Thomson and Pollok: containing The seasons, by James Thomson, and The course of time, by Robert Pollok, A. M.

212

THE COURSE OP TIME.

While yet he gazed upon its loveliness,
And just began to drink its fragrance up.
Gold many hunted, sweat and bled for gold:
Waked all the night, and labored all the day.
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,
Which, being cast into the fire, came out
A shining thing that fools admired, and called
A god; and in devout and humble plight
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less;
And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace,
Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends,
Love, charity, benevolence, and all
The sweet and tender sympathies of life;
And, to complete the horrid murderous rite,
And signalize their folly, offered up
Their souls and an eternity of bliss,
To gain them-what?-an hour of dreaming joy,
A feverish hour, that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of wo.
Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly farther gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up,The miser, who with dust inanimate
Held wedded intercourse. Ill guided wretch!
Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light winged dreams
Ascended up to God,-in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags,