Who first invented work, and bound the free
  And holiday-rejoicing spirit down
  To the ever-haunting importunity
  Of business in the green fields, and the town—­
  To plough, loom, anvil, spade—­and oh! most sad
  To that dry drudgery at the—­desk’s dead wood? 
  Who but the Being unblest, alien from good,
  Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad
  Task ever plies ’mid rotatory burnings,
  That round and round incalculably reel—­
  For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel—­
  In that red realm from which are no returnings: 
  Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye
  He, and his thoughts, keep pensive working-day.

* * * * *

LEISURE.

They talk of time, and of time’s galling yoke, That like a mill-stone on man’s mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress:  Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.  But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation—­ Improbus Labor, which my spirits hath broke—­ I’d drink of time’s rich cup, and never surfeit:  Fling in more days than went to make the gem That crown’d the white top of Methusalem:  Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, The heaven-sweet burden of eternity.

* * * * *

DEUS NOBIS HAEC OTIA FECIT.

* * * * *

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

  Rogers, of all the men that I have known
  But slightly, who have died, your Brother’s loss
  Touch’d me most sensibly.  There came across
  My mind an image of the cordial tone
  Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest
  I more than once have sat; and grieve to think,
  That of that threefold cord one precious link
  By Death’s rude hand is sever’d from the rest. 
  Of our old gentry he appear’d a stem—­
  A Magistrate who, while the evil-doer
  He kept in terror, could respect the Poor,
  And not for every trifle harass them,
  As some, divine and laic, too oft do. 
  This man’s a private loss, and public too.

* * * * *

THE GYPSY’S MALISON.

  “Suck, baby, suck! mother’s love grows by giving;
  Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting;
  Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living
  Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.

  “Kiss, baby, kiss! mother’s lips shine by kisses;
  Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings;
  Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses
  Tend thee the kiss that poisons ’mid caressings.

  “Hang, baby, hang! mother’s love loves such forces,
  Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging;
  Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses
  Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging.”