Oft has thy genius rous'd us hence
With elevated song,

Bid us renounce this world of sense,
Bid us divide the' immortal prize
With the seraphic throng:
"Knowledge and love make spirits bless'd,
Knowledge their food, and love their rest;'
But flesh, the' unmanageable beast,
Resists the pity of thine eyes,

And music of thy tongue.

Then let the worms of groveling mind,
Round the short joys of earthly kind

In restless windings roam;

Howe hath an ample orb of soul,

Where shining worlds of knowledge roll,
Where love, the centre and the pole,
Completes the heaven at home.

THE

DISAPPOINTMENT AND RELIEF.

VIRTUE, permit my Fancy to impose
Upon my better pow'rs:

She casts sweet fallacies on half our woes,
And gilds the gloomy hours.

How could we bear this tedious round
Of waning moons, and rolling years,
Of flaming hopes and chilling fears,
If (where no sovereign cure appears)
No opiates could be found.

Love, the most cordial stream that flows,

Is a deceitful good:

Young Doris who nor guilt nor danger knows,
On the grecu margin stood,

་

Pleas'd with the golden bubbles as they rose,

[Blood:

And with more golden sands her fancy pav'd the
Then fond to be entirely bless'd,
And tempted by a faithless youth,
As void of goodness as of truth,
She plunges in with heedless baste,
And rears the nether mud:

Darkness and nauseous dregs arise

O'er thy fair current, love, with large supplies
Of pain, to tease the heart, and sorrow for the eyes.
The golden bliss that charm'd her sight
Is dash'd, and drown'd, and lost:
A spark, or glimmering streak at most,
Shines here and there, amidst the night,
Amidst the turbid waves, and gives a faint delight.

Recover'd from the sad surprise,
Doris awakes at last,

Grown by the disappointment wise;
And manages with art the' unlucky cast;
When the lowering frown she spies
On her haughty tyrant's brow,

With humble love she meets his wrathful eyes,
And makes her sovereign beauty bow;
Cheerful she smiles upon his grizly form;
So shines the setting sun on adverse skies,
And paints a rainbow on the storm.
Anon, she lets the sullen humour spend,
And with a virtuous book, or friend,
Beguiles the' uneasy hours:
Well-colouring every cross she meets,
With heart serene she sleeps and eats,
She spreads her board with fancied sweets,
And strews her bed with flow's,

THE

HERO'S SCHOOL OF MORALITY.

THERON, amongst his travels, found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward as he went
He trac'd a ruin'd monument.

Mould, moss, and shades, had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone,
Yet e'er he pass'd, with much ado,

He guess'd, and spell'd out, Sci-pi-o.

Enough,' he cried, I'll drudge no more In turning the dull stoics o'er;

Let pedants waste their hours of ease,
To sweat all night at Socrates;

And feed their boys with notes and rules,
Those tedious recipes of schools,
To cure ambition: I can learn
With greater ease the great concern
Of mortals; how we may despise
All the gay things below the skies.

'Methinks a mouldering pyramid
Says all that the old sages said;
For me these shatter'd tombs contain
More morals than the Vatican.
The dust of heroes cast abroad,
And kick'd, and trampled in the road,
The relics of a lofty mind,

That lately wars and crowns design'd,
Tost for a jest from wind to wind,
Bid me be humble; and ferbear
Tall monuments of fame to rear,
They are but castles in the air.

The towering heights, and frightful falls,
The ruin'd heaps, and funerals,
Of smoking kingdoms and their kings,
Tell me a thousand mournful things
In melancholy silence.......................

.............

That living could not bear to see
An equal, now lies torn and dead;
Here his pale trunk, and there his head :
Great Pompey! while I meditate,
With solemn horror, thy sad fate,
Thy carcass scatter'd on the shore
Without a name, instructs me more
Than my whole library before.

He

'Lie still, my Plutarch, then, and sleep; And my good Seneca may keep Your volumes clos'd for ever too; I have no further use for you: For when I feel my virtue fail, And my ambitious thoughts prevail, I'll take a turn among the tombs, And see whereto all glory comes: There the vile foot of every clown Tramples the sons of honour down; Beggars with awful ashes sport, And tread the Cæsars in the dirt.'

VOL. II.

42

LYRIC POEMS,

FREEDOM.

1697.

TEMPT me no more. My soul can ne'er comport With the gay slaveries of a court;

I've an aversion to those charms,

And hug dear liberty in both mine arms.

Go, vassal-souls, go, cringe and wait, And dance attendance at Honoria's gate;

Then run in troops before him, to compose his state:
Move as he moves: and when he loiters, stand:
You're but the shadows of a man.

Bend when he speaks; and kiss the ground:
Go, catch the' impertinence of sound:
Adore the follies of the great;

Wait till he smiles: but, lo! the idol frown'd
And drove them to their fate.

Thus base-born minds :-but as for me,
I can and will be free:

Like a strong mountain, or some stately tree,

My soul grows firm upright,

And as I stand, and as I go,

It keeps my body so;

No, I can never part with my creation-right.

Let slaves and asses stoop and bow,

I cannot make this iron knee

[free.

Bend to a meaner power than that which form'd it

Thus my bold harp profusely play'd
Pindarical; then on a branchy shade
I hung my harp aloft, myself beneath it laid.