Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls
His whispering stream: within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages; his, who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand; and various measur'd verse, Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd, Whose poem Phœbus challeng'd for his own; Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, High actions and high passions best describing: Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democracy,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne: То sage Philosophy next lend thine ear, From heaven descended to the low-roof'd house Of Socrates; see there his tenement, Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams, that water'd all the schools Of academics old and new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.
These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home, Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight: These rules will render thee a king complete Within thyself, much more with empire join."
To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied: "Think not but that I know these things, or think I know them not; not therefore am I short Of knowing what I ought: he, who receives Light from above, from the fountain of light, No other doctrine needs, though granted true; But these are false, or little else but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. The first and wisest of them all profess'd To know this only, that he nothing knew; The next to fabling fell, and smooth conceits; A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense; Others in virtue plac'd felicity,
But virtue join'd with riches and long life: In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease:
The Stoic last in philosophic pride,
By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man, Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer, As fearing God nor man, contemning all Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life, Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can, For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas! what can they teach, and not mislead, Ignorant of themselves, of God much more, And how the world began, and how man fell Degraded by himself, on grace depending? Much of the soul they talk, but all awry, And in themselves seek virtue, and to themselves All glory arrogate, to God give none; Rather accuse him under usual names, Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these True wisdom, finds her not; or, by delusion, Far worse, her false resemblance only meets, An empty cloud. However, many books, Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. Or, if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem; where, so soon As in our native language, can I find
That solace? All our law and story strew'd With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscrib Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon [ed, That pleased so well our victors' ear, declare, That rather Greece from us these arts deriv'd; Ill imitated, while they loudest sing The vices of their deities, and their own, In fable, hymn, or song, so personating Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame. Remove their swelling epithets, thick laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek; the rest, Thin sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excelling, Where God is praised aright, and godlike men, The Holiest of Holies, and his saints,
(Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee,) Unless where moral virtue is express'd
By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those The top of eloquence; statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem; But herein to our prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teaching The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic unaffected style,
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. In them is plainest taught, and easiest learn'd, What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so;
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat: These only with our law best form a king."
So spake the Son of God: but Satan, now Quite at a loss, (for all his darts were spent,) Thus to our Saviour with stern brow replied: "Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught By me propos'd in life contemplative Or active, tended on by glory or fame,
What dost thou in this world? The wilderness For thee is fittest place; I found thee there, And thither will return thee: yet remember What I foretell thee: soon thou shalt have cause To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus Nicely or cautiously, my offer'd aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease On David's throne, or throne of all the world, Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, When prophecies of thee are best fulfill'd. Now contrary, if I read aught in heaven, Or heaven write aught of fate, by what the stars Voluminous, or single characters,
In their conjunction met, give me to spell:
Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate
Attend thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death: A kingdom they portend thee; but what kingdom, Real or allegoric, I discern not;
Nor when; eternal sure, as without end, Without beginning; for no date prefix'd
Directs me in the starry rubric set."
« AnteriorContinuar » |