Meek animal, whose simple mien
Provokes th’ insulting eye of Spleen
To mock the melancholy trait
Of patience in thy front display’d,
By thy Great Author fitly so pourtray’d,
To character the sorrows of thy fate;
Say, Heir of misery, what to thee
Is life?—A long, long, gloomy stage
Through the sad vale of labour and of pain!
No pleasure hath thine youth, no rest thine age,
Nor in the vasty round of this terrene
Hast thou a friend to set thee free,
Till Death, perhaps too late,
In the dark evening of thy cheerless day,
Shall take thee, fainting on thy way,
From the rude storm of unresisted hate.
Yet dares the erroneous crowd to mark
With folly thy despised race,
Th’ ungovernable pack, who bark
With impious howlings in Heaven’s awful face,
If e’er on their impatient head
Affliction’s bitter show’r is shed.
But ’tis the weakness of thy kind
Meekly to bear the inevitable sway;
The wisdom of the human mind
Is to murmur and obey.