| |
| OPPRESS’D with grief, oppress’d with care, | |
| A burden more than I can bear, | |
| I set me down and sigh; | |
| O life! thou art a galling load, | |
| Along a rough, a weary road, | 5 |
| To wretches such as I! | |
| Dim backward as I cast my view, | |
| What sick’ning scenes appear! | |
| What sorrows yet may pierce me through, | |
| Too justly I may fear! | 10 |
| Still caring, despairing, | |
| Must be my bitter doom; | |
| My woes here shall close ne’er | |
| But with the closing tomb! | |
| |
| Happy! ye sons of busy life, | 15 |
| Who, equal to the bustling strife, | |
| No other view regard! | |
| Ev’n when the wished end’s denied, | |
| Yet while the busy means are plied, | |
| They bring their own reward: | 20 |
| Whilst I, a hope-abandon’d wight, | |
| Unfitted with an aim, | |
| Meet ev’ry sad returning night, | |
| And joyless morn the same! | |
| You, bustling, and justling, | 25 |
| Forget each grief and pain; | |
| I, listless, yet restless, | |
| Find ev’ry prospect vain. | |
| |
| How blest the solitary’s lot, | |
| Who, all-forgetting, all forgot, | 30 |
| Within his humble cell, | |
| The cavern, wild with tangling roots, | |
| Sits o’er his newly gather’d fruits, | |
| Beside his crystal well! | |
| Or haply, to his ev’ning thought, | 35 |
| By unfrequented stream, | |
| The ways of men are distant brought, | |
| A faint, collected dream; | |
| While praising, and raising | |
| His thoughts to heav’n on high, | 40 |
| As wand’ring, meand’ring, | |
| He views the solemn sky. | |
| |
| Than I, no lonely hermit plac’d | |
| Where never human footstep trac’d, | |
| Less fit to play the part, | 45 |
| The lucky moment to improve, | |
| And just to stop, and just to move, | |
| With self-respecting art: | |
| But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys, | |
| Which I too keenly taste, | 50 |
| The solitary can despise, | |
| Can want, and yet be blest! | |
| He needs not, he heeds not, | |
| Or human love or hate; | |
| Whilst I here must cry here | 55 |
| At perfidy ingrate! | |
| |
| O, enviable, early days, | |
| When dancing thoughtless pleasure’s maze, | |
| To care, to guilt unknown! | |
| How ill exchang’d for riper times, | 60 |
| To feel the follies, or the crimes, | |
| Of others, or my own! | |
| Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, | |
| Like linnets in the bush, | |
| Ye little know the ills ye court, | 65 |
| When manhood is your wish! | |
| The losses, the crosses, | |
| That active man engage; | |
| The fears all, the tears all, | |
| Of dim declining age! | 70 |
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