorn'd the most.

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

Even from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

At the throng'd levee bends the venal tribe: With fair but faithless smiles each varnish'd o'er, Each smooth as those that mutually deceive, And for their falsehood each despising each.

While I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of spring.

That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.

Base envy withers at another's joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach.

'Tis silence all, And pleasing expectation.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, The glow-worm lights his gem; and through the dark, A moving radiance twinkles.

Think, oh, grateful think! How good the God of Harvest is to you; Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields, While those unhappy partners of you kind Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole.

Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, When drooping health and spirits go amiss? How tasteless then whatever can be given! Health is the vital principle of bliss, And exercise of health.

For nothing human foreign was to him.

Cruel as death, and hungry at the grave.

Their only labour was to kill the time; And labour dire it is, and weary woe, They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go, Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow.

Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift, To that of life and an immortal soul!

Island of bliss! amid the subject Seas, That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up, At once the wonder, terror, and delight Of distant nations; whose remotest shore Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm; Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults Baffling, like thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.

But through the heart Should Jealousy its venom once diffuse, 'Tis then delightful misery no more, But agony unmix'd, incessant gall, Corroding every thought, and blasting all Love's paradise.

Up springs the lark, Shrill-voiced, and loud, the messenger of morn; Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations.