O ye, the eastern glory of whose hope,
Laughs at the shadow, which your phantom shames,
Abase the aery tenour of your scope,
E’er woe involve its promise, earth your frames:
Who ponder, reckon vain all reason’s forts;
Who think not, live, but know not joy’s true tones:
They wander, vacant, through high Nature’s courts;
Their spirit seems unworthy, even of groans:
Intrusion of vain tears but mocks the woe,
Whose dregs are tasteless of the former draught;
Time was, when the harp wrung the tears that flow,
Grateful, since needful, then the people quafft.
But time rolls on, and in its changes brings
The age that scoffs at its ancestors’ wings.