Now while I spread the venturous sail
To catch the breeze from yonder hill,
Say, what does all this folly mean?
Why grieve to pass the wat'ry scene?
Is fortitude to heaven confin'd?—
No—planted also in the mind,
She smooths the ocean when she will.
But life is pain—what ills must try,
What malice dark and calumny,
Indifference, with her careless eye,
And slander, with her tale begun;
Bold ignorance, with forward air,
And cowardice, that has no share
In honours gain'd, or trophies won.
To these succeed, (and these are few
Of nature's dark, unseemly crew)
Unsocial pride, and cold disgust,
Servility, that licks the dust;
Those harpies that disgrace the mind;
Unknown to haunt the human breast
When pleasure her first garden dress'd—
But vanish'd is the shade so gay,
And lost in gloom the summer day
That charm'd the soul to rest.
What season shall restore that scene
When all was calm and all serene,
And happiness no empty sound,
The golden age, that pleas'd so well?—
The Mind that made it shall not tell
To those on life's uncertain road;
Where lost in folly's idle round,
And seeking what shall ne'er be found
We press to one abode.
[315] This poem was first published in the Freeman's Journal, April 18, 1787, with a note "Written at leaving Sandy Hook on a voyage to the West Indies." It is dated Nov. 26, 1785; it was, therefore, written at sea. It was published in the 1788 edition, which the text follows, and omitted from the 1809 edition.
A NEWSMAN'S ADDRESS[316]
Old Eighty-Five discharg'd and gone,
Another year comes hastening on
To quit us in its turn:
With outspread wings and running glass
Thus Time's deluding seasons pass,
And leave mankind to mourn.
But strains like this add grief to grief;—
We are the lads that give relief
With sprightly wit and merry lay:
Our various page to all imparts
Amusement fit for social hearts,
And drives the monster, spleen, away.
Abroad our leaves of knowledge fly,
And twice a week they live and die;
Short seasons of repose!
Fair to your view our toils display
The monarch's aim, what patriots say,
Or sons of art disclose: