Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/354

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 * Ah, why should man, in hard unsocial strife,
 * And withering care whose vigils never cease,
 * Fretting away this little thread of life,
 * Of his sad birthright reap such large increase!
 * Why should he toil for aught but bread and peace?
 * Why rear to heaven his clay-built pyramids?
 * Nor from his tasks himself, poor slave! release;
 * With anxious thought, which wholesome rest forbids,

Drying the balm of sleep from sorrow's swollen lids.


 * Despising cheap delights, he loves to scoop
 * His marble palace from the rock's hard breast,
 * And in close dungeon walls himself to coop,
 * On golden couches wooing pale unrest;
 * With foreign looms his stately halls are drest,
 * And grim-wrought tapestry clothes the darkened room;
 * While in the flowery vale Peace builds her nest,
 * Amidst the purple heath or yellow broom,

Or where midst rustling corn the nodding poppies bloom.