Book iii.

His love of liberty:

Oh Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream, The poet's muse, his passion and his theme; Genius is thine, and thou art fancy's nurse; Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse; Heroic song from thy free touch acquires Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires: Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, And I will sing, if liberty be there; And I will sing at liberty's dear feet, In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.

_Table Talk._

'Tis liberty alone, that gives the flow'r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

_Task_, book v.

His depressive malady, and the source of its cure:

I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since; with many an arrow deep infix'd My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by One, who had himself Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.[777] With gentle force soliciting the darts He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.