Yet the silly wand’ring mind, Loath to be too much confined, Roves and takes her daily tours, Coasting round the narrow shores— Narrow shores of flesh and sense, Picking shells and pebbles thence: Or she sits at Fancy’s door, Calling shapes and shadows to her; Foreign visits still receiving, And to herself a stranger living. Never, never would she buy Indian dust, or Tyrian dye; Never trade abroad for more, If she saw her native store: If her inward worth were known, She might ever live alone. Nor, much in the same vein, was he indisposed occasionally for a gentle kind of satire, as in the following vigorous paraphrase, which some readers may perhaps be surprised to find falling from the pen of Watts. “When I meet with persons,” he says, “of a worldly character, they bring to my mind some scraps of Horace:” “Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati, Alcinoique juventus Cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies,” etc. PARAPHRASE. There are a number of us creep Into this world, to eat and sleep; And know no reason why they’re born, But merely to consume the corn, Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish, And leave behind an empty dish. The crows and ravens do the same, Unlucky birds of hateful name; Ravens or crows might fill their places, And swallow corn and carcases. Then if their tombstone, when they die, Ben’t taught to flatter and to lie, There’s nothing better will be said, Than that “They’ve eat up all their bread, Drank up their drink, and gone to bed.” And the following verses are surely very pleasing to the discontented and unquiet: ’Tis a dull circle that we tread, Just from the window to the bed, To rise to see, and to be seen, Graze on the world awhile, and then We yawn, and stretch to sleep again. But Fancy, that uneasy guest, Still holds a longing in our breast: She finds or frames vexations still, Herself the greatest plague we feel. We take great pleasure in our pain, And make a mountain of a grain, Assume the load, and pant and sweat Beneath th’ imaginary weight. With our dear selves we live at strife, While the most constant scenes of life From peevish humours are not free; Still we affect variety: Rather than pass an easy day, We fret and chide the hours away, Grow weary of this circling sun, And vex that he should ever run The same old track; and still, and still Rise red behind yon eastern hill, And chide the moon that darts her light Through the same casement every night.