Still happier, if he till a thankful foil,
And fruit reward his honourable toil :
But happier far, who comfort thofe, that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallowed gate:
Their language fimple, as their mariners meek,
No fhining ornaments have they to seek;
Nor labour they, nor time nor talents waste,
In forting flowers to fuit a fickle tafte;
But while they speak the wisdom of the skies,
Which art can only darken and disguise,
The abundant harveft, recompense divine,
Repays their work-the gleaning only mine.
Quo nihil majus meliusve terris
Fata donavere, boniqué divi;
Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora priscum.
HOR. Lib. IV. Ode 2.
FAIREST and foremost of the train, that wait
On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Profper (I prefs thee with a powerful plea)
A task I venture on, impelled by thee:*
Oh never seen but in thy bleft effects,
Or felt but in the foul that heaven felects;
Who feeks to praise thee, and to make thee know
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.
Come, prompt me with benevolent defires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And though difgraced and flighted, to redeem
A poet's name, by making thee the theme.
God, working ever on a focial plan,
By various ties attaches man to man:
He made at firft, though free and unconfined,
One man the common father of the kind;
That every tribe, though placed as he fees beft,
Where feas or deferts part them from the reft,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook-lamented, and with tears as juft
As ever mingled with heroic duft,
Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown,
And in his country's glory fought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,
The rights of man were facred in his view;
He foothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile,
The fimple native of the new-found isle;
He fpurned the wretch, that flighted or with flood
The tender argument of kindred blood,
Nor would endure that any should controul
His free-born brethren of the southern pcle.
But though fome nobler minds a law refpect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In bafer fouls unnumbered evils meet,
To thwart its influence, and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for favage lives he faved,
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!
Where waft thou then, fweet Charity? where then,
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?
Waft thou in monkish cells and nunneries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No.-Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love; and heaven abhors the fee.
Wherever found, (and all men need thy care)
Nor age nor infancy could find thee there.
The hand, that flew till it could flay no more,
Was glued to the fword-hilt with Indian gore.
Their prince, as justly seated on his throne
As vain imperial Philip on his own,
Tricked out of all his royalty by art,
That ftripped him bare, and broke his honeft heart,
Died by the fentence of a fhaven priest,
For fcorning what they taught him to deteft.
How dark the veil, that intercepts the blaze
Of heaven's myfterious purposes and ways;
God stood not, though he seemed to ftand, aloof;
And at this hour the conqueror feels the proof:
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,
The cankered fpoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their mines create.
Oh could their ancient Incas rise again,
How would they take up Ifrael's taunting ftrain!
Art thou too fallen Iberia? Do we fee
The robber and the murderer weak as we?
Thou, that haft wafted earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,
'Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal reít,
To fee the oppreffor in his turn oppreffed.
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand
Rolled over all our defolated land,
Shook principalities and kingdoms down,
And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The fword fhall light upon thy boasted powers,
And wafte them, as thy fword has wafted ours.
Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And vengeance executes what juftice wills.
Again the band of commerce was defigned
To affociate all the branches of mankind;
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe.
Wife to promote whatever end he means,
God
opens fruitful nature's various fcenes:
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers fomething to the general ufe;
No land but liftens to the common call,
And in return receives fupply from all.
|
