Ease for the heart by ramblings of the brain,
He would have pictures, and of course a Taste,
And found a thousand means his wealth to waste. 
Newmarket steeds he bought at mighty cost;
They sometimes won, but Blaney always lost. 
   Quick came his ruin, came when he had still
For life a relish, and in pleasure skill: 
By his own idle reckoning he supposed
His wealth would last him till his life was closed;
But no! he found this final hoard was spent,
While he had years to suffer and repent. 
Yet, at the last, his noble mind to show,
And in his misery how he bore the blow,
He view’d his only guinea, then suppress’d,
For a short time, the tumults in his breast,
And mov’d by pride, by habit, and despair,
Gave it an opera-bird to hum an air. 
   Come ye! who live for Pleasure, come, behold
A man of pleasure when he’s poor and old;
When he looks back through life, and cannot find
A single action to relieve his mind;
When he looks forward, striving still to keep
A steady prospect of eternal sleep;
When not one friend is left, of all the train
Whom ’twas his pride and boast to entertain, —
Friends now employ’d from house to house to run,
And say, “Alas! poor Blaney is undone!” —
Those whom he shook with ardour by the hand,
By whom he stood as long as he could stand,
Who seem’d to him from all deception clear,
And who, more strange! might think themselves sincere. 
   Lo! now the hero shuffling through the town,
To hunt a dinner and to beg a crown;
To tell an idle tale, that boys may smile;
To bear a strumpet’s billet-doux a mile;
To cull a wanton for a youth of wealth
(With reverend view to both his taste and health);
To be a useful, needy thing between
Fear and desire—­the pander and the screen;
To flatter pictures, houses, horses, dress,
The wildest fashion, or the worst excess;
To be the gray seducer, and entice
Unbearded folly into acts of vice: 
And then, to level every fence which law
And virtue fix to keep the mind in awe,
He first inveigles youth to walk astray,
Next prompts and soothes them in their fatal way,
Then vindicates the deed, and makes the mind his prey. 
   Unhappy man! what pains he takes to state —
(Proof of his fear!) that all below is fate;
That all proceed in one appointed track,
Where none can stop, or take their journey back: 
Then what is vice or virtue?—­Yet he’ll rail
At priests till memory and quotation fail;
He reads, to learn the various ills they’ve done,
And calls them vipers, every mother’s son. 
   He is the harlot’s aid, who wheedling tries
To move her friend for vanity’s supplies;
To weak indulgence he allures the mind,
Loth to be duped, but willing to be kind;
And if successful—­what the labour pays? 
He gets the friend’s contempt and Chloe’s praise,
Who, in her triumph, condescends to say,