LII.
The world’s but a rude frame, whose substance takes
Colouring from all who flatter, or who curse;
How oft man’s heart, all discontented wakes,
His frame’s a coffin, and the world’s his hearse;
How oft, despairing, he goes forth to find
Yet more assurance of the thing he hates;
How oft he leaves misanthropy behind,
New folly found, of former folly prates:
Needs but some precept, touch, face, form, or word
To dam the current, and to turn its course;
Earth, in her loveliness, or music heard,
While low sweet voices harmonize its force:
There’s nought so small in Nature, but can sum
Earth’s total process, which it seems to numb.
LIII.
Lo! thus, that life, which seem’d to me a void,
E’er thou my sun did’st gild it with thy light,
Now looks as merry, as the bubble buoy’d
On summer’s billow, whose quick glory’s bright:
My scouted woe now glares as sourly-strange,
As once joy show’d to my grief-fashioned breast;
Each act, each thought, as through the world I range,
Finds new commencement, in young vigour drest:
Rich centre, around which my life revolves,
How strong the attraction of thy far intent;
How living, and how joyous, the resolves
Whose object, thou, thy will, their utmost bent:
Though thou art far, fancy relieves her fear,
Imagining thoughts whose love may bring thee near.
LIV.
O immense chaos whence each forms his world!
Where difference lovely suits distinctive minds:
How hideous others’ landskips were, unfurled;
Fancy guides all, enlightens, or else blinds:
Yet, at my idol’s shrine, I’d fain believe
The pride of each were quick constrain’d to pray,
Could I but e’er impart, that I receive
From the mind imaged in thy beauty’s ray:
But, founder’d in my bliss, I helpless lie,
Like Phrygia’s king, incompetent in wealth;
When I behold thee, laden thought would die;
And seeing not, I picture thee, by stealth:
It wants thy equal, to report thy praise,
Let such fill up the inkling in these lays.