SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
For every want that stimulates the breast, • - .
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, 215
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy ;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. 220
Their level life is but a smould'ring fire,
Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 225
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
*•
But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For. as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unaltered, unimproved the manners run; 230
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play 235
Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the
way,
These far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.
To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain. 240
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
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