THE CHOICE.
______ 1 YE vot’ries of pleasure and ease, 2 Proud, wasting in riot the day, 3 Drive on your career as ye please, 4 Let me follow a different way. 5 The woodland, the mountain, and hill, 6 With the birds singing sweet from the tree, 7 The soul with serenity fill, 8 And have pleasures more pleasing to me. 9 When I see yon parade thro’ the streets, 10 With affected, unnatural airs, 11 I smile at your low, trifling gaits, 12 And could heartily lend you my pray’rs. 13 Great Jove! was it ever design’d, 14 That man should his reason lay down, 15 And barter the peace of his mind, 16 For the follies and fashions of town? 17 I’ll retire to yon broom-cover’d fields, 18 On the green mossy turf I’ll recline, 19 The pleasures that solitude yields, 20 Composure and peace shall be mine. 21 There Thomson or Shenstone I’ll read, 22 Well-pleas’d with each well-manag’d theme, 23 With nothing to trouble my head, 24 But ambition to imitate them. |
17. broom: the plant broom. 21. Thomson: likely one of two James Thomsons, both Scottish poets. James Thomson (1700-1748): poet and playwright, wrote The Seasons and Rule, Britannia! James Thomson (1763-1782): Scottish weaver poet from Edinburgh, wrote Poems, in the Scottish dialect; contemporary of Tannahill's. 21. Shenstone: William Shenstone (1714-1763), an English nature poet. |