To your hermit-trodden seat;
Where I may live at last my own,
Where I at last may die unknown.
9. I spoke: she turn'd her magic ray:
And thus she said, or seem'd to say;
Youth, your mistaken, if you think to find
In shades, a medicine for a troubled mind;
Wan grief will haunt you wheresoe'er you go,
Sigh in the breeze, and in the streamlet flow.
There, pale inaction pines his life away;
And satiate mourns the quick return of day:
There, naked frenzy laughing wild with pain,
Or bares the blade, or plunges in the main:
There, superstition broods o'er all her fears,
And yells of demons in the zephyr hears.
10. But if a hermit you're resolved to dwell,
And bid to social life a last farewell;
'Tis impious
God never made an independent man;
Twould jar the concord of his gen'ral plan.
See every part of that stupendous whole,
"Whose body nature is, and God the soul;"
To one great end the general good conspire,
From matter, brute, to man, to seraph, fire.
11. Should man through nature solitary roam,
His will his sovereign, every where his home,
What force would guard him from the lion's jaw?
What swiftness wing him from the panther's paw?
Or should fate lead him to some safer shore,
Where panthers never prowl, nor lions roar,
Where liberal nature all her charms bestows,
Suns shine, birds sing, flowers bloom, and water flows,
Fool, dost thou think he'd revel on the store,
Absolve the care of Heaven, nor ask for more?
Tho' waters flow'd, flow'rs bloom'd, and Phœbus shone,
He'd sigh, he'd murmur, that he was alone.
For know, the Maker on the human breast,
A sense of kindred, country, man, impress'd.
12. Though nature's works the ruling mind declare,
And well deserve inquiry's serious care,
The God (whate'er misanthropy may say,)
Shines, beams in man with most unclouded ray.
What boots it thee to fly from pole to pole?
Hang o'er the sun, and with the planets roll?