Page:Tales of instruction, in verse and prose.pdf/21

(21) The firſt, a miſer at the heart,

Studious of ev'ry griping art,

Heaps hoards on hoards with anxious pain,

And all his life devotes to gain.

He feels no joy, his cares increaſe,

He neither wakes nor fleeps in peace,

In fancy'd want, (a wretch complete)

He ſtarves, and yet he dares not eat.

The next to ſudden honours grew,

The thriving art of courts he knew;

He reach'd the height of power and place,

Then fell the victim of diſgrace.

Beauty with early bloom ſupplies

His daughter's cheek, and points her eyes;

The vain coquette each ſuit diſdains,

And glories in her lover's pains.

With age ſhe fades, each lover flies,

Contemn’d, forlorn, ſhe pines and dies,

When Jove the father's grief ſurvey'd,

And heard him heaven and fate upbraid,

Thus ſpoke the God.By outward ſhow

Men judge of happineſs and woe;

Shall ignorance of good and ill

Dare to direct th' eternal will?

Seek virtue; and of that poſſeſt,

To providence reſign the reſt.