And sometimes Lust, like the misguided light, Draws them through all the labyrinths of night. If any few among the great there be

From these insulting passions free,

Yet we ev'n those, too, fetter'd see

By custom, business, crowds, and formal decency.
And, wheresoe'er they stay, and wheresoe'er they go,
Impertinencies round them flow:

These are the small uneasy things
Which about greatness still are found,

And rather it molest than wound:

Like gnats, which too much heat of summer brings; But cares do swarm there, too, and those have stings:

As, when the honey does too open lie,

A thousand wasps about it fly:

Nor will the master even to share admit;

The master stands aloof, and dares not taste of it.

'Tis morning: well; I fain would yet sleep on :
You cannot now; you must be gone
To court, or to the noisy hall:

Besides, the rooms without are crowded all;
The stream of business does begin,

And a spring-tide of clients is come in.

Ah cruel guards, which this poor prisoner keep!
Will they not suffer him to sleep?
Make an escape; out at the postern flee,
And get some blessed hours of liberty:
With a few friends, and a few dishes, dine,
And much of mirth and moderate wine.
To thy bent mind some relaxation give,
And steal one day out of thy life to live.
Oh happy man (he cries) to whom kind Heaven
Has such a freedom always given !

Why, mighty madman, what should hinder thee
From being every day as free?

In all the freeborn nations of the air,

Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear,

As to exchange his native liberty
Of soaring boldly up into the sky,
His liberty to sing, to perch, or fly,

When and wherever he thought good,
And all his innocent pleasures of the wood,
For a more plentiful or constant food.
Nor ever did ambitious rage

Make him into a painted cage,

Or the false forest of a well-hung room,
For honour and preferment, come.
Now, blessings on you all, ye heroick race,

Who keep your primitive powers and rights so well, Though men and angels fell!

Of all material lives the highest place

To you is justly given;

And ways and walks the nearest heaven.

Whilst wretched we, yet vain and proud, think fit

To boast, that we look up to it.

Ev'n to the universal tyrant, Love,

You homage pay but once a-year:

None so degenerous and unbirdly prove,
As his perpetual yoke to bear;

None, but a few unhappy household fowl,
Whom human lordship does control;
Who from their birth corrupted were
By bondage, and by man's example here.

He's no small prince, who, every day

Thus to himself can say:

Now will I sleep, now eat, now sit, now walk, Now meditate alone, now with acquaintance talk;

This I will do, here I will stay,

Or, if my fancy call me away,

My man and I will presently go ride
(For we, before, have nothing to provide,
Nor, after, are to render an account)
To Dover, Berwick, or the Cornish mount.
If thou but a short journey take,
As if thy last thou wert to make,
Vol. I.

H

Business must be dispatch'd, ere thou canst part,

Nor canst thou stir, unless there be

A hundred horse and men to wait on thee,
And many a mule, and many a cart;

What an unwieldy man thou art!
The Rhodian Colussus so

A journey, too, might go.

Where honour, or where conscience does not bind,

No other law shall shackle me;

Slave to myself I will not be,

Nor shall my future actions be confin'd

By my own present mind.

Who by resolves and vows engag'd does stand

For days that yet belong to fate,

Does, like an unthrift, mortgage his estate
Before it falls into his hand :

The bondman of the cloister so,

All that he does receive, does always owe;
And still as time comes in, it goes away
Not to enjoy, but debts to pay.

Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell,

Which his hours work, as well as hours, does telli Unhappy, till the last, the kind releasing knell.

If life should a well-order'd poem be

(In which he only hits the white Who joins true profit with the best delight), The more heroick strain let others take,

Mine the Pindarick way I'll make;

The matter shall be grave, the numbers loose and free.

It shall not keep one settled pace of time,
In the same tune it shall not always chime,
Nor shall each day just to his neighbour rhyme;
A thousand liberties it shall dispense,

And yet shall manage all without offence

Or to the sweetness of the sound or greatness of the sense;

Nor shall it never from one subject start,

Nor seek transitions to depart,

Nor its set way o'er stiles and bridges make,
Nor thorough lanes a compass take,
As if it fear'd some trespass to commit,

When the wide air's a road for it.
So the imperial eagle does not stay
Till the whole carcase he devour,
That's fallen into its power:

As if his generous hunger understood
That he can never want plenty of food,
He only sucks the tasteful blood;
And to fresh game flies cheerfully away;
To kites, and meaner birds, he leaves the mangled

prey.

ODE,

From Catullus.

ACME AND SEPTIMIUS:

WHILST on Septimius' panting breast

(Meaning nothing less than rest)

Acme lean'd her loving head,

Thus the pleas'd Septimius said:

My dearest Acme, if I be
Once alive, and love not thee
With a passion far above
All that e'er was called love;
In a Libyan desert may
I become some lion's prey;
Let him, Acme, let him tear

My breast, when Acme is not there.

The God of Love, who stood to hear him
(The God of Love was always near him),
Pleas'd and tickled with the sound,
Sneez'd aloud; and all around
The little Loves, that waited by,
Bow'd, and blest the augury.
Acme, enflam'd with what he said,
Rear'd her gently-bending head;

And, her purple mouth with joy
Stretching to the delicious boy,
Twice (and twice could scarce suffice)
She kiss'd his drunken rolling eyes.

My little life, my all! (said she)
So may we ever servants be

To this best God, and ne'er retain
Our hated liberty again!

So may thy passion last for me,
As I a passion have for thee,
Greater and fiercer much than can
Be conceiv'd by thee a man!
Into my marrow, is it gone,
Fixt and settled in the bone;
It reigns not only in my heart,
But runs, like life, through every part.
She spoke; the God of Love aloud
Sneez'd again; and all the crowd
Of little Loves, that waited by,
Bow'd, and blest the augury.

This good omen thus from heaven

Like a happy signal given,

Their loves and lives (all four) embrace,

And hand in hand run all the race.
To poor Septimius (who did now
Nothing else but Acme grow)
Acme's bosom was alone

The whole world's imperial throne;
And to faithful Acme's mind
Septimius was all human-kind.

If the Gods would please to be
But advis'd for once by me,
I'd advise them, when they spy
Any illustrious piety,

To reward her, if it be she-
To reward him, if it be he-
With such a husband, such a wife;
With Acme's and Septimius' life.