James Thomson (1700 – 1748)
Scottish poet and playwright.
There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead.
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
Sighed and looked unutterable things.
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue
Displays distinguish'd merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.
The negligence of Nature wide and wild,
Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads
Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade.
But who can paint
Like Nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
But what most showed the vanity of life
Was to behold the nations all on fire.
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!
Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age.
Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thul?, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.
The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid.
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest.
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Incessant lab'ring round the stormy cape.
Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare!
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired—