Ride, si sapis.

   Attend! ye tearful train, whose sombre stare

Clouds the bright noon, and chills the summer air;

Whose fretful fancy, torn by transient woes,

Prolongs the pain, nor grateful sweetness knows:

Of trivial shadow born, your doleful mien

Creates a million shades where one had been!

At dawn, when soft Aurora wakes the wold,

In curtain’d room poor Maestus’ frown behold:

Depress’d with grief for his rejected rhymes,

He spurns the soothing pleasures of the times;

Courts the dark midnight, and reviles the ray

Of cheering sunshine that proclaims the day.

The verdant vale, with orient beams aglow,

Affronts his mood, and stimulates his woe,

And the fair meadow, gay with floral grace,

But carves new furrows on his furrow’d face!

The joys of Nature for her sons design’d,

Perturb the more his barren, brooding mind;

He scorns the countless boons the hours provide

Whilst weeping o’er the one small boon deny’d!

Astir at last, and pacing down the road,

Sour Maestus still retains his gloomy load;

At friendly blossoms casts an angry look,

And mutters curses at the murm’ring brook.

Beside yon cottage gate a childish throng

Enjoy the day in sport and happy song:

By one black glance the sulker mars their glee,

Incens’d that they should blithe or blissful be!

With sneering snarl he gains the village green,

And flings an insult at the peaceful scene:

The smiling faces by each humble door

Perceive his morbid mood and smile no more.

The neighb’ring copse, where bird-born warbling floats,

Provokes poor Maestus with the tuneful notes:

The light-wing’d choristers their song suspend,

And flee the foe who fears to be their friend.

Thus stalks the mourner, whose distressful eye

Darkens the sun, and veils th’ unclouded sky;

Seeks out the weeds amidst the garden flow’rs,

In crystal starlight spies the coming show’rs;

Foul calumny with avid ardour learns,

And in each virtue hidden ill discerns!

His hand no help, his heart no kindness bears,

Nor strives he to relieve a brother’s cares:

His own sick soul, with melancholy low,

Cares not how many others suffer so.

Mankind he shuns, possess’d by hatred dim,

And Man repays the debt by shunning him!

   Mark now bright Laetus, who at breaking day

Delights to watch the climbing sunbeams play:

Pleas’d with the glow and grateful for the sight,

He casts away the ills of yesternight;

With smiling grace th’ auspicious morning greets,

And prints his smile on ev’ry face he meets.

For him the mead with greener splendour spreads,

And flow’rs bloom brighter from their dewy beds;

With milder breath the matin zephyr stirs

The lowland maples and the mountain firs;

The brook with added joy its chorus chants,

While shapelier fronds bedeck the fringing plants.

At Laetus’ tread behold the infant train,

Distress’d by Maestus, all their joy regain:

Around the cottage door in gladness vie,

And bless their smiling squire with laughing eye.

The village throng his sprightly step attend,

For ev’ry wight knows Laetus as his friend:

His beaming glance, by kindly heart endow’d,

Reflected shines from all the circling crowd.

Nor with indiff’rence is that glance endow’d

Upon his fellows in the travell’d road:

Solicitude his gen’rous mien pervades,

And, duke or churl, each suff’ring soul he aids.

Deaf to ill rumour, keen to good report,

His lenient judgment is the village court;

The countryside in his forgiving ear

Their sorrows pour, for comfort and for cheer:

The cares of all his soothing arts beguile,

And from his own, they learn a gen’ral smile!

   Hark! From the copse returning carols ring,

As blithesome birds the smiling Laetus sing;

The chirping chords o’er elm and oak resound,

To bless the vale, and thrill the rising mound.

Above th’ adjacent moor a cloud ascends,

And thunder now the rustic quiet rends:

But while poor Maestus shakes in doleful fright,

Laetus rejoices in the flashing light:

Th’ Olympian Jove behind the thunder sees,

And hails the show’r that slakes the thirsty trees.

Within a glen, whose leaf-thatch’d roof allows

A grateful refuge ’neath the bending boughs,

In common quest of shelter from the rain,

Behold a random meeting of the twain!

The angry Maestus shakes his dripping cloak,

And curses even the protecting oak;

Observes his soggy hat with with’ring look;

Eyes the damp powder on his wet peruke;

But as the fretful fool all things reviles,

His happier brother meets his gaze—and smiles!

Thrice-potent smile! whose glad, pervasive pow’r

Lights up the gloom, and cheers the rainy hour;

The darkest mood dispels, and from the mind

Wafts the sad image like a summer wind!

Unhappy Maestus sees, and o’er his face

The grief-drawn lines unwonted patterns trace;

The tight-prest lips relax; the curling sneer

Attempts to form, yet seems to disappear;

The brows to hold their frown in vain essay,

And glaring eyeballs lose their baleful ray.

Again kind Laetus, with his cheerful glance,

In friendly fashion makes a new advance;

With offer’d aid, his hand in greeting lends,

While o’er his lips a brighter smile extends.

Maestus, perplex’d, a sadden’d accent tries,

But ere his sob is born, the sadness dies:

Half struggling to the end, he pants awhile,

Then bursts in laughter—conquer’d by the SMILE.