My cheerful song
With happier omens calls you to the field, 400
Pleased with your generous ardour in the chase,
And warm like you. Then tell me (for ye know),
Doth Beauty ever deign to dwell where use
And aptitude are strangers? is her praise
Confess'd in aught whose most peculiar ends
Are lame and fruitless? or did Nature mean
This pleasing call the herald of a lie,
To hide the shame of discord and disease,
And win each fond admirer into snares,
Foil'd, baffled? No; with better providence 410
The general mother, conscious how infirm
Her offspring tread the paths of good and ill,
Thus, to the choice of credulous desire,
Doth objects the completest of their tribe
Distinguish and commend. Yon flowery bank
Clothed in the soft magnificence of Spring,
Will not the flocks approve it? will they ask
The reedy fen for pasture? That clear rill
Which trickleth murmuring from the mossy rock,
Yields it less wholesome beverage to the worn 420
And thirsty traveller, than the standing pool
With muddy weeds o'ergrown? Yon ragged vine
Whose lean and sullen clusters mourn the rage
Of Eurus, will the wine-press or the bowl
Report of her, as of the swelling grape
Which glitters through the tendrils, like a gem
When first it meets the sun.
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