L.

Heaven! ’tis a name, that as inconstant sways,

As fame or love, the changes of the moon,

Or, whatsoever wanders by dim ways

To a goal, fashioned by youth’s treacherous noon:

Heaven! ’tis a sound that in its uttering mocks

The hopes, reposing round that various base;

Adroitly differing, tempered to the shocks,

That mind the slow world of its desperate case!

The flattery of an echo from each heart,

A mirror, where each soul, reflected, shows

Unnatural choice of some unworthy part,

Which nature’s whole must loathingly depose:

Seek virtue for itself, or, seeking, lose

A Heaven apart, else Hell would Heaven confuse.

{51}

{51}

LI.

Life is a brook, that over pebbles glides,

And tints with colour of the cloud his wave;

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