THE MAN OF SORROW. Fulke Greville Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T116245 1122 K093079.001 Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. I. [The second edition]. London printed for G. Pearch 1770 pp. 305-307. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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THE MAN OF SORROW . BY MR. GREVILLE . AH ! what avails the lengthening mead , By Nature's kindest bounty spread Along the vale of flowers ! Ah ! what avails the darkening grove , Or Philomel's melodious love , That glads the midnight hours ! For me ( alas ! ) the god of day Ne'er glitters on the hawthorn spray , Nor night her comfort brings : I have no pleasure in the rose : For me no vernal beauty blows , Nor Philomela sings . See , how the sturdy peasants stride , Adown yon hillock's verdant side , In chearful ignorance blest ! Alike to them the rose or thorn , Alike arises every morn , By gay Contentment drest . Content , fair daughter of the skies , Or gives spontaneous , or denies , Her choice divinely free , She visits oft the hamlet-cot , When Want and Sorrow are the lot Of Avarice and me . But see — or is it Fancy's dream ? Methought a bright celestial gleam Shot sudden thro' the groves , Behold , behold , in loose array , Euphrosyne more bright than day , More mild than Paphian doves ! Welcome , O ! welcome , Pleasure's queen ! And see , along the velvet green , The jocund train advance : With scatter'd flowers they fill the air , The wood-nymph's dew-bespangled hair Plays in the sportive dance . Ah ! baneful grant of angry heaven , When to the feeling wretch is given A soul alive to joy ! Joys fly with every hour away , And leave th' unguarded heart a prey To cares , that Peace destroy . And see , with visionary haste , ( Too soon the gay delusion past ) Reality remains ! Despair has seiz'd my captive soul , And Horror drives without controul , And slackens still the reins . Ten thousand beauties round me throng , What beauties , say , ye nymphs , belong To the distemper'd soul ? I see the lawn of hideous dye , The towering elm nods misery , With groans the waters roll . Ye gilded roofs , Palladian domes , Ye vivid tints of Persia's looms , Ye were for misery made — 'Twas thus the Man of Sorrow spoke , His wayward step then pensive took Along th' unhailow'd shade .