By ceaseless action, all that is subsists. Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel That Nature rides upon, maintains her health, Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads An instant’s pause, and lives but while she moves. Its own revolvency upholds the world. Winds from all quarters agitate the air, And fit the limpid element for use, Else noxious: oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed By restless undulation: even the oak Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm: He seems indeed indignant, and to feel The impression of the blast with proud disdain, Frowning as if in his unconscious arm He held the thunder. But the monarch owes His firm stability to what he scorns, More fixed below, the more disturbed above. The law, by which all creatures else are bound, Binds man the lord of all. Himself derives No mean advantage from a kindred cause, From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease. The sedentary stretch their lazy length When custom bids, but no refreshment find, For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk, And withered muscle, and the vapid soul, Reproach their owner with that love of rest To which he forfeits even the rest he loves. Not such the alert and active. Measure life By its true worth, the comforts it affords, And theirs alone seems worthy of the name Good health, and, its associate in the most, Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake, And not soon spent, though in an arduous task; The powers of fancy and strong thought are theirs; Even age itself seems privileged in them With clear exemption from its own defects. A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front The veteran shows, and gracing a gray beard With youthful smiles, descends towards the grave Sprightly, and old almost without decay.