For now suppose thy avarice poffeft Of all the splendour of the glittʼring East, 240 Difdain'd a monarch's bribe, defpis'd his ftate; 245 Serranus as he grac'd the Conful's chair So could he guide the plough's laborious share; 'The fam'd, the warlike, Curii deign'd to dwell In a poor lonely cot and humble cell: Such a retreat to me is more glorious far 250 Than all thy pomp than all thy triumphs are. Take thou thy rising tow'r, thy lofty dome: Shines with the glories of the Tyrian loom, Yet here I view a more delightful fcene: 255 Where Nature's freshest bloom and beauties reign, Where the warm zephir's genial balmy wing Playing diffuses an eternal spring: Tho' there thy lewd lafcivious limbs are laid 260 More free from carę my guiltless hours 1 pafs; 265 Tho' there thy fycophants, a fervile race! 270 Nature on all the pow'r of bliss bestows, Which from her bounteous fource perpetual flows, But he alone with happiness is bleft Who knows to use it rightly when poffeft; 275 A doctrine if well poiz'd in Reason's scale But oh! Rufinus is to reafon blind; A ftrange hydropick thirft inflames his mind: 280 When with strict caths his profer'd faith he binds When tortur'd with the jav'lin's pointed pain, Or a spurn'd ferpent as she shoots along, 290 With lightning in her eyes and poison in her tongue. Nor will thofe families eras'd fuffice, But provinces and cities he destroys; 295 Urg'd on with blind revenge and fettled hate He labours the confufion of the state, Subverts the nation's old establish'd frame, If e'er in mercy he pretends to fave 303 305 Nor dare their hate their juft refentments own, But inward grieve, their fighs and pangs confin'd, Which with convulfive forrow tear the mind. 311 Envy is mute-it is treafon to difclofe The baneful fource of their eternal woes. appears But Stilico's fuperiour foul He is the polar ftar directs the state When parties rage and publick tempests beat; * 315 Alluding to the fentence then recently paffed on Dr. Sacheverell, for whom our Author was a profeffed advocate. He is the folid, firm, unfhaken, force 320 325 But as it rolling meets a mighty rock The rock unmov'd reverberates the found. 329 THE STUMBLINGBLOCK, FROM CLAUDIAN'S RUFINUS *. TWENTY Conundrums have of late The coach without a coachman driv'n? Or the ship left to wind and tide? So just a symmetry of features From ftern to ftern in all her creatures, *See a serious tranflation above. } ΙΟ How fummer, winter, fpring, and fall, Dance round in fo exact a hawl, How like a chequer day and night One is mark'd with black and one with white. Quoth I, I ken it well from hence There is a Prefiding Influence Which won't permit the rambling stars To fall together by the ears, feafon Which orders ftill the proper Unmasks but feldom all her face, Which bounds the ocean within banks But then again, how can it be Whilft fuch vait tracks of earth we fee O'errun by barb'rous tyranny? Vile fycophants in clover bleft Whilft patriots with Duke Humphry feaft, Pimps rais'd to honour, riches, rule, Is the priest's knave, the placeman's fool! |