And no Adventure marked the waste of Years; I thought me past them, but I met with one, A call to Folly e’er the pasts were done. (U.P.)
VARIANTS. VOL. I. ADDENDA.
THE LIBRARY. ‘Original MS.’ readings given as footnotes Life and Poems (1834).
After l. 4:
Where can the wretched lose their cares, and hide The tears of sorrow from the eyes of pride? Can they in silent shades a refuge find From all the scorn and malice of mankind? From wit’s disdain, and wealth’s provoking sneer, } From folly’s grin, and humour’s stupid leer,} And clamour’s iron tongue, censorious and severe? } There can they see the scenes of nature gay, And shake the gloomy dreams of life away? Without a sigh, the hope of youth give o’er, And with aspiring honour climb no more. Alas! we fly to peaceful shades in vain; Peace dwells within, or all without is pain: No storm-tost sailor sighs for slumbering seas— He dreads a tempest, but desires a breeze. The placid waves with silent swell disclose A clearer view, and but reflect his woes. So life has calms, in which we only see A fuller prospect of our misery. When the sick heart, by no design employ’d, Throbs o’er the past, or suffer’d, or enjoy’d, In former pleasures finding no relief, And pain’d anew in every former grief. Can friends console us when our cares distress, Smile on our woes, and make misfortunes less? Alas! like winter’d leaves, they fall away, Or more disgrace our prospects by delay; The genial warmth, the fostering sap is past, That kept them faithful, and that held them fast. Where shall we fly?—to yonder still retreat, The haunt of Genius and the Muses’ seat, Where all our griefs in others’ strains rehearse, Speak with old Time, and with the dead converse; Till Fancy, far in distant regions flown, Adopts a thousand schemes, and quits her own; Skims every scene, and plans with each design, Towers in each thought, and lives in every line; From clime to clime with rapid motion flies, Weeps without woe, and without sorrow sighs; To all things yielding, and by all things sway’d, To all obedient, and by all obey’d; The source of pleasures, noble and refined, And the great empress of the Poet’s mind. Here led by thee, fair Fancy, I behold The mighty heroes, and the bards of old! For here the Muses sacred vigils keep, And all the busy cares of being sleep; No monarch covets war, nor dreams of fame, No subject bleeds to raise his tyrant’s name, No proud great man, or man that would be great, Drives modest merit from its proper state, Nor rapine reaps the good by labour sown, Nor envy blasts a laurel, but her own. Yet Contemplation, silent goddess, here, In her vast eye, makes all mankind appear, All Nature’s treasures, all the stores of Art, That fire the fancy, or engage the heart, The world’s vast views, the fancy’s wild domain, And all the motley objects of the brain: Here mountains hurl’d on mountains proudly rise, Far, far o’er Nature’s dull realities; Eternal verdure decks a sacred clime, Eternal spring for ever blooms in rhyme, And heroes honour’d for imputed deeds, And saints adored for visionary creeds, Legends and tales, and solitude and sighs, Poor doating dreams, and miserable lies, The empty bubbles of a pensive mind, And Spleen’s sad effort to debase mankind. Here Wonder gapes at Story’s dreadful page, And Valour mounts by true poetic rage, And Pity weeps to hear the mourning maid, And Envy saddens at the praise convey’d. Devotion kindles at the pious strain, And mocks the madness of the fool’s disdain: Here gentle Delicacy turns her eye From the loose page, and blushes her reply, Alone, unheeded, calls her soul to arms, Fears every thought, and flies from all alarms. Pale Study here, to one great point resign’d; Derides the various follies of mankind; As distant objects sees their several cares, And with his own their trifling work compares; But still forgets like him men take their view, And near their own, his works are trifling too:— So suns and planets scarcely fill the eye When earth’s poor hills and man’s poor huts are nigh; But, were the eye in airy regions tost, The world would lessen, and her hills be lost; And were the mighty orbs above us known, No world would seem so trifling as our own. Here looking back, the wond’ring soul surveys The sacred relics of departed days, Where grace, and truth, and excellence reside, To claim our praise, and mortify our pride; Favour’d by fate, our mighty fathers found The virgin Muse, with every beauty crown’d: They woo’d and won; and, banish’d their embrace, She comes a harlot to their feebler race: Deck’d in false taste, with gaudy shows of art She charms the eye, but touches not the heart; By thousands courted, but by few caress’d, False when pursued, and fatal when possess’d. From hence we rove, with Fancy for our guide, O’er this wide world, and other worlds more wide, Where other suns their vital power display, And round revolving planets dart the day; Where comets blaze, by mortals unsurvey’d, And stray where Galileo never stray’d; Where God himself conducts each vast machine, Uncensured by mankind, because unseen. Here, too, we trace the varied scenes of life, The tyrant husband, the retorting wife, The hero fearful to appear afraid, The thoughts of the deliberating maid; The snares for virtue, and the turns of fate, The lie of trade, and madness of debate; Here force deals death around, while fools applaud, And caution watches o’er the lips of fraud; Whate’er the world can show, here scorn derides, And here suspicion whispers what it hides— The secret thought, the counsel of the breast, The coming news, and the expected jest.... High panegyric, in exalted style, That smiles for ever, and provokes a smile, And Satire, with her fav’rite handmaids by— Here loud abuse, there simpering irony.... All now display’d, without a mask are known, And every vice in nature, but our own. Yet Pleasure too, and Virtue, still more fair, To this blest seat with mutual speed repair; The social sweets in life’s securer road, Its bliss unenvied, its substantial good, The happy thought that conscious virtue gives, And all that ought to live, and all that lives.
after l. 104:
Maxims I glean, of mighty pith and force, And moral themes to shine in a discourse, But, tired with these, I take a lighter train, Tuned to the times, impertinent and vain. The tarts which wits provide for taste decay’d, And syllabubs by frothy witlings made, An easy, idle, thoughtless, graceless throng, Pun, jest, and quibble, epigram and song, Trifles to which declining genius bends, And steps by which aspiring wit ascends. Now sad and slow, with cautious step I tread, And view around the venerable dead; For where in all her walks shall study seize Such monuments of human state as these?
after l. 430:
“Ah! happy age,” the youthful poet cries, “Ere laws arose—ere tyrants bade them rise; No land-marks then the happy swain beheld, Nor lords walk’d proudly o’er the furrow’d field; Nor through distorted ways did Avarice roam, To fetch delights for Luxury at home: But mutual joy the friends of Nature proved, And swains were faithful to the nymphs they loved.” “Mistaken bards! all nations first were rude; Man! proud, unsocial, prone to solitude: O’er hills, or vales, or floods, was fond to roam— The mead his garden, and the rock his home: For flying prey he searched a savage coast— Want was his spur, and liberty his boast.”