* Polite refinement, offers him in vain
Her golden tube, through which a fenfual world Draws grofs impurity, and likes it well, The neat conveyance hiding all th' offence. Not that he peevishly rejects a mode, Because that world adopts it. If it bear The ftamp, and clear impreffion of good fenfe, And be not coftly more than of true worth, He puts it on, and for decorum fake, Can wear it e'en as gracefully as she. She judges of refinement by the eye, He by the teft of conscience, and a heart Not foon deceiv'd; aware that what is bafe No polish can make fterling, and that vice, Though well perfum'd, and elegantly drefs'd, Like an unburied carcafe, trick'd with flow'rs, Is but a garnifh'd nuifance, fitter far For cleanly riddance, than for fair attire. So life glides fmoothly, and by ftealth, away, More golden than that age of fabl'd gold, Renown'd in ancient fong; not vex'd with care, Or ftain'd with guilt, beneficent, approv'd Of God and man, and peaceful in its end, So glide my life away! and fo at last My fhare of duties decently fulfilled, May fome difeafe, not tardy to perform Its deftin'd office, yet with gentle ftroke, Difmifs me weary to a safe retreat.
Beneath the turf that I have often trod.
It shall not grieve me, then, that once, when call'd,
To drefs a Sofa with the flow'rs of verse, I play'd awhile, obedient to the fair,
With that light task, but foon to please her more, Whom flow'rs alone I knew would little please, Let fall th' unfinish'd wreath, and rov'd for fruit. Rov'd far, and gather'd much. Some harfh, 'tis true, Pick'd from the thorns and briers of reproof, But wholefome, well-digefted. Grateful fome To palates that can tafte immortal truth, Infipid elfe, and fure to be defpis'd. But all is in his hand whofe praise I feek. In vain the poet fings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. Tis not in artful measures, in the chime, And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre,
To charm his ear, whofe eye is on the heart. Whofe frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whofe approbation---profper even mine.
T is not from his form in which we trace Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace, That man, the master of this globe, derives His right of empire over all that lives. That form indeed, th' affociate of a mind, Vaft in its powr's, ethereal in its kind, That form, the labour of almighty skill, *Fram'd for the fervice of a free-born will, Afferts precedence, and befpeaks controùl, But borrows all its grandeur from the foul. Hers is the ftate, the fplendour, and the throne, An intellectual kingdom, all her own. For her, the mem'ry fills her ample page With truths pour'd down from ev'ry diftant age, A
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