To build our altar, confident and bold,
And fay as ftern Elijah faid of old,
The strife 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 use,
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 stagger 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 seems difpers'd
And touch the subject I design'd at first
May prove, though much befide the rules of art,
Best for the public, and my wifeft part.
And first, let no man charge me that I mean
To clothe in fable every social scene,
*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 asks some share 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 fcatter'd rocks and op'ning fhades,
And while it fhows the land the foul defires,
The language of the land fhe feeks, inspires.
Thus touch'd, the tongue receives a facred cure
Of all that was abfurd, profane, impure;
Held within modeft bounds, the tide of speech
Purfues 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 ftrays,
Find the sweet 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 just command,
In gentle founds it feems as it complain'd
Of the rude injuries it late fuftain'd;
'Till tun'd at length, to fome immortal song,
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 no
But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or feem to with, they could forego;
The statefinan, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where, all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequefter'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wafted span,
And, having liv'd a trifler, die a man.
Thus confcience pleads her cause within the breast,
Though long rebell'd against, not yet fupprefs'd,
And calls a creature form'd for God alone,
For heav'ns 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 close around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where in spite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are ftill feen below,
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