To build our altar, confident and bold,
And fay as ftern Elijah faid of old,
The ftrife now stands upon a fair award,
If Is'rael's Lord be God, then ferve the Lord
If he be filent, faith is all a whim,
Then Baal is the God and worship him.
Digreffion is fo much in modern ufe,
Thought is fo rare, and fancy fo profuse,
Some never seem fo wide of their intent,
As when returning to the theme they meant.
As mendicants whofe bufinefs is to roam,
Make ev'ry parish but their own, their home:
Though fuch continual zigzags in a book,
Such drunken reelings have an aukward look,
And I had rather creep to what is true,
Than rove and ftagger with no mark in view,
Yet to confult a little, feem'd no crime,
The freakish humour of the prefent time.
But now, to gather up what feems difpers'd,
And touch the fubject I design'd at first,
May prove, though much befide the rules of art,
Best for the public, and my wifest part.
And first let no man charge me that I mean
To cloath in fables every focial fcene,
And give good company a face fevere
As if they met around a father's bier ;
For tell fome men that pleasure all their bent,
And laughter all their work, is life mifpent,
Their wisdom burfts into this fage reply,
Then mirth is fin, and we fhould always cry.
To find the medium afks fome fhare of wit,
And therefore 'tis a mark fools never hit.
But though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter fcene beyond that vale appears,
Whofe glory with a light that never fades,
Shoots between fcattered rocks and opening fhades,
And while it shows the land the foul defires,
The language of the land fhe feeks, infpires.
Thus touched, the tongue receives a facred cure
Of all that was abfurd, profane, impure,
Held within modest bounds the tide of speech
Pursues the course that truth and nature teach,
No longer labours merely to produce
The pomp of found, or tinkle without use,
Where'er it winds, the falutary stream
Sprightly and fresh, enriches ev'ry theme,
While all the happy man poffefs'd before,
The gift of nature or the claffic store,
Is made fubfervient to the grand defign
For which heav'n form'd the faculty divine.
So fhould an ideot while at large he strays,
Find the fweet lyre on which an artist plays,
With rash and aukward force the chords he shakes,
And grins with wonder at the jar he makes;
But let the wife and well-inftructed hand,
Once take the shell beneath his juft command,
In gentle founds it feems as it complained
Of the rude injuries it late sustained,
'Till tun'd at length to fome immortal fong,
It founds Jehovah's name, and pours his praise along.
ftudiis florens ignobilis oti.
VIRG. GEOR. LIB. 4.
ACKNEY'D in business, wearied at that oar
Which thousands once faft chain'd to, quit
But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or feem to wish they could forego,
The flatefman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of fome rural fhade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequefter'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a fmile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span,
And having liv'd a trifler, die a man.
Thus confcience pleads her caufe within the breast,
Though long rebell'd againft, not yet fupprefs'd,
And calls a creature formed for God alone,
For heaven's high purposes and not his own,
Calls him away from selfish ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities humming with a restless crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,
Whofe highest praise is that they live in vain, The dupes of pleasure, or the flaves of gain, Where works of man are cluster'd clofe around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where in fpite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still seen below,
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