Earth and Heaven

1. HAST thou not seen, impatient boy, Hast thou not read, the solemn truth, That grey experience writes for giddy youth On ev'ry mortal joy; Pleasure must be dash'd with pain: And yet with heedless haste, The thirsty boy repeats the taste, Nor hearkens to dispair, but tries the bowl again. The rills of pleasure never run sincere: (Earth has no unpolluted spring:) From the curs'd soil some dang'rous taint they bear: So roses grow on thorns, and honey wears a sting.

2. In vain we seek a heav'n below the sky; The world has false but flatt'ring charms; Its distant joys shew big in our esteem, But lessen still as they draw near the eye. In our embrace the visions die; And, when we grasp the airy forms, We lose the pleasing dream.

3. Earth, with her scenes of gay delight, Is but a landscape rudely drawn, With glaring colours and false light; Distance commends it to the sight, For fools to gaze upon; But, bring the nauseous daubing nigh, Course and confus'd the hideous figures lie, Dessolve the pleasure, and offend the eye.

4. Look up, my soul! pant tow'rd th' eternal hills: Those heav'ns are fairer, than they seem; There pleasures all sincere glide on in chrystal rills: There not a dreg of guilt defiles, Nor grief disturbs, the stream. That Canaan knows no noxious thing. No cursed soil, nor tainted spring, Nor roses grow on thorns, nor honey wears a sting.