C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Somerville

Adversity, sage useful guest,

Severe instructor, but the best,

It is from thee alone we know

Justly to value things below.

At length the sun began to peep,

And glid the surface of the deep.

Each animal,

By natural instinct taught, spares his own kind,

But man, the tyrant man! revels at large.

Freebooter unrestrain’d, destroys at will

The whole creation; men and beasts his prey;

These for his pleasure, for his glory those.

Frail empire of a day!

That with the setting sun extinct is lost.

Let cavillers deny

That brutes have reason; sure ’tis something more,

’Tis heaven directs, and stratagems inspires

Beyond the short extent of human thought.

O happy if ye knew your happy state,

Ye rangers of the fields! whom nature’s boon

Cheers with her smiles, and ev’ry element

Conspires to bless.

O mercy, heav’ly born! Sweet attribute.

Thou great, thou best prerogative of power!

Justice may guard the throne, but join’d with thee,

On rocks of adamant, it stands secure,

And braves the storm beneath.

See there he comes, th’ exalted idol comes!

The circle’s form’d, and all his fawning slaves

Devoutly bow to earth; from every mouth

The nauseous flattery flows, which he returns

With promises which die as soon as born.

Vile intercourse, where virtue has no place!

Frown but the monarch, all his glories fade;

He mingles with the throng, outcast, undone,

The pageant of a day; without one friend

To soothe his tortur’d mind; all, all are fled,

For though they bask’d in his meridian ray,

The insects vanish as his beams decline.

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