Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune [C. Lloyd] [;] Who Abandoned Himself to an Indolent and Causless Melancholy

1. 1Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
2. 2O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
3. 3To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
4. 4Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
5. 5Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
6. 6Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
7. 7O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
8. 8Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
9. 9Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
10. 10The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
11. 11Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
12. 12Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
13. 13What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
14. 14O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
15. 15All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal
16. 16A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.