Classic Poem

Air

 Arise, arise, arise!
 Each shape, and sort, and size
 Of honesty, where ye lie
 Unheeded, on dank or dry,
 From cottages, sheds and steads, to court,
 My brothers of worth and want, resort;
Arise to labour, arise to play,
For Virtue dawns, a newborn day.

 To court, to court repair,
 Though destitute, poor and bare,
 And yet unskilled in aught
 That Euclid or Machiavel taught;
 By naked probity, you acquire
 A garb beyond the silk of Tyre;
And every talent and every art
Is furnished in an upright heart.

 Let Jollity e'en devour
 His interval of an hour,
 Yet pity his transient roar
 For list—and he laughs no more.
 The purest pleasures that Guilt can bring
 Are like the tickling of a sting;
The tickling leaves no sweet behind,
The sting remains and stabs the mind.

 But Virtue in the breast
 Composes her halcyon nest,
 And soothes and smooths each storm
 That would the fair seat deform,
 Herself most frolic and sweetly free,
 To cordial jollity, cordial glee.
The fountain of all that's blessed and bright,
Of orient pleasure, of orient light!

 And from this mental dawn,
 O'er village, and lake, and lawn,
 New radiance shall expand
 To lighten a dusky land,
 And Truth, from this approving stage,
 Shall beam through every act and age;
And Truth, from this approving stage,
Shall beam through every act and age.