LXV.
Life’s but a straw, that’s piped upon by winds,
Fluttering to different tunes at every blast;
But he is strong who conquers what he finds,
Dragging it onward, as the unyielding mast
Toils up the wave, and draws, from victory won,
Fresh presage, and fresh purpose, for the fight:
So let man struggle upward; like the sun
Ne’er slacken, till he sinks beneath the night;
Swell action’s tide, that rolls along the world,
Or force from Nature secrets undisclosed;
Or, if less apt to be thus rudely whirl’d,
Rest in this din on sure content reposed.
These words sound fair, but Passion scorns such strains,
And mocks Endeavour with her empty pains.
LXVI.
How should the cloud cry to the summer sea,
Take not the leaden impress from my sails?
How should the amorous eve not taste the glee
That mantles golden o’er its hills and vales?
Were ocean to contemn the rain’s increase,
Or woods to spurn the dew, and chide the wind;
Reft of their source, sudden they all would cease,
Lacking that element they once thought unkind:
So, were man shorn of passions and of hates,
And nicely pared of what uneven seems,
He’d seem some plaything, jostled by rough fates
Into existence, from poor Fancy’s dreams.
Nature has naught superfluous,—clip her pride,
You mar her beauties, and the man beside.
LXVII.
Should one proclaim, what perfect man might be,
What finest tonings of trained passion’s host,
What calm should murmur on a breathless sea,
What childhood’s joy linger around the coast,
How the rare form should tremble to each string
Of the ever-pulsing, passionate, tranquil frame:
His virtues should steal lustre while they bring,
For Beauty sanctifies even Virtue’s name:
’Twere vain, words cannot paint, nor the mind’s maze,
Compose perfections in such various mould:
Create the hero, and the world shall gaze,
Not unobservant, nor profanely cold.
Vain is the juggle of consenting phrase,
Nature is just, and claims the larger praise.