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The golden mean.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,

Feels not the wan's that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbitt'ring all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tow'r
Comes heaviest to the ground.
The bolts that spare the mountain side,
His cloud capt eminence divide;
And spread the ruin round.

Moderate views and aims recommended. With passions unruffled, untainted with pride, By reason my life let me square;

The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied;
And the rest are but folly and care.
How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife,
The many their labours employ!
Since all that is truly delightful in life,
Is what all, if they please, may enjoy.
Attachment to life.

The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'I was therefore said. by ancient sages,
That love of life increas'd with years,
So much, that in our later stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of lite appears.

Virtue's address to Pleasure*

Vast happiness enjoy thy gay allies!
A youth of follies, an old age of cares;
Young yet enervate, old yet never wise,
Vice wastes their vigour, and their mind im

• Sensual pleasure<

[pairs.

Vain, idle, delicate, in thoughtless ease,

Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend; All wretched, hopeless, in the evil days,

With sorrow to the verge of life they tend Griev'd with the present, of the past asham'd, They live and are despis'd; they die, nor more are Dam'd.

SECTION V.

Verses in which sound corresponds to signification.
Smooth and rough verse.

Sort is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in sanother numbers flows.
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
Slow motion imitated.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.

Swift and easy motion.

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Felling trees in a wood.

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes; On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Headlong, Deep echoing groan the thickets brown; Then rustling, crackling crashing, thunder down. Sound of a bow string.

-The string let fly

Twang,d short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry

The Pheasent.

See! from the break the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphat wings.

Scylla and Charybdis. ·

Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.

Boisterous and gentle sounds.

Two eraggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring wind's tem pestuous rage restrain
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide;
And ships secure without their haulsers ride.

Laborious and impetuous motion.

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high bill be heaves a huge round stone :
The huge round stone resulting, with a bound,
Thundersimpetuous down, and smokes along the ground.
Regular and slow movement.
First march the heavy mules securely slow;
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.
Motion slow and difficult:

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

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That, like a wounded suake,drags its slow length along.
A rock torn from the brow of a mountain.
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and org'd amain,
Whirls,leans, and thunders down,impetuous to the plain.
Extent and violence of the waves.
The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore.
Pensive numbers.

In those deep solitudes, and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells.
And ever-ausing melancholy reigns.

Battle.

Arms on armour clashing bray'd

Horable discord; and the madding wheels
Of brazen fury rag'd.

Sound imitating reluctance.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd:
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind ?

SECTION VI

Paragraphs of greater length.
Connubial affection.

THE love that cheers life's latest stage,
Proof against sickness and old age,
Preserv'd by virtue from declension,
Becomes not weary of attention :
But lives, when that exterior grace,
Which first inspir'd the flame, decays.
'Tis gentle, delicate, and kiud,
To faults compassionate, or blind;
And will with sympathy endure
Those evils it would gladly cure.
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression,
Shows love to be a mere profession;
Proves that the heart is none of his,
Or soon expels him if it is.

Swarms of flying insects.
Think in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,
The quiv'ring nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd
Fierce winter sweeps them from the face of day.
Ev'u so, luxurious men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer life, in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! Thus they flutter on,
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes
Bebind, and strikes them from the book of life.
Beneficence its own reward.
My fortune (for I'll mention all,

And more than you dare tell) is small;
Yet ev'ry friend partakes my store,
And want goes smilling from my door.
Will forty shillings warm the breast
Of worth or industry distress'd!
This sum I cheerfully impart;
'Tis fourscore pleasures to my heart:
And you may make, by means like these,
Five talents ten, whene'er you please.
'Tis true, my little purse grows light;
But then I sleep so sweet at night!
This grand specific will prevail,
When all the doctor's opiates fail.

Virtue the best treasure.

Virtue, the strenght and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of Heav'n; a happiness,
That, even above the soiles and frowns of fate,
Exalts great nature's favourites: a wealth
That ne'er encumbers; nor to basser hands
Can be transferr'd. It is the only good
Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.
Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd.
But for one end, one much neglected use,
Are riches worth our care; (for nature's wants
Ar few, and without opulence supplied ;):
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light;
And make humanity the minister
Of bounteous Providence.

Contemplation.

As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the serious night,
And contemplation her sedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life!
Ye ever tempting, ever cheating train!
Where are you now? and what is your amount ?
Vexation, disappointment, and remorse.

Sad, sick'ning thought! And yet, deluded man,
A scene of crude disjointed visions past.
And broken slumbers, rises still resolv'd,
With new flush'd hopes to run the giddy round.
Pleasures of piety.

A Deity believ'd, is joy begun;
A Deity ador'd, is joy advanc'd;
A Deity belov'd, is joy matur'd.

Each branch of piety delight inspires.

Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next
O'er death's dark gulf and all its horror hides ;
Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy,
That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still;
Pray'r ardent opens heav'n, lets down a stream
Of glory, on the consecrated hour

Of man in audience with the Deity.

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