nurse the pensive mood.
The smiles of plenty beam on nature's face,
The shady alder props the burthen'd vine;
For thee they bloom, for thee the feather'd race,
In chearing song, their various notes combine.
Man, selfish man, the object of thy scorn,
Behold, for thee, his toil prepares the feast,
His culture 'twas that did these groves adorn,
For thee, far hence, he chas'd the savage beast.

The hero dies—But not for sordid hire;
His soul, aethereal, asks a better meed,
A social motive feeds his gen'rous fire,
Nor love of fame, alone, that makes him bleed.
Whence did bold Curtius snatch the noble flame,
That, low, in earth immers'd the glorious youth?
Was it to purchase, after death, a name,
Bestowed by chance, more frequent than by truth.
Say, did firm Regulus, severely great,
Acquire his virtues in the hermitage?
Or, was that resolution fix'd as fate,
Gain'd from the precepts of some cloister'd sage?
No;—these the hermit knows not, taught to dose
In torpid apathy his useless hours.
He, truly selfish, seeks his own repose
In lonely caves, and dark sequester'd bow'rs.
Had all men pass'd their lives in sloth, recluse,
We ne'er had heard the poet's raptured verse;
Silent had been the great Miltonian muse,
And Shakespear ne'er had rival'd nature's force.

Newton had never traced the comet's round.
Nor e'er the varied threads of light unwove;
The force aërial Boyle had never found,
Nor Franklin seiz'd, unharm'd, the bolt of Jove.
'Twas not in indolence, supine, retir'd,
These, greatly daring, scann'd the azure dome;
Their god-like minds, with vast ambition fir'd,
Long'd to anticipate their future home.
Cease then of visionary bliss to dream,
Let superstition seek the darken'd cave,
The midnight cell, or slowly-winding stream,
Where shadowing cyprus boughs, funereal wave.
While, swell'd with every social thought, the mind
Public with private good, delighted, blends,
With glad expansion, seeks the bliss refin'd,
And, like the sun, its influence extends.
I MAKE no apology for inserting such a length of verse in a familiar epistle. I think I have a sufficient one,

when I acquaint you