Each moral pleasure of the heart,
Each lafting charm of truth,
Depends not on the giddy aid
Of wild, inconftant youth.
The vain coquet, whofe empty pride
A fading face fupplies,
May juftly dread the wint'ry gloom,
Where all its glory dies.
Leave fuch a ruin to deplore,
To fading forms confin'd :
Nor age nor wrinkles difcompofe
One feature of the mind.
Amidft the universal change,
Unconscious of decay,
It views, unmov'd, the feythe of Time
Sweep all befides away.
Fix'd on its own eternal frame,
Eternal are its joys:
While, borne on tranfitory wings,
Each mortal pleasure flies.
While ev'ry fhort-liv'd flow'r of sense
Destructive years confume,
Thro' Friendship's fair enchanting walks
Unfading myrtles blo m.
Nor with the narrow bounds of time
The beauteous profpect ends,
But, lengthen'd through the vale of death,
To Paradife extends.
SOON as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day,
Before the ripen'd field the reapers ftand
In fair array, each by the lafs he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate,
By nameless gentle offices, her toil.
At once they stoop, and fwell the lufty fheaves,
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural fcandal, and the rural jeft,
Fly harmless to deceive the tedious time,
And fteal, unfelt, the fultry hours away.
Behind the mafter walks, builds up the shocks,
And confcious, glancing oft on every fide
His fated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners fpread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their fcanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, Hufbandmen! but fling
From the full fheaf, with charitable stealth,
The lib'ral handful. Think, oh, grateful, think!
How good the God of Harvest is to you,
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While thefe unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you like the fowls of Heaven,
And atk their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your fons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint ye give.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends,
And fortune fmil'd deceitful on her birth:
For, in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, fave Innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale,
By folitude and deep furrounding fhades,
But more by bafhful modefty, conceal'd.
Together thus they fhunn'd the cruel fcorn,
Which Virtue, funk to poverty, would meet
From giddy Paffion, and low-minded Pride;
Almoft on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that fung them to repofe,
Content, and carelefs of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rofe,
When the due wets its leaves; unftained and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain fnow.
The modeft virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground, dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers;
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithlefs fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, fhone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a fimple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of drefs; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most,
Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's felf,
Reclufe amid the clofe-embowering woods,
As in the hollow breaft of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills
A myrtle rifes, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourish'd, blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia! till, at length, compell'd
By ftrong Neceffity's fupreme command,
With fmiling patience in her looks, the went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of fwains
Palemon was! the generous, and the rich!
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, fuch as Arcadian fong
Tranfmits from ancient uncorrupted times,
When tyrant Custom has not shackled man,
But free to follow Nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with Autumnal scenes
Amufing, chanc'd befide his reaper-train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick,
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He faw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcaft modefty conceal'd.
That very moment love and chafte defire
Sprung in his bofom, to himself unknown,
For ftill the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philofopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field:
And thus in fecret to his foul he figh'd;
"What pity! that fo delicate a form, "By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense "And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell, "Should be devoted to the rude embrace
"Of fome indecent clown! She looks, methinks, "Of old Acafto's line, and to my mind. "Recalls that patron of my happy life,
"From whom my lib'ral fortune took its rife, “ Nów to the duft gone down, his houses, lands, "And once fair-spreading family, diffolv'd. "'Tis faid, that in some lone obfcure retreat, “ Urg'd by remembrance fad, and decent pride, "Far from thofe scenes which knew their better days, "His aged widow and his daughter live,
"Whom yet my fruitlefs fearch could never find. "Romantic with! would this the daughter were!"
When ftri&t enquiring, from herself he found
She was the fame, the daughter of his friend,
Of bountiful Acafto; who can speak
The mingled paffions that furpriz'd his heart,
And through his nerves in fhiv'ring transport ran !
Then blaz'd his mother'd flame, avow'd and bold,
And as he view'd her, ardent, o'er and o'er,
Love, Gratitude, and Pity, wept at once.
Confus'd and frighten'd at his fudden tears,
Her rifing beauties flufh'd a higher bloom,
As thus Palemon, paffionate, and just,
Pour'd out the pious rapture of his foul:
"And art thou then Acafto's dear remains? “She, whom my restless gratitude has fought "So long in vain? O Heavens! the very fame, "The foften'd image of my noble friend; "Alive his very look, his very feature,
"More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than Spring! "Thou fole furviving blossom from the root « That nourish'd up my fortune! Say, ah, where,
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