But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain. The wond'ring forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call. And headlong streams hand listening in their fall!
False happiness is like false money; it passes for a time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss.
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away;
. . . .
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring,
Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing,
Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove,
Say, is not absence death to those who love?