COLIN, TO HIS FRIENDS, Exhorting him to the attainment of Honours by a steady Application to the LAW

My friends, no more!—your kind remonstrance spare! Your kind remonstrance, your advice is vain: Conscious I shall not answer half your care It serves no purpose but to give me pain.

I cannot feel one wish for pomp or pow'r, I seek no titles, I desire no place; Born as I was in unambitious hour I scorn the prize, and can I run the race?

When in the Courts I take my silent stand, Unenvious I behold the judge's state; Behold with pitying eye, Law's restless band, And wonder man will bustle to be great.

Onward I pass—A soberer scene succeeds: 'Tis the sad mansion of departed kings! Where every stone that blazons forth their deeds Proclaims the vanity of earthly things.

Proclaims th' aspiring croud I left behind, Mere insect swarms that shine but for an hour; Then, nipt by cold or shatter'd by the wind, Fleet, like the transient bow that gilds a show'r.

Shall I then sacrifice life's happiest prime To gain employments I should wish to shun? Enslave the sacred freedom of my time To win a title I should hate when won?

No!—Let me live with independence blest, Blest with the sweets of no unlearned ease; Indulge th' unruffl'd calm my soul loves best, And eat my bread in privacy and peace.

One sole inducement could have rous'd my mind; That sole inducement has been long no more: Delia was false!—with her at once resign'd Fled all the schemes I ever form'd for pow'r.

Had she been mine, what could not I have done To give that wealth she now has bought so dear? What prize so great that I could not have won, When all my efforts were inspir'd by her?

Now for myself I live:—With books my morn, With friends perchance my evening hours are spent: The rich man's wonder, and the proud man's scorn, I envy neither, for I feel content.

Free, unconstrain'd, my country's laws I choose; Those laws by which e'en monarchs are control'd; Their changes trace, their origin deduce; But do it for instruction, not for gold.

Thus let me live, till manhood's steadier day Matures the seeds that lab'ring youth has sown: Then might some fav'ring female, chastly gay, Wise without pride, and fair without a frown:

Would such a one, from mean coquetry free, Who held her word as sacred as her fame: Would Mira plight her spotless faith to me, And at the altar grace her Colin's name!

Blest beyond hope, how gladly I'd forswear The wild fantastick pageants London yields, To breathe the country's pure untainted air That sweeps with fresh'ning breeze the new-plough'd fields.

Me rural scenes! me woods! and streams can please That through the fertile vales irriguous rove! Here let me stretch my wearied limbs at ease! For I, inglorious, woods and streams can love!

Happy the man, whose philosophick eye Could to their causes Nature's workings trace; Could learn from thence death's terrors to defy, And joy to meet his Maker face to face.

Blest too is he, whom woods and streams can charm, Whose humble thoughts to lesser flights aspire; Who tunes, (his heart with thankful rapture warm,) To Nature's bounteous lord the rural lyre.

No toil of office ruffles his repose, No purpled monarch's proud unyielding state; Unvers'd in publick scenes, he little knows The loud discordant senate's vain debate.

He little knows th' embattled pow'rs that join From Britain's grasp her western world to rend; Nor sees her sick'ning Genius droop and pine, Nor deems her less'ning glories near their end.

Untost by storms, he gently glides through life; His fields, his trees, give sweet though simple fare; He scapes the madding town's unholy strife, He scapes the noisy clamours of the Bar.