Walker Sculp

SWIFT'S

POEM S.

VOLUME L

2 2

VIR

TEMPLE.

Written at Moor-park, June, 1689.

I.

VIRTUE, the greatest of all monarchies !
Till, its firft emperor rebellious man
Depos'd from off his feat,

It fell, and broke with its own weight
Into fmall ftates and principalities,
By many a petty lord poffefs'd,

But ne'er fince feated in one fingle breast!
'Tis you who muft this land fubdue,
The mighty conqueft's left for you,
The conqueft and difcovery too;
Search out this Utopian ground,
Virtue's Terra Incognita,
Where none ever led the way,

Nor ever fince but in defcriptions found,
Like the philofopher's stone,

With rules to fearch it, yet obtain'd by none.

VOL. I.

B

II. We

II.

We have too long been led astray;
Too long have our misguided fouls been taught
With rules from mufty morals brought,
'Tis you must put us in the way;
Let us (for fhame!) no more be fed
With antique reliques of the dead,
The gleanings of philosophy,
Philofophy, the lumber of the schools,
The roguery of alchemy;

And we, the bubbled fools,

Spend all our prefent life in hopes of golden rules.

III.

But what does our proud ignorance Learning call?
We oddly Plato's paradox make good,
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;
Remembrance is our treasure and our food;
Nature's fair table-book, our tender fouls,
We fcrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the schools:
For Learning's mighty treasures look
In that deep grave a book;

Think that she there does all her treasures hide,
And that her troubled ghoft ftill haunts there fince the dy’d.
Confine her walks to colleges and fchools;

Her priests, her train, and followers show
As if they all were spectres too!
They purchase knowledge at th' expence
Of common breeding, common fenfe,
And grow at once scholars and fools ;

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