7 From false caresses, causeless strife,
      Wild hope, vain fear, alike removed,
    Here let me learn the use of life,
      When best enjoy’d—­when most improved.

  8 Teach me, thou venerable bower! 
      Cool Meditation’s quiet seat,
    The generous scorn of venal power,
      The silent grandeur of retreat.

  9 When pride by guilt to greatness climbs,
      Or raging factions rush to war,
    Here let me learn to shun the crimes
      I can’t prevent, and will not share.

  10 But lest I fall by subtler foes,
       Bright Wisdom, teach me Curio’s art,
     The swelling passions to compose,
       And quell the rebels of the heart!

* * * * *

  MIDSUMMER.

  1 O Phoebus! down the western sky,
      Far hence diffuse thy burning ray;
    Thy light to distant worlds supply,
      And wake them to the cares of day.

  2 Come, gentle Eve! the friend of Care,
      Come, Cynthia, lovely queen of night! 
    Refresh me with a cooling breeze,
      And cheer me with a lambent light.

  3 Lay me where, o’er the verdant ground,
      Her living carpet Nature spreads;
    Where the green bower, with roses crown’d,
      In showers its fragrant foliage sheds.

  4 Improve the peaceful hour with wine;
      Let music die along the grove;
    Around the bowl let myrtles twine,
      And every strain be tuned to love.

  5 Come, Stella, queen of all my heart! 
      Come, born to fill its vast desires! 
    Thy looks perpetual joys impart,
      Thy voice perpetual love inspires.

  6 While, all my wish and thine complete,
      By turns we languish and we burn,
    Let sighing gales our sighs repeat,
      Our murmurs, murmuring brooks return.
  7 Let me, when Nature calls to rest,
      And blushing skies the morn foretell,
    Sink on the down of Stella’s breast,
      And bid the waking world farewell.

* * * * *

  AUTUMN.

  1 Alas! with swift and silent pace,
      Impatient Time rolls on the year;
    The seasons change, and Nature’s face
      Now sweetly smiles, now frowns severe.

  2 ’Twas Spring, ’twas Summer, all was gay;
      Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow;
    The flowers of Spring are swept away,
      And Summer fruits desert the bough.

  3 The verdant leaves that play’d on high,
      And wanton’d on the western breeze,
    Now trod in dust neglected lie,
      As Boreas strips the bending trees.

  4 The fields, that waved with golden grain,
      As russet heaths are wild and bare;
    Not moist with dew, but drench’d in rain,
      Nor Health, nor Pleasure wanders there.

  5 No more, while through the midnight shade,
      Beneath the moon’s pale orb I stray,
    Soft pleasing woes my heart invade,
      As Progne[1] pours the melting lay.