To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
  I turn; and France displays her bright domain. 
  Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
  Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
  How often have I led thy sportive choir,
  With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire,
  Where shading elms along the margin grew,
  And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew! 
  And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
  But mocked all tune and marred the dancer’s skill,
  Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
  And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
  Alike all ages:  dames of ancient days
  Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
  And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
  Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore,

  So blessed a life these thoughtless realms display;
  Thus idly busy rolls their world away.

  Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
  For honour forms the social temper here: 
  Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
  Or e’en imaginary worth obtains,
  Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
  It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
  From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
  And all are taught an avarice of praise;
  They pleased, are pleased; they give, to get, esteem,
  Till, seeming blessed, they grow to what they seem.

  But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
  It gives their follies also room to rise;
  For praise, too dearly loved or warmly sought,
  Enfeebles all internal strength of thought,
  And the weak soul, within itself unblessed,
  Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast. 
  Hence Ostentation here, with tawdry art,
  Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
  Here Vanity assumes her pert grimace,
  And trims her robes of frieze with copper-lace;
  Here beggar Pride defrauds her daily cheer,
  To boast one splendid banquet once a year: 
  The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
  Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

* * * * *

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind. 
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows? 
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! 
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find: 
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy;
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke’s iron crown, and Damiens’ bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.