While his mule browses on the dizzy steep,
With memory’s aid, he sits at home, and sees
His children sport beneath their native, trees,
And bends, to hear their cherub-voices call,
O’er the loud fury of the torrent’s fall. 
   But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell? 
Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell? 
Each fiery flight on Frenzy’s wing restrain,
And mould the coinage of the fever’d brain? 
   Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies,
There in the dust the wreck of Genius lies! 
He, whose arresting hand sublimely wrought
Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;
And round, in colours of the rainbow, threw
Forms ever fair, creations ever new! 
But, as he fondly snatch’d the wreath of Fame,
The spectre Poverty unnerv’d his frame. 
Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore;
And Hope’s soft energies were felt no more. 
Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art! [y]
From the rude wall what bright ideas start! 
Ev’n now he claims the amaranthine wreath,
With scenes that glow, with images that breathe! 
And whence these scenes, these images, declare. 
Whence but from Her who triumphs o’er despair? 
   Awake, arise! with grateful fervor fraught,
Go, spring the mine of elevating thought. 
He, who, thro’ Nature’s various walk, surveys
The good and fair her faultless line pourtrays;
Whose mind, prophan’d by no unhallow’d guest,
Culls from the crowd the purest and the best;
May range, at will, bright Fancy’s golden clime,
Or, musing, mount where Science sits sublime,
Or wake the spirit of departed Time. 
Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral muse,
A blooming Eden in his life reviews! 
So rich the culture, tho’ so small the space,
Its scanty limits he forgets to trace. 
But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky,
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh! [z]
The weary waste, that lengthen’d as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a span! 
   Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind,
By truth illumin’d, and by taste refin’d? 
When Age has quench’d the eye and clos’d the ear,
Still nerv’d for action in her native sphere,
Oft will she rise—­with searching glance pursue
Some long-lov’d image vanish’d from her view;
Dart thro’ the deep recesses of the past,
O’er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast;
With giant-grasp fling back the folds of night,
And snatch the faithless fugitive to light. 
   So thro’ the grove the impatient mother flies. 
Each sunless glade, each secret pathway tries;
Till the light leaves the truant boy disclose,
Long on the wood-moss stretch’d in sweet repose. 
   Nor yet to pleasing objects are confin’d
The silent feasts of the reflecting mind. 
Danger and death a dread delight inspire;
And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire,
When, richly bronz’d by many a summer-sun,