To his true worth, most pleased when idle moft;
Whose only happy are their wafted hours.
E'en miffes, at whose age their mothers wore
The back-ftring and the bib, affume the dress
Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school
Of card-devoted time, and night by night.
Placed at fome vacant corner of the board,
Learn every trick, and foon play all the game.
But truce with cenfure. Roving as I rove,
Where fhall I find an end, or how proceed?
As he that travels far oft turns afide

To view fome rugged rock or mouldering tower,
Which feen delights him not; then coming home
Describes and prints it, that the world may know
How far he went for what was nothing worth;
So I, with bruth in hand and pallet spread,
With colours mixed for a far different use,
Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing,
That fancy finds in her excurfive flights.

Come Evening, once again, season of peace; Return sweet Evening, and continue long! Methinks I fee thee in the streaky west,

With matron-step flow-moving, while the night

Treads on thy fweeping train; one hand employed
In letting fall the curtain of repose

On bird and beaft, the other charged for man
With fweet oblivion of the cares of day:
Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,
Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems;
A ftar or two, juft twinkling on thy brow,
Suffices thee; fave that the moon is thine
No lefs than her's, not worn indeed on high
With oftentatious pageanty, but fet
With modeft grandeur in thy purple zone,
Refplendent lefs, but of an ampler round.
Come then, and thou fhalt find thy votary calm,
Or make me fo. Composure is thy gift:
And, whether I devote thy gentle hours
To books, to mufic, or the poet's toil;
To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit;
Or twining filken threads round ivory reels,
When they command whom man was born to pleafe;
I flight thee not, but make thee welcome still.

Juft when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze With lights, by clear reflection multiplied From many a mirror, in which he of Gath,

Goliah, might have seen his giant bulk

Whole without ftooping, towering creft and all,
My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps
The glowing hearth may fatisfy awhile
With faint illumination, that uplifts
The fhadows to the ceiling, there by fits
Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.
Not undelightful is an hour to me

So spent in parlour twilight: fuch a gloom
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,
The mind contemplative, with some new theme
Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all.

Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers,

That never feel a ftupor, know no pause,

Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess
Fearless a foul, that does not always think.
Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wild
Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,
Trees, churches, and strange vifages, expreffed
In the red cinders, while with poring eye
I gazed, myself creating what I faw.
Nor lefs amufed have I quiefcent watched
The footy films, that play upon the bars
Rendulous, and foreboding in the view

Of fuperftition, prophefying ftill,

Though ftill deceived, fome ftranger's near approach. "Tis thus the understanding takes repose

In indolent vacuity of thought,

And fleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face
Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask
Of deep deliberation, as the man

Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost.
Thus oft, reclined at eafe, I lose an hour
At evening, till at length the freezing blast,
That sweeps the bolted fhutter, fummons home
The recollected powers; and snapping short
The glaffy threads, with which the fancy weaves
Her brittle toils, reftores me to myself.
How calm is my recefs; and how the froft,
Raging abroad, and the rough wind endear
The filence and the warmth enjoyed within!
I saw the woods and fields at close of day
A variegated show; the meadows green,
Though faded; and the lands, where lately waved
The golden harveft, of a mellow brown,
Upturned fo lately by the forceful share.
I faw far off the weedy fallows smile
With verdure not unprofitable, grazed

By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each

His favourite herb; while all the leafless groves,
That fkirt the horizon, wore a fable hue,
Scarce noticed in the kindred dufk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change!
Which even now, though filently performed,
And flowly, and by moft unfelt, the face
Of universal nature undergoes.

Faft falls a fleecy fhower: the downy flakes
Defcending, and with never-ceafing lapfe,
Softly alighting upon all below,

Affimilate all objects. Earth receives

Gladly the thickening mantle; and the green And tender blade, that feared the chilling blaft, Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

In fuch a world, so thorny, and where none Finds happiness unblighted; or, if found Without fome thiftly forrow at its fide; It seems the part of wisdom, and no fin Against the law of love, to measure lots With lefs diftinguished than ourselves; that thus We may with patience bear our moderate ills, And fympathife with others, fuffering more.