from fortune dost no servant crave, Believe it, thou no master need’st to have. That Ode UPON LIBERTY. Ode I. Freedom with virtue takes her seat; Her proper place, her only scene, Is in the golden mean, She lives not with the poor, nor with the great: The wings of those, Necessity has clipped, And they’re in Fortune’s Bridewell whipped, To the laborious task of bread; These are by various tyrants captive led. Now wild Ambition with imperious force Rides, reins, and spurs them like th’ unruly horse; And servile Avarice yokes them now Like toilsome oxen to the plough; And sometimes Lust, like the misguiding light, Draws them through all the labyrinths of night. If any few among the great there be From the insulting passions free, Yet we even those too fettered see By custom, business, crowds, and formal decency; And wheresoe’er they stay, and wheresoe’er they go, Impertinences round them flow. These are the small uneasy things Which about greatness still are found, And rather it molest than wound Like gnats which too much heat of summer brings; But cares do swarm there too, and those have stings: As when the honey does too open lie, A thousand wasps about it fly Nor will the master even to share admit; The master stands aloof, and dares not taste of it. Freedom II. ’Tis morning, well, I fain would yet sleep on; You cannot now; you must be gone To Court, or to the noisy hail Besides, the rooms without are crowded all; The steam of business does begin, And a springtide of clients is come in. Ah, cruel guards, which this poor prisoner keep, Will they not suffer him to sleep! Make an escape; out at the postern flee, And get some blessed hours of liberty. With a few friends, and a few dishes dine, And much of mirth and moderate wine; To thy bent mind some relaxation give, And steal one day out of thy life to live. Oh happy man, he cries, to whom kind Heaven Has such a freedom always given Why, mighty madman, what should hinder thee From being every day as free? III.
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