I.
72 lines✦
OULD Wisdom for herself be woo’d,And wake the foolish from his dream,She must be glad as well as good,And must not only be, but seem.Beauty and joy are hers by right;And, knowing this, I wonder lessThat she’s so scorn’d, when falsely dightIn misery and ugliness.What’s that which Heaven to man endears,And that which eyes no sooner seeThan the heart says, with floods of tears,‘Ah, that’s the thing which I would be!’Not childhood, full of frown and fret;Not youth, impatient to disownThose visions high, which to forgetWere worse than never to have known;Not worldlings, in whose fair outsideNor courtesy nor justice fails,Thanks to cross-pulling vices tied,Like Samson’s foxes, by the tails;Not poets; real things are dreams,When dreams are as realities,And boasters of celestial gleamsGo stumbling aye for want of eyes;Not patriots or people’s men,In whom two worse-match’d evils meetThan ever sought Adullam’s den,Base conscience and a high conceit;Not new-made saints, their feelings iced,Their joy in man and nature gone,Who sing ‘O easy yoke of Christ!’But find ’tis hard to get it on;Not great men, even when they’re good;The good man whom the time makes great,By some disgrace of chance or blood,God fails not to humiliate;Not these: but souls, found here and there,Oases in our waste of sin,Where everything is well and fair,And Heav’n remits its discipline;Whose sweet subdual of the worldThe worldling scarce can recognise,And ridicule, against it hurl’d,Drops with a broken sting and dies;Who nobly, if they cannot knowWhether a ’scutcheon’s dubious fieldCarries a falcon or a crow,Fancy a falcon on the shield;Yet, ever careful not to hurtGod’s honour, who creates success,Their praise of even the best desertIs but to have presumed no less;Who, should their own life plaudits bring,Are simply vex’d at heart that suchAn easy, yea, delightful thingShould move the minds of men so much.They live by law, not like the fool,But like the bard, who freely singsIn strictest bonds of rhyme and rule,And finds in them, not bonds, but wings.Postponing still their private easeTo courtly custom, appetite,Subjected to observances,To banquet goes with full delight;Nay, continence and gratitudeSo cleanse their lives from earth’s alloy,They taste, in Nature’s common food,Nothing but spiritual joy.They shine like Moses in the face,And teach our hearts, without the rod,That God’s grace is the only grace,And all grace is the grace of God.
✦