What by old age and length of days we gain,
More than to lengthen out the sense of pain ?
Of if this world, with all its forces join'd,
The univerfal malice of mankind,
Can fhake or hurt the brave and honeft mind?
If stable virtue can her ground maintain,
Whilft fortune feebly threats and frowns in vain ?
If truth and juftness with uprightness dwell,
And honesty consist in meaning well ?
If right be independent of fuccefs,
And conquest cannot make it more nor less ?
Are thefe, my friend, the fecrets thou would'st know,
Thofe doubts for which to oracles we go?
'Tis known, 'tis plain, 'tis all already told,
And horned Ammon can no more unfold.
From God deriv'd, to God by nature join'd,
We act the dictates of his mighty mind:
And though our priests are mute, and temples still,
God never wants a voice to speak his will.
When first we from the teeming womb were brought,
With in-born precepts then our fouls were fraught,
And then the maker his new creatures taught.
Then when he form'd, and gave us to be men,
He gave us all our useful knowledge, then.
Canft thou believe, the vaft eternal mind
Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan fands confin'd?
That he would choose this wafte, this barren ground,
To teach the thin inhabitants around,
And leave his truth in wilds and deferts drown'd?
Is there a place that God would choose to love
Beyond this earth, the seas, yon heaven above,
And virtuous minds, the noblest throne for Jove?
Why feek we farther then? behold around,
How all thou feeft does with the god abound,
Jove is alike in all, and always to be found.
Let those weak minds, who live in doubt and fear, 1000
To juggling priefts for oracles repair;
One certain hour of death to each decreed,
My fix'd, my certain foul from doubt has freed.
The coward and the brave are doom'd to fall;
And when Jove told this truth, he told us all.
So fpoke the hero; and, to keep his word,
Nor Ammon, nor his oracle explor'd;
But left the croud at freedom to believe,
And take fuch anfwers as the priest should give.
Foremost on foot he treads the burning fand, 1010
Bearing his arms in his own patient hand;
Scorning another's weary neck to press,
Or in a lazy chariot loll at ease :
The panting foldier at his toil fucceeds,
Where no command, but great example leads.
Sparing of fleep, ftill for the rest he wakes,
And at the fountain, laft, his thirst he flakes;
Whene'er by chance fome living ftream is found,
He ftands, and fees the cooling draughts go round,
Stays till the laft and meaneft drudge be past,
And, till his flaves have drunk, difdains to taste.
If true good men deferve immortal fame,
If virtue, though diftrefs'd, be still the fame;
Whate'er our fathers greatly dar'd to do,
Whate'er they bravely bore, and wifely knew,
Their virtues all are his, and all their praise his due.
Whoe'er, with battles fortunately fought,
Whoe'er, with Roman blood, fuch honours brought?
This triumph, this, on Libya's utmost bound,
With death and defolation compass'd round,
To all thy glories, Pompey, I prefer,
Thy trophies, and thy third triumphal car,
To Marius' mighty name, and great Jugurthine war.
His country's father here, O Rome, behold,
Worthy thy temples, priests, and shrines of gold! 1035
If e'er thou break'ft thy lordly master's chain,
If liberty be e'er restor'd again,
Him fhalt thou place in thy divine abodes,
Swear by his holy name, and rank him with thy gods.
Now to thofe fultry regions were they past,
Which Jove to stop inquiring mortals plac'd,
And as their utmost, fouthern, limits caft.
Thirsty, for fprings they fearch the defert round,
And only one, amidst the fands, they found.
Well ftor'd it was, but all accefs was barr'd;
The ftream ten thousand noxious ferpents guard:
Dry afpics on the fatal margin stood,
And Dipfas thirsted in the middle flood.
Back from the stream the frighted soldier flies,
Though parch'd, and languishing for drink, he dies: 1150
The chief beheld, and faid, You fear in vain,
Vainly from fafe and healthy draughts abstain,
My foldier, drink, and dread not death or pain.
When urg'd to rage, their teeth the ferpents fix,
And venom with our vital juices mix;
The peft infus'd through every vein runs round,
Infects the mafs, and death is in the wound.
Harmless and safe, no poifon here they shed:
He faid; and first the doubtful draught effay'd;
He, who through all their march, their toil, their
thirst,
Demanded, here alone, to drink the first.
Why plagues, like thefe, infect the Libyan air,
Why deaths unknown in various fhapes appear;
Why, fruitful to destroy, the curfed land
Is temper'd thus, by nature's fecret hand;
Dark and obfcure the hidden caufe remains,
And still deludes the vain enquirer's pains;
Unless a tale for truth may be believ'd,
And the good-natur'd world be willingly deceiv'd.
Where western waves on fartheft Libya beat,
Warm'd with the fetting fun's defcending heat,
Dreadful Medufa fix'd her horrid feat.
No leafy fhade, with kind protection, fhields
The rough, the fqualid, unfrequented fields;
No mark of fhepherds, or the plowman's toil,
To tend the flocks, or turn the mellow foil:
But, rude with rocks, the region all around
Its miftrefs, and her potent vifage, own'd.
'Twas from this monster to afflict mankind,
That nature first produc'd the fnaky kind:
On her, at first their forky tongues appear'd;"
From her, their dreadful hiffings first were heard.
Some wreath'd in folds upon her temples hung;
Some backwards to her wafte depended long;
Some with their rifing crefts her forehead deck; 1085
Some wanton play, and lafh her fwelling neck:
And while her hands the curling vipers comb,
Poifons diftil around, and drops of livid foam.
None, who beheld the fury, could complain;
So fwift their fate, preventing death and pain:
Ere they had time to fear, the change came on,
And motion, fenfe, and life, were loft in ftone.
The foul itself, from sudden flight debarr'd,
Congealing, in the body's fortune shar'd.
The dire Eumenides could rage infpire,
But could no more; the tuneful Thracian lyre
Infernal Cerberus did foon affuage,
Lull'd him to reft, and footh'd his triple rage;
Hydra's feven heads the bold Alcides view'd,
Safely he faw, and what he saw, fubdued:
Of thefe in various terrors each excell'd;
But all to this fuperior fury yield.
Phorcus and Coto, next to Neptune he,.
Immortal both, and rulers of the fea,
This monfter's parents did their offspring dread; 1105 And from her fight her fifter Gorgons fled.
Old ocean's waters, and the liquid air,
The univerfal world her power might fear:
All nature's beauteous works fhe could invade,
Through every part a lazy numbnefs fhed,
And over all a ftony surface spread,
Birds in their flight were ftopt, and ponderous grown, Forgot their pinions, and fell fenfelefs down.
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