| |
| 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 troops of human misery; | 10 |
| Come, serene looks, | |
| Clear as the crystal brooks, | |
| Or the pure azured heaven that smiles to see | |
| The rich attendance on 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 or dance, | 25 |
| But of our kids that frisk and prance; | |
| Nor wars are seen, | |
| Unless upon the green | |
| Two harmless lambs are butting one the other, | |
| 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 entrapping baits | |
| To hasten to 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, ’less among | |
| The birds, for price 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 you be, | |
| Forever, mirth’s best nursery! | 50 |
| May pure contents | |
| Forever 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 |
| Meet, when we come a-fishing here. | |
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