Book 2 — ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE[157:1] [C. Lloyd]
Reading edition
ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE[157:1] [C. Lloyd]
WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY
Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe, O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear! [158]To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go, Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: 5 Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart 10 Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd, All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal 15 A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.
1796.
FOOTNOTES:
LINENOTES:
Title] Lines, &c., C. I.: To a Young Man who abandoned himself to a causeless and indolent melancholy MS. Letter, 1796.
[
6-7
]
These lines were omitted in the MS. Letter and 4o 1796, but were replaced in Sibylline Leaves, 1817.
[
8
]
Or seek some widow's MS. Letter, Dec. 17, 1796.
[
11
]
eye] eyes MS. Letter, Dec. 9, 1796, C. I.
[
15-16
]
earth's common weal A prey to the thron'd Murderess of Mankind.
MS. Letter, 1796.
All effortless thou leave Earth's commonweal A prey to the thron'd Murderers of Mankind.
C. I., 1796, 4o.