Ingenious fancy, never better pleased Than when employed to accommodate the fair, Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devised The soft settee; one elbow at each end, And in the midst an elbow, it received, United yet divided, twain at once. So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne; And so two citizens who take the air, Close packed and smiling in a chaise and one. But relaxation of the languid frame By soft recumbency of outstretched limbs, Was bliss reserved for happier days; so slow The growth of what is excellent, so hard To attain perfection in this nether world. Thus first necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplished Sofa last. The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he Who quits the coach-box at the midnight hour To sleep within the carriage more secure, His legs depending at the open door. Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk, The tedious rector drawling o’er his head, And sweet the clerk below; but neither sleep Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead, Nor his who quits the box at midnight hour To slumber in the carriage more secure, Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk, Nor yet the dozings of the clerk are sweet, Compared with the repose the Sofa yields. Oh, may I live exempted (while I live Guiltless of pampered appetite obscene) From pangs arthritic that infest the toe Of libertine excess. The Sofa suits The gouty limb, ’tis true; but gouty limb, Though on a Sofa, may I never feel: For I have loved the rural walk through lanes Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep, And skirted thick with intertexture firm Of thorny boughs: have loved the rural walk O’er hills, through valleys, and by river’s brink, E’er since a truant boy I passed my bounds To enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames. And still remember, nor without regret Of hours that sorrow since has much endeared, How oft, my slice of pocket store consumed, Still hungering penniless and far from home, I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws, Or blushing crabs, or berries that emboss The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere. Hard fare! but such as boyish appetite Disdains not, nor the palate undepraved By culinary arts unsavoury deems. No Sofa then awaited my return, No Sofa then I needed. Youth repairs His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil Incurring short fatigue; and though our years, As life declines, speed rapidly away, And not a year but pilfers as he goes Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep, A tooth or auburn lock, and by degrees Their length and colour from the locks they spare; The elastic spring of an unwearied foot That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence, That play of lungs inhaling and again