Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
POPE.
[Notes: Alexander Pope, born 1688, died 1744. The author of numerous poems and translations, all of them marked by the same lucid thought and polished versification. The Essay on Man, the Satires and Epistles, and the translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, are amongst the most important.
Write a paraphrase of the first two stanzas.]
* * * * *
WHANG THE MILLER.
Whang, the miller, was naturally avaricious; nobody loved money better than he, or more respected those that had it. When people would talk of a rich man in company, Whang would say, "I know him very well; he and I are intimate; he stood for a child of mine." But if ever a poor man was mentioned, he had not the least knowledge of the man; he might be very well for aught he knew; but he was not fond of many acquaintances, and loved to choose his company.
Whang, however, with all his eagerness for riches, was in reality poor; he had nothing but the profits of his mill to support him; but though these were small, they were certain; while his mill stood and went, he was sure of eating; and his frugality was such that he every day laid some money by, which he would at intervals count and contemplate with much satisfaction. Yet still his acquisitions were not equal to his desires; he only found himself above want, whereas he desired to be possessed of affluence.
One day, as he was indulging these wishes, he was informed that a neighbour of his had found a pan of money under ground, having dreamed of it three nights running before. These tidings were daggers to the heart of poor Whang. "Here am I," says he, "toiling and moiling from morning till night for a few paltry farthings, while neighbour Hunks only goes quietly to bed, and dreams himself into thousands before morning. Oh that I could dream like him! with what pleasure would I dig round the pan; how slily would I carry it home; not even nay wife should see me; and then, oh, the pleasure of thrusting one's hand into a heap of gold up to the elbow!"