Lines: To a Friend in Answer to a Melancholy Letter

Away, those cloudy looks, that labouring sigh,

The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!

Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power,

When the blind Gamester throws a luckless die.



Yon setting Sun flashes a mournful gleam

Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train:

To-morrow shall the many-colour'd main

In brightness roll beneath his orient beam!



Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time

Flies o'er his mystic lyre: in shadowy dance

The alternate groups of Joy and Grief advance

Responsive to his varying strains sublime!



Bears on its wing each hour a load of Fate;

The swain, who, lull'd by Seine's mild murmurs, led

His weary oxen to their nightly shed,

To-day may rule a tempest-troubled State.



Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile

Survey the sanguinary Despot's might,

And haply hurl the Pageant from his height

Unwept to wander in some savage isle.



There shiv'ring sad beneath the tempest's frown

Round his tir'd limbs to wrap the purple vest;

And mix'd with nails and beads, an equal jest!

Barter for food, the jewels of his crown.