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While some, whose hopes to no renown extend,
Are only pleas'd to find their labours end.
Thus, as their hours glide on with pleasure fraught,
Their careful masters brood the painful thought;
Much in their mind they murmur and lament,
That one fair day should be so idly spent;
And think that Heaven deals hard, to tythe their store
And tax their time for preachers and the poor.
Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour,
This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power;
This is Heaven's gift to weary men opprest,
And seems the type of their expected rest:
But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay;
Frail joys, begun and ended with the day;
Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign,
The village vices drive them from the plain.
See the stout churl, in drunken fury great,
Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate!
His naked vices, rude and unrefin'd,
Exert their open empire o'er the mind;
But can we less the senseless rage despise,
Because the savage acts without disguise?
Yet here Disguise, the city's vice, is seen,
And Slander steals along and taints the Green.
At her approach domestic peace is gone,
Domestic broils at her approach come on;
She to the Wife the Husband's crime conveys,
She tells the Husband when his Consort strays;
Her busy tongue, through all the little state,
Diffuses doubt, suspicion, and debate;
Are only pleas'd to find their labours end.
Thus, as their hours glide on with pleasure fraught,
Their careful masters brood the painful thought;
Much in their mind they murmur and lament,
That one fair day should be so idly spent;
And think that Heaven deals hard, to tythe their store
And tax their time for preachers and the poor.
Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour,
This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power;
This is Heaven's gift to weary men opprest,
And seems the type of their expected rest:
But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay;
Frail joys, begun and ended with the day;
Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign,
The village vices drive them from the plain.
See the stout churl, in drunken fury great,
Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate!
His naked vices, rude and unrefin'd,
Exert their open empire o'er the mind;
But can we less the senseless rage despise,
Because the savage acts without disguise?
Yet here Disguise, the city's vice, is seen,
And Slander steals along and taints the Green.
At her approach domestic peace is gone,
Domestic broils at her approach come on;
She to the Wife the Husband's crime conveys,
She tells the Husband when his Consort strays;
Her busy tongue, through all the little state,
Diffuses doubt, suspicion, and debate;
