Thy verfe does folidate and cryftallize,

Till it a lafting mirror be:

Nay, thy immortal rhyme

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Makes this one short point of time

To fill up half the orb of round eternity.

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But in thy books and thee:

'Tis only God can know

Whether the fair idea thou do fhow

Agree entirely with his own or no.

This I dare boldly tell,

"Tis fo like truth, 't will ferve our turn as well.

Juft, as in Nature, thy proportions be,

As full of concord their variety,

As firm the parts upon their centre rest,
And all fo folid are, that they at least,
As much as Nature emptiness deteft.

II.

Long did the mighty Stagirite retain

The univerfal intellectual reign,

Saw his own country's fhortliv'd Leopard flain;

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The ftronger Roman Eagle did outfly,
Oft'ner renew'd his age, and faw that die.
Mecca itself, in fpite of Mahomet, poffefs'd,
And, chas’d by a wild deluge from the East,
His monarchy new-planted in the West:
But as in time each great imperial race

Degenerates, and gives fome new one place,
So did this noble empire waste,

Sunk by degrees from glories pass'd,

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And in the schoolmen's hands it perish'd quite at laft: Then nought but words it grew,

And those all barb’rous too :

It perish'd and it vanifh'd there;

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The life and foul, breath'd out, became but empty air.

III.

The fields which anfwer'd well the Ancients' plough, Spent and outworn return no harveft now;

In barren age wild and unglorious lie,

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To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,

And with fond divining wands,

We fearch among the dead

For treasures buried,

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Whil fill the liberal earth does hold

So many virgin-mines of undifcover'd gold.

IV.

The Baltick, Euxine, and the Cafpian,
And flender-limb'd Mediterranean,

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Seem narrow creeks to thee, and only fit

For thee poor wretched fisherboats of wit:

Thy nobler veffel the vast ocean tries,
And nothing fees but feas and skies,

Till unknown regions it defcries.

་་

Thou great Collumbus of the golden lands of new phi

Thy tafk was harder much than his,

For thy learn'd America is

Not only found out first by thee,

[lofophies,

And rudely left to future industry,

But thy eloquence and thy wit

Has planted, peopled, built, and civilized, it.

I little thought before,

V.

(Nor, being my ownself so poor,
Could comprehend so vast a store)
That all the wardrobe of rich Eloquence
Could have afforded half enough,

Of bright, of new, and lasting, fluff,

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To clothe the mighty limbs of thy gigantick sense: Thy folid reafon, like the fhield from heav'n

7,

To the Trojan-hero given,

Too ftrong to take a mark from any mortal dart,
Yet fhines with gold and gems in every part,

And wonders on it grav'd by the learn'd handof Art,
A fhield that gives delight

Ev'n to the enemies' fight,

'Then when they're fure to lofe the combat by it.

VI.

Nor can the fnow, which now cold Age does fhed

Upon thy rev'rend head,

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Quench or allay the noble fires within,

But all which thou hast been,

And all that youth can be, thou art yet,

So fully ftill do'st thou

Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit,

And all the natural heat, but not the fever too.

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So contraries on Ætna's top confpire,

Here hoary frofts, and by them breaks out fire.
A secure peace the faithful neighbours keep,

Th' embolden'd fnow next to the flame does fleep: And if we weigh, like thee,

Nature and caufes, we fhall fee

go

That thus it needs muft be.

To things immortal Time can do no wrong,

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And that which never is to die for ever must be young.

DESTINY.

Hoc quoq; fatale eft fic ipfum expendere Fatum.

I.

STRANGE and unnatural! let us stay and see

This pageant of a prodigy.

MANIL.

Lo! of themselves th' enlivened cheffmen move,
Lo! the unbred ill-organ'd pieces prove,

As full of art and industry,

Of courage and of policy,

As we ourselves, who think there's nothing wife but

Here a proud pawn I admire,

That, still advancing high'r,

[we

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At top of all became

Another thing and name.

Here I'm amaz'd at th' actions of a knight,

That does bold wonders in the fight:

Here 1 the lofing party blame

For thofe falfe moves that break the

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game, [bring, That to their grave, the bag, the conquer'd pieces And, above all, th' ill conduct of the mated king.

II.

Whate'er these feem, whate'er philosophy
And fenfe or reafon tell, faid I,
These things have life, election, liberty;
'Tis their own wifdom moulds their state,
Their faults and virtues make their fate:

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