Rather while Reason lives To mark me from the beast, I’ll teach her serve at least To heal the wound she gives: Nor need she strain her powers Beyond a common flight, To make the passing hours Happy from morn till night. Since health our toil rewards, And strength is labour’s prize, I hate not, nor despise The work my lot accords; Nor fret with fears unkind The tender joys, that bless My hard-won peace of mind, In hours of idleness. Then what charm company Can give, know I,—if wine Go round, or throats combine To set dumb music free. Or deep in wintertide When winds without make moan, I love my own fireside Not least when most alone. Then oft I turn the page In which our country’s name, Spoiling the Greek of fame, Shall sound in every age: Or some Terentian play Renew, whose excellent Adjusted folds betray How once Menander went. Or if grave study suit The yet unwearied brain, Plato can teach again, And Socrates dispute; Till fancy in a dream Confront their souls with mine, Crowning the mind supreme, And her delights divine. While pleasure yet can be Pleasant, and fancy sweet, I bid all care retreat From my philosophy; Which, when I come to try Your simpler life, will find, I doubt not, joys to vie With those I leave behind. 10 ELEGY AMONG THE TOMBS Sad, sombre place, beneath whose antique yews I come, unquiet sorrows to control; Amid thy silent mossgrown graves to muse With my neglected solitary soul; And to poetic sadness care confide, Trusting sweet Melancholy for my guide: They will not ask why in thy shades I stray, Among the tombs finding my rare delight, Beneath the sun at indolent noonday, Or in the windy moon-enchanted night, Who have once reined in their steeds at any shrine, And given them water from the well divine.— The orchards are all ripened, and the sun Spots the deserted gleanings with decay; The seeds are perfected: his work is done, And Autumn lingers but to outsmile the May; Bidding his tinted leaves glide, bidding clear Unto clear skies the birds applaud the year. Lo, here I sit, and to the world I call, The world my solemn fancy leaves behind, Come! pass within the inviolable wall, Come pride, come pleasure, come distracted mind; Within the fated refuge, hither, turn, And learn your wisdom ere ’tis late to learn. Come with me now, and taste the fount of tears; For many eyes have sanctified this spot, Where grief’s unbroken lineage endears The charm untimely Folly injures not, And slays the intruding thoughts, that overleap The simple fence its holiness doth keep.