At the throng'd levee bends the venal tribe: With fair but faithless smiles each varnish'd o'er, Each smooth as those that mutually deceive, And for their falsehood each despising each.

While I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of spring.

Cruel as death, and hungry at the grave.

'Tis silence all, And pleasing expectation.

Base envy withers at another's joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach.

Their only labour was to kill the time; And labour dire it is, and weary woe, They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go, Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow.