Qua nibil majus meliufve terris
Fata donavere, boniq; divi,
Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
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 pow'rful plea)
A task I venture on, impell'd by thee:
Oh never seen but in thy bleft effects,
Nor felt but in the foul that heav'n felects;
Who feeks to praise thee, and to make thee known
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 difgrac'd 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 first, though free and unconfin'd,
One man the common father of the kind,
That ev'ry tribe, though plac'd as he fees best,
Where feas or defarts part them from the rest,
Diff'ring in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook-lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic duft,
Steer'd 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 footh'd with gifts and greeted with a smile,
The fimple native of the new-found ifle,
He fpurn'd the wretch that flighted or withstood,
The tender argument of kindred blood,
Nor would endure that any fhould controul,
His free-born brethren of the fouthern pole.
But though fome nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In bafer fouls unnumber'd evils meet,
To thwart its influence and its end defeat.
While Cook is lov'd for favage lives he fav'd,
See Cortez odious for a world enflav'd!
Where waft thou then, fweet Charity, where then
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?
Waft thou in Monkish cells and nunn'ries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No-Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love, and heav'n 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 glu'd to the fword-hilt with Indian gore;
Their prince, as juftly feated on his throne,
As vain imperial Philip on his own,
Trick'd out of ali his royalty by art,
That stripp'd 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 heav'ns myfterious purposes and ways;
God stood not, though he seem'd to stand aloof,
And at this hour the conqu'ror feels the proof:
The wreath he won drew down an instant curfe,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,
The canker'd spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their mines create.
Oh could their ancient Incas rife again,
How would they take up Ifrael's taunting strain !
Art thou too fall'n iberia, do we see
The robber and the murd'rer 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 rest,
To fee th' oppreffor, in his turn opprefs'd.
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand,
Roll'd over all our defolated land,
Shook principalities and kingdoms down,
And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boafted pow'rs,
And waste them, as thy fword has wasted ours.
'Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And vengeance executes what justice wills.
Again the band of commerce was defign'd
T'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,
fruitful nature's various fcenes,
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