To Dodington: The Happy Man

He's not the happy man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven ;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes ;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year ;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the
Spring,
Whose curved mountains bleat, and forests sing ;
For whom the cooling shade in Summer twines,
While his full cellars give their generous wines ;
From whose wide fields unbounded Autumn pours
A golden tide into his swelling stores :
Whose Winter laughs ; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails ;
Whom yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves,
While youth, and health, and vigour string his nerves ;
Even not all these, in one rich lot combined,
Can make the happy man, without the mind ;
Where judgement sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of reason with unerring gaze ;
Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes
Bids fairer scenes and bolder figures rise ;
Where social love exerts her soft command
And lays the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.
Nor canst thou, Dodington, this truth decline,
Thine is the fortune, and the mind is thine.