Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill,
That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will;
And cheaply circulates through distant climes,
The fairest relics of the purest times.
Here from the mould to conscious being start
Those finer forms, the miracles of art;
Here chosen gems, imprest on sulphur, shine,
That slept for ages in a second mine;
And here the faithful graver dares to trace
A Michael's grandeur, and a Raphael's grace!
Thy gallery, Florence, gilds my humble walls;
And my low roof the Vatican recalls!
Soon as the morning dream my pillow flies,
To waking sense what brighter visions rise!
O mark! again the coursers of the sun,
At Guido's call, their round of glory run!
Again the rosy Hours resume their flight,
Obscured and lost in floods of golden light!
But could thine erring friend so long forget
(Sweet source of pensive joy and fond regret)
That here its warmest hues the pencil flings,
Lo! here the lost restores, the absent brings;
And still the few best loved, and most revered
Rise round the board their social smile endeared?
Selected shelves shall claim thy studious hours;
There shall thy ranging mind be fed on flowers!
There while the shaded lamp's mild lustre streams,
Read ancient books, or dream inspiring dreams;
And, when a sage's bust arrests thee there,
Pause, and his features with his thoughts compare.
-Ah! most that art my grateful rapture calls,
Which breathes a soul into the silent walls;
Which gathers round the wise of every tongue,
All on whose words departed nations hung;
Still prompt to charm with many a converse sweet;
Guides in the world, companions in retreat!
Tho' my thatched bath no rich mosaic knows, A limpid spring with unfelt current flows.
Emblem of life! which still as we survey,
Seems motionless, yet ever glides away!
The shadowy walls record, with Attic art!
The strength and beauty which its waves impart.
Here Thetis, bending with a mother's fears,
Dips her dear boy, whose pride restrains his tears;
There Venus, rising, shrinks with sweet surprise,
As her fair self, reflected, seems to rise!
Far from the joyless glare, the maddening strife,
And all the dull impertinence of life,
These eyelids open to the rising ray,
And close, when Nature bids, at close of day.
Here, at the dawn, the kindling landscape glows;
There noonday levees call from faint repose.
Here the flushed wave flings back the parting light;
There glimmering lamps anticipate the night.
When from his classic dreams the student steals,
Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels,
To muse unnoticed-while around him press
The meteor forms of equipage and dress;
Alone, in wonder lost, he seems to stand
A very stranger in his native land!
And (tho' perchance of current coin possest,
And modern phrase by living lips exprest)
Like those blest youths, forgive the fabling page,
Whose blameless lives deceived a twilight age,
Spent in sweet slumbers; till the miner's spade
Unclosed the cavern, and the morning played.
Ah, what their strange surprise, their wild delight!
New arts of life, new manners meet their sight!
In a new world they wake, as from the dead;
Yet doubt the trance dissolved, the vision fled!
O come, and, rich in intellectual wealth,
Blend thought with exercise, with knowledge health;
Long in this sheltered scene of lettered talk,
With sober step repeat the pensive walk;
Nor scorn, when graver triflings fail to please,
The cheap amusement of a mind at ease;
Here every care in sweet oblivion cast,
And many an idle hour-not idly passed.
No tuneful echoes ambushed at my gate,
Catch the blest accents of the wise and great.
Vain of its various page, no album breathes
The sigh that friendship or the muse bequeathes.
Yet some good genii o'er my hearth preside,
Oft the far friend with secret spell to guide;
And there I trace, when the gray evening lowers,
A silent chronicle of happier hours!
When Christmas revels in a world of snow,
And bids her berries blush, her carols flow;
His spangling shower when frost the wizard flings;
Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings,
O'er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves,
And gems with icicles the sheltering eaves;
-Thy muffled friend his nectarine wall pursues,
What time the sun the yellow crocus wooes,
Screened from the arrowy north; and duly hies
To meet the morning rumor as it flies;
To range the murmuring market-place, and view
The motley groups that faithful Teniers drew.
When spring bursts forth in blossoms thro' the vale,
And her wild music triumphs on the gale,
Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile;
Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile,
Framing loose numbers, till declining day
Thro' the green trellis shoots a crimson ray ;
Till the west wind leads on the twilight hours,
And shakes the fragrant bells of closing flowers.
Nor boast, O Choisy, seat of soft delight,
The secret charm of thy voluptuous night,
Vain is the blaze of wealth, the pomp of power!
Lo! here, attendant on the shadowy hour,
Thy closet-supper, served by hands unseen,
Sheds like an evening star, its ray serene
To hail our coming. Not a step profane
Dares, with rude sound, the cheerful rite restrain;
And, while the frugal banquet glows revealed,
Pure and unbought-the natives of my field;
While blushing fruits thro' scattered leaves invite,
Still clad in bloom, and veiled in azure light;
With wine, as rich in years as Horace sings,
With water, clear as his own fountain flings,
The shifting sideboard plays its humbler part,
Beyond the triumphs of a Loriot's art.
Thus, in this calm recess so richly fraught
With mental light and luxury of thought,
My life steals on; (O could it blend with thine!)
Careless my course, yet not without design.
So thro' the vales of Loire the bee-hives glide,
The light raft dropping with the silent tide;
So, till the laughing scenes are lost in night,
The busy people wing their various flight,
Culling unnumbered sweets from nameless flowers,
That scent the vineyard in its purple hours.
Rise, ere the watch-relieving clarions play,
Caught thro' St. James's groves at blush of day;
Ere its full voice the coral anthem flings
Thro' trophied tombs of heroes and of kings.
Haste to the tranquil shade of learned ease,
Tho' skilled alike to dazzle and to please;
Tho' each gay scene be searched with anxious eye,
Nor thy shut doors be passed without a sigh.
If, when this roof shall know thy friend no more, Some, formed like thee, should once, like thee, explore; Invoke the lairs of his beloved retreat,
And his lone walks imprint with pilgrim feet;
Then be it said, (as, vain of better days,
Some gray domestic prompts the partial praise,)
“Unknown he lived, unenvied, not unblest;
Reason his guide, and Happiness his guest.
In the clear mirror of his moral page
We trace the manners of a purer age.
His soul, with thirst of genuine glory fraught,
Scorned the false lustre of licentious thought.
-One fair asylum from the world we knew,
One chosen seat, that charms with various view!
Who boasts of more (believe the serious strain)
Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas! in vain.
Thro' each he roves, the tenant of a day,
And, with the swallow, wings the year away!"
118. THE MOUNTAIN OF MISERIES.-A DREAM.
It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy, would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division. Horace has carried this thought a great deal further, (Sat. i. 1. 1, ver. 1,) which implies, that the hardships or misfortunes we lie under are more easy to us than those of any other person would be, in case we could change conditions with him.
As I was ruminating upon these two remarks, and seated in my elbow chair, I insensibly fell asleep; when on a sudden methought there was a proclamation made by Jupiter, that every mortal should bring in his griefs and calamities, and throw them together in a heap. There was a large plain appointed for this purpose. I took my stand in the centre of it, and saw, with a great deal of pleasure, the whole human species marching one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds.
There was a certain lady of a thin airy shape, who was very active in this solemnity. She carried a magnifying glass in one of her hands, and was clothed in a loose flowing robe, embroidered with several figures of fiends and spectres, that discovered themselves in a thousand chimerical shapes, as her garments hovered in the wind. There was something wild and distracted in her
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