mystery take, And open there to my mind’s purgèd eye Those wonders which to sense the gods deny; How in the moon such chance of shapes is found The moon, the changing world’s eternal bound. What shakes the solid earth, what strong disease Dares trouble the firm centre’s ancient ease; What makes the sea retreat, and what advance: Varieties too regular for chance. What drives the chariot on of winter’s light, And stops the lazy waggon of the night. But if my dull and frozen blood deny To send forth spirits that raise a soul so high; In the next place, let woods and rivers be My quiet, though unglorious, destiny. In life’s cool vale let my low scene be laid; Cover me, gods, with Tempe’s thickest shade Happy the man, I grant, thrice happy he Who can through gross effects their causes see: Whose courage from the deeps of knowledge springs. Nor vainly fears inevitable things; But does his walk of virtue calmly go, Through all th’ alarms of death and hell below. Happy! but next such conquerors, happy they, Whose humble life lies not in fortune’s way. They unconcerned from their safe distant seat Behold the rods and sceptres of the great. The quarrels of the mighty, without fear, And the descent of foreign troops they hear. Nor can even Rome their steady course misguide, With all the lustre of her perishing pride. Them never yet did strife or avarice draw Into the noisy markets of the law, The camps of gownéd war, nor do they live By rules or forms that many mad men give, Duty for nature’s bounty they repay, And her sole laws religiously obey. Some with bold labour plough the faithless main; Some rougher storms in princes’ courts sustain. Some swell up their slight sails with popular fame, Charmed with the foolish whistlings of a name. Some their vain wealth to earth again commit; With endless cares some brooding o’er it sit. Country and friends are by some wretches sold, To lie on Tyrian beds and drink in gold; No price too high for profit can be shown; Not brother’s blood, nor hazards of their own. Around the world in search of it they roam; It makes e’en their Antipodes their home. Meanwhile, the prudent husbandman is found In mutual duties striving with his ground; And half the year he care of that does take That half the year grateful returns does make Each fertile month does some new gifts present, And with new work his industry content: This the young lamb, that the soft fleece doth yield, This loads with hay, and that with corn the field: All sorts of fruit crown the rich autumn’s pride: And on a swelling hill’s warm stony side, The powerful princely purple of the vine, Twice dyed with the redoubled sun, does shine. In th’ evening to a fair ensuing day, With joy he sees his flocks and kids to play, And loaded kine about his cottage stand, 

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