[Page 19]

IDLENESS.

ODE VII.

1 GOddess of ease, leave Lethe's brink,
2 Obsequious to the Muse and me;
3 For once endure the pain to think,
4 Oh! sweet insensibility!
5 Sister of peace and indolence,
6 Bring, Muse, bring numbers soft and slow,
7 Elaborately void of sense,
8 And sweetly thoughtless let them flow.
9 Near some cowslip-painted mead,
10 There let me doze out the dull hours,
11 And under me let Flora spread,
12 A sofa of her softest flow'rs.
13 Where, Philomel, your notes you breathe
14 Forth from behind the neighbouring pine,
15 And murmurs of the stream beneath
16 Still flow in unison with thine.
17 For thee, O Idleness, the woes
18 Of life we patiently endure,
19 Thou art the source whence labour flows,
20 We shun thee but to make thee sure.
[Page 20]
21 For who'd sustain war's toil and waste,
22 Or who th' hoarse thund'ring of the sea,
23 But to be idle at the last,
24 And find a pleasing end in thee.

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Title (in Source Edition): IDLENESS. ODE VII.
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Genres: ode

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Smart, Christopher, 1722-1771. Poems on several occasions: By Christopher Smart, A. M. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge. London: printed for the author, by W. Strahan; and sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCLII., 1752, pp. 19-20. [16],230p.,plates; 4⁰. (ESTC T42626; OTA K041581.000) (Page images digitized from microfilm of a copy in the Bodleian Library [2799 d 134].)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

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