When the sad soul, by care and grief oppressed, Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest; When every object that appears in view, Partakes her gloom and seems dejected too; Where shall affliction from itself retire? Where fade away and placidly expire? Alas! we fly to silent scenes in vain; Care blasts the honours of the flowery plain: Care veils in clouds the sun's meridian beam, Sighs through the grove and murmurs in the stream; For when the soul is labouring in despair, In vain the body breathes a purer air: No storm-tossed sailor sighs for slumbering seas,-- He dreads the tempest, but invokes the breeze; On the smooth mirror of the deep resides Reflected woe, and o'er unruffled tides The ghost of every former danger glides. Thus, in the calms of life, we only see A steadier image of our misery; But lively gales and gently-clouded skies Disperse the sad reflections as they rise; And busy thoughts and little cares avail To ease the mind, when rest and reason fail. When the dull thought, by no designs employed, Dwells on the past, or suffered or enjoyed, We bleed anew in every former grief, And joys departed furnish no relief. Not Hope herself, with all her flattering art, Can cure this stubborn sickness of the heart: The soul disdains each comfort she prepares, And anxious searches for congenial cares; Those lenient cares, which, with our own combined, By mixed sensations ease the afflicted mind, And steal our grief away and leave their own behind; A lighter grief! which feeling hearts endure Without regret, nor e'en demand a cure. But what strange art, what magic can dispose The troubled mind to change its native woes? Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see Others more wretched, more undone than we? This, books can do;--nor this alone; they give New views to life, and teach us how to live; They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what they show to kings.