[Page 294]

The INDOLENT.

1 WHAT self-sufficiency and false content
2 Benumb the senses of the indolent!
3 Dead to all purposes of good, or ill,
4 Alive alone in an unactive will.
5 His only vice in no good action lies,
6 And his sole virtue is his want of vice.
7 Business he deems too hard, trifles too easy,
8 And doing nothing finds himself too busy.
[Page 295]
9 Silence he cannot bear, noise is distraction,
10 Noise kills with bustle, silence with reflection;
11 No want he feels, — what has he to pursue?
12 To him 'tis less to suffer, than to do.
13 The busy world's a fool, the learn'd a sot,
14 And his sole hope to be by all forgot:
15 Wealth is procur'd with toil, and kept with fear,
16 Knowledge by labour purchas'd costs too dear;
17 Friendship's a clog, and family a jest,
18 A wife but a bad bargain at the best;
19 Honour a bubble, subject to a breath,
20 And all engagements vain since null'd by death;
21 Thus all the wise esteem, he can despise,
22 And caring not, 'tis he alone is wise:
23 Yet, all his wish possessing, finds no rest,
24 And only lives to know, he never can be blest.

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Title (in Source Edition): The INDOLENT.
Author: John Hoadly
Themes: virtue; vice
Genres: heroic couplet
References: DMI 27929

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. VI. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 294-295. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.006) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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