William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
The Enthusiast: An OdeWilliam Whitehead (17151785)
O
’Twas ere the blooming sweets of May
Had lost their freshest hues,
When every flower on every hill,
In every vale, had drunk its fill
Of sunshine and of dews.
When Spring gives up the reins of time
To Summer’s glowing hand,
And doubting mortals hardly know
By whose command the breezes blow
Which fan the smiling land.
Which cloth’d a lawn’s aspiring head
I urg’d my devious way,
With loitering steps, regardless where,
So soft, so genial was the air,
So wond’rous bright the day.
O’er all the blue expansive grove,
Unbroken by a cloud!
And now beneath delighted pass,
Where, winding through the deep-green grass,
A full-brimm’d river flow’d.
To thee, serenest Solitude,
Burst forth th’ unbidden lay:
Begone, vile world; the learn’d, the wise,
The great, the busy, I despise,
And pity e’en the gay.
’Tis here, divine Philosophy,
Thou deign’st to fix thy throne!
Here, contemplation points the road
Thro’ Nature’s charms to Nature’s God!
These, these, are joys alone!
Ye human hopes, and human fears,
Ye pleasures, and ye pains!—
While thus I spake, o’er all the soul
A philosophic calmness stole,
A Stoic stillness reigns.
Fear, anger, pity, shame, and pride,
No more my bosom move.
Yet still I felt, or seem’d to feel
A kind of visionary zeal
Of universal love.
’Twas Reason whisper’d in my ear
These monitory strains:
What mean’st thou, man? would’st thou unbind
The ties which constitute thy kind,
The pleasures and the pains?
Who spreads the gay or solemn scene
To Contemplation’s eye:
Fix’d every movement of the soul,
Taught every wish its destined goal,
And quicken’d every joy.
He bids them war eternal wage,
And combat each his foe:
Till from dissensions concord rise,
And beauties from deformities,
And happiness from woe.
A bliss which leans not to mankind?
Presumptuous thought and vein!
Each bliss unshar’d is unenjoy’d,
Each power is weak, unless employ’d
Some social good to gain.
With those exalted joys compare
Which active virtue feels.
When on she drags, as lawful prize,
Contempt, and Indolence, and Vice,
At her triumphant wheels.
To man, while Virtue’s glorious deeds
Employ his toilsome day,
This fair variety of things
Are merely life’s refreshing springs
To soothe him on his way.
In vain thou sing’st if none admire,
How sweet soe’er the strain;
And is not thy o’erflowing mind,
Unless thou mixest with thy kind,
Benevolent in vain?
If not thy bliss, thy excellence
Thou yet hast learn’d to scan;
At least thy wants, thy weakness know,
And see them all uniting show,
That man was made for man.