And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by fome fpirit to mortals' good,
Or th' unseen genius of the wood,
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloyster's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With ant que pillars mally proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Cafting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic'd quire below,
lo service high and anthems clear,
As

may with sweetnels, through mine ear,
Diffolve me into ecitafies,'
And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mosly cell,
Where I may fit, and rightly spell
Of every far that heav'n doth lhew
And every herb that fips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic frain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give.
And I with thee will choose to live.

DRYDEN.

THE FOUR AGES.
From the First Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.)

THE GOLDEN AGE. The Golden Age was first ; when man, yet new, No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; And with a native bent did good pursue. Unforc'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear, His words were fimple, and his soul fincere : Needless was written law, where none oppress’d'; The law of man was written in his breast : No suppliant crowds before the judge appeard; No court erected yet, nor cause was heard; But all was fate, for conscience was their guardi. The mountain-trees in distant prospect please, Ere yet the pine descended to the seas; Ere fails were spread, new oceans to explore; And happy inortals, unconcerp'd for more, Confin'd their wishes to their native thore. No walls were yet, nor fence, nor moat, nor mound, Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry found: Nor swords were forg'd; but void of care and crime, The soft creation Dept away their time. The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough; And, unprovok'd, did fruitful fores allow : Content with food, wh ch nature freely bred, On wildings and on strawberries they led;

Cornels and bramble-berries gave the reft,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
The flow'rs, unsown, in fields and meadows reign'd;
And western winds immortal spring maipta n'd.
to following years the bearded corn ensu'd,
From earth, unask'd ; nor was that earth renew'd.
From veins and vallies milk and nectar broke,
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

THE SILVER AGE. But when good Saturn, banish'd from above, Was driv'n to hell, the world was under Jove. Succeeding times a Silver Age behold, Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold. Then summer, autumn, winter, did appear, And spring was but a season of the year. The sun his annual course obliquely made, Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad. Then air with sultry heats began to glow, The wings of winds were clogg’d with ice and snow; And shiv'ring mortals into houses drivin, Sought shelter from th’inclemency of heav'n. Those houses then were caves, or homely sheds, With twining ozier: fened and moss their beds. Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrous broke, And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.

THE BRAZEN AGE.
To this came next in course the Braven Age,
A warthe offspring, promp to bloody rage,
Not impious yet

THE IRUN AGE.
HARD steel succeeded then;
And itubborn as the metal were the men.
Truth, Modesty, and Shame, the world forsook,
Fraud, Avarice, and Force, their places took.
Then sails were spread to every wind that blew,
Raw were the failors, and the depths were new ;
Trees rudely hallow'd did the waves sustain ;
Ere ships in triumph plough'd the wat’ry plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right,
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to hear
Her annual income to the crooked fare ;
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Diggd from her entrails first the precious ore;
Which next to hell the prudent Gods had laid;
And that alluring ill to light display'd.
Thus cursed steel, and more accurfed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel affaulted, and by gold betray'd.
Now (brandish'd weapons glittring in their hands),
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands.
No rights of hospitality remain;
The guet, by him who harbour'd him is nain:
The fon-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife :
The step-dame po son for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here opprest, to heav'n returns.

THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND BOOK OF

LUCRETIUS.

}

'Tis pleasant fafely to behold from shore The rolling ship, and hear the tempeft roar: Not that another's pain is our delight; But pains unfelt produce the pleasing fight. 'Tis pleasant also, to behold from far, The moving legions mingled in the war: But much more sweet the lab’ring fteps to guide, To virtue's heights, with wisdoin well lupply'd, And all the magazines of learning fortify'd: From thence to look beloy on human kiad; Bewilder'd in the maze of lite and blind : To see vain fools ambitioufy contend, For wit and pow'r; their laft endeavours bend T'outshine each other; waste their time and health, In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth. O wretched man! in what a inift of life, Inclos'd with dangers and with noisy itrife, He spends his little span; and over-feeds His cramm'd degre, with more than nature needs! For Nature wisely stints our appetite, And craves no more than undisturb'd delight; Which minds, unmix'd with cares and fears, obtain; A soul serene, a body void of pain. So little this corporeal frame requires ; So bounded are our natural degres, That wanting all, and setting pain afide, With bare privation fenfe is satisfy'd.