BUT happy they! the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarfer tie of human laws,
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To bless himself, from fordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, consume his nights and days:
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild defire, fierce as the funs they feel;
Let eastern tyrants from the light of heaven
Seclude their bosom-flaves, meanly possest
Of a meer, lifeless, violated form:
While those whom love cements, in holy faith,
And equal transport, free as nature, live,
Difdaining fear; for what's the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all !
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish,
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face,
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent HEAVEN.
Mean-time a smiling Offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human bloffom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, fhews fome new charm,
The father's luftre and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an affiduous care:
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' inspiring spirit, and to plant
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! you whom the fudden tear
Surprizes often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but fights of bliss,
All various nature preffing on the heart,
Obedient fortune, and approving HEAVEN.
These are the bleffings of diviner love;
And thus their moments fly. The seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting SPRING
Sheds her own rofy garland on their head:
Till evening comes at last, cool, gentle, calm;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as foul approaches foul,
Together, down they fink in social sleep.
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