With a lofty and noble morality does he describe the truly gay:—
Whom call we gay? That honour has been long
The boast of mere pretenders to the name.
The innocent are gay—the lark is gay,
That dries his feathers saturate with dew
Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams
Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.
The peasant too, a witness of his song,
Himself a songster, is as gay as he.
But save me from the gaiety of those
Whose headaches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And save me too from theirs whose haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs
For property stripp’d off by cruel chance;
From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,
The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.
The Task, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’
Noble lines these, breathing much of the spirit of Horace’s noble ethics:—
Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum. Rectius occupat
Nomen beati qui deorum
Muneribus sapienter uti,
Calletque duram pauperiem pati,
Pejusque leto flagitium timet.
Non ille pro caris amicis,
Non patriâ timidus perire.
There was not perhaps much need for our poet to dread the gout:—
Oh may I live exempted (while I live
Guiltless of pamper’d appetite obscene),
From pangs arthritic, that infest the toe
Of libertine Excess!
The Task, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’
Certainly not if the following picture was his usual evening condition:—
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
The Task, Book IV., ‘The Winter Evening.’
Commenting upon the usual misquotation of this passage, which provincial newspapers make a point of rendering:—‘The cup that cheers’ &c., Cuthbert Bede adds:—