Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
    Then whirl the wretch from high,
  To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
    And grinning Infamy,
  The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
  And hard Unkindness’ altered eye,
    That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
  And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
  And moody Madness laughing wild
    Amid severest woe.

  Lo in the vale of years beneath
    A grisly troop are seen,
  The painful family of Death,
    More hideous than their queen: 
  This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
  That every laboring sinew strains,
    Those in the deeper vitals rage: 
  Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
  That numbs the soul with icy hand,
    And slow consuming Age.

  To each his sufferings:  all are men,
    Condemned alike to groan,
  The tender for another’s pain,
    The unfeeling for his own. 
  Yet ah! why should they know their fate? 
  Since sorrow never comes too late,
    And happiness too swiftly flies,
  Thought would destroy their paradise. 
  No more; where ignorance is bliss,
    ’Tis folly to be wise.

[Footnote 149:  Henry VI., founder of Eton College.]

* * * * *

WILLIAM COWPER.

FROM LINES ON THE RECEIPT OF HIS MOTHER’S PICTURE.

  O, that those lips had language!  Life has passed
  With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
  Those lips are thine—­thy own sweet smile I see,
  The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
  Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
  “Grieve not, my child; chase all thy fears away!”
    My mother!  When I learnt that thou wast dead,
  Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? 
  Hovered thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing son,
  Wretch even then, life’s journey just begun? 
  I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day;
  I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away;
  And, turning from my nursery window, drew
  A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! 
  Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
  Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. 
  What ardently I wished I long believed,
  And, disappointed still, was still deceived;
  By expectation every day beguiled,
  Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. 
  Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
  Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
  I learnt at last submission to my lot;
  But, though I less deplored thee, ne’er forgot.

WINTER EVENING.

[From The Task.]