James Beattie

Ah! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn, but you woodlands I mourn not for you! For spring is returning your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew. Nor yet for the ravage of winter I …

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

By the glare of false science betray’d, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

At the close of the day when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, And naught but the nightingale’s song in the grove.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrewn, Fast by a brook or fountain’s murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined, Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy, When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy.

Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free; Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms; Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined? No; let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire, To fancy, freedom, harmony, resigned; Ambition's groveling crew forever left behind.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar?

What is a law, if those who make it Become the forwardest to break it?

Laws, as we read in ancient sages, Have been like cobwebs in all ages: Cobwebs for little flies are spread, And laws for little folks are made; But if an insect of renown, Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,

Every man of learning wishes, that his son may be learned; and that not so much from a view to pecuniary advantage, as from a desire to have him supplied with the means of useful instruction and liberal amusement.

When squint-eyed Slander plies the unhallow'd tongue, From poison'd maw when Treason weaves his line, And Muse apostate (infamy to song!) Grovels, low muttering, at Sedition's shrine.