| |
| ONCE, I remember well the day, | |
| ’Twas ere the blooming sweets of May | |
| Had lost their freshest hues, | |
| When every flower on every hill, | |
| In every vale, had drunk its fill | 5 |
| Of sunshine and of dews. | |
| |
| ’Twas that sweet season’s loveliest prime | |
| When Spring gives up the reins of time | |
| To Summer’s glowing hand, | |
| And doubting mortals hardly know | 10 |
| By whose command the breezes blow | |
| Which fan the smiling land. | |
| |
| ’Twas then beside a green-wood shade | |
| Which cloth’d a lawn’s aspiring head | |
| I urg’d my devious way, | 15 |
| With loitering steps, regardless where, | |
| So soft, so genial was the air, | |
| So wond’rous bright the day. | |
| |
| And now my eyes with transport rove | |
| O’er all the blue expansive grove, | 20 |
| Unbroken by a cloud! | |
| And now beneath delighted pass, | |
| Where, winding through the deep-green grass, | |
| A full-brimm’d river flow’d. | |
| |
| I stop, I gaze; in accents rude | 25 |
| To thee, serenest Solitude, | |
| Burst forth th’ unbidden lay: | |
| Begone, vile world; the learn’d, the wise, | |
| The great, the busy, I despise, | |
| And pity e’en the gay. | 30 |
| |
| These, these are joys alone, I cry, | |
| ’Tis here, divine Philosophy, | |
| Thou deign’st to fix thy throne! | |
| Here, contemplation points the road | |
| Thro’ Nature’s charms to Nature’s God! | 35 |
| These, these, are joys alone! | |
| |
| Adieu, ye vain, low-thoughted cares, | |
| Ye human hopes, and human fears, | |
| Ye pleasures, and ye pains!— | |
| While thus I spake, o’er all the soul | 40 |
| A philosophic calmness stole, | |
| A Stoic stillness reigns. | |
| |
| The tyrant passions all subside, | |
| Fear, anger, pity, shame, and pride, | |
| No more my bosom move. | 45 |
| Yet still I felt, or seem’d to feel | |
| A kind of visionary zeal | |
| Of universal love. | |
| |
| When lo! a voice! a voice I hear! | |
| ’Twas Reason whisper’d in my ear | 50 |
| These monitory strains: | |
| What mean’st thou, man? would’st thou unbind | |
| The ties which constitute thy kind, | |
| The pleasures and the pains? | |
| |
| The same Almighty Power unseen, | 55 |
| Who spreads the gay or solemn scene | |
| To Contemplation’s eye: | |
| Fix’d every movement of the soul, | |
| Taught every wish its destined goal, | |
| And quicken’d every joy. | 60 |
| |
| He bids the tyrant passions rage, | |
| He bids them war eternal wage, | |
| And combat each his foe: | |
| Till from dissensions concord rise, | |
| And beauties from deformities, | 65 |
| And happiness from woe. | |
| |
| Art thou not man? and dar’st thou find | |
| A bliss which leans not to mankind? | |
| Presumptuous thought and vein! | |
| Each bliss unshar’d is unenjoy’d, | 70 |
| Each power is weak, unless employ’d | |
| Some social good to gain. | |
| |
| Some light, and shade, and warmth, and air, | |
| With those exalted joys compare | |
| Which active virtue feels. | 75 |
| When on she drags, as lawful prize, | |
| Contempt, and Indolence, and Vice, | |
| At her triumphant wheels. | |
| |
| As rest to labour still succeeds, | |
| To man, while Virtue’s glorious deeds | 80 |
| Employ his toilsome day, | |
| This fair variety of things | |
| Are merely life’s refreshing springs | |
| To soothe him on his way. | |
| |
| Enthusiast, go, unstring the lyre; | 85 |
| In vain thou sing’st if none admire, | |
| How sweet soe’er the strain; | |
| And is not thy o’erflowing mind, | |
| Unless thou mixest with thy kind, | |
| Benevolent in vain? | 90 |
| |
| Enthusiast, go, try every sense; | |
| If not thy bliss, thy excellence | |
| Thou yet hast learn’d to scan; | |
| At least thy wants, thy weakness know, | |
| And see them all uniting show, | 95 |
| That man was made for man. | |
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