The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
And doubts at last for knowledge rise.
'Lovely, lasting Peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden bless'd,
And man contains it in his breast.'-
'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,
I sung my wishes to the wood,
And, lost in thought, no more perceived
The branches whisper as they waved:
It seem'd, as all the quiet place
Confess'd the presence of the Grace;
When thus she spoke- Go, rule thy will,
Bid thy wild passions all be still;
Know God-and bring thy heart to know
The joys which from religion flow:
Then every Grace shall prove its guest,
And I'll be there to crown the rest.'
O! by yonder mossy seat,
In my hours of sweet retreat;
Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy:
Raised as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleased and bless'd with God alone:
Then, while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight;
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song;
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of Nature! sing.
The sun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day;
The moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves;
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me :
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.
Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy, or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,
Or own the next begun in this.
COME hither, boy! we 'll hunt to-day The Book-worm, ravening beast of prey, Produced by parent Earth, at odds, As fame reports it, with the gods. Him frantic hunger wildly drives Against a thousand authors' lives: Through all the fields of wit he flies; Dreadful his head with clustering eyes. With horns without and tusks within, And scales to serve him for a skin. Observe him nearly, lest he climb To wound the bards of ancient time; Or down the vale of fancy go, To tear some modern wretch below;
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forced to give?
"Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along;
He mounts the gilded edge before;
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er;
He turns, he doubles, there he pass'd,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute! whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the muse.
(Nay never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipp'd in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage.
By thee my Ovid wounded lies:
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies:
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd;
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here.
Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ;
You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain :
Pray take your mortal bards again.
Come, bind the victim,-there he lies; And here, between his numerous eyes, This venerable dust I lay,
From manuscripts just swept away.
The goblet in my hand I take
(For the libation's yet to make):
A health to poets! all their days
May they have bread, as well as praise;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In papers fill'd with party rage.
But if their riches spoil their vein,
Ye Muses, make them poor again.
Now bring the weapon, yonder blade
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I strike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The sacred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.
How like the son of Jove I stand,
This hydra stretch'd beneath my hand!
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
To see what dangers threat the year:
Ye gods, what sonnets on a wench!
What lean translations out of French!
'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound,
S-
prints before the months go round. But hold, before I close the scene, The sacred altar should be clean. O had I Shadwell's second bays, Or Tate, thy pert and humble lays ! (Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
never miss'd your works till now) I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine (That only way you please the Nine);
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do.
Rent from the corps, on yonder pin
I hang the scales that braced it in;
I hang my studious morning gown,
And write my own inscription down :-
This trophy from the Python won,
This robe, in which the deed was done,
These Parnell, glorying in the feat,
Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat.
Here ignorance and hunger found
Large realms of wit to ravage round ;
Here ignorance and hunger fell,
Two foes in one, I sent to hell.
Ye poets, who my labours see,
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics, born to vex the Muse,
Go mourn the grand ally you lose.'
A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare,
Our race of mortals call him Care
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the gods have call'd him too);
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And loved to work, though no one bought.
This being, by a model bred
In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contrived a shape impower'd to breathe, And be the worldling here beneath.
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