Ambition this shall tempt to rife,

Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a facrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falfehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorfe with blood defiled,

And moody Madness laughing wild

Amid fevereft woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A griefly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring finew ftrains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the foul with icy hand,

And flow-consuming Age.

To each his fuff'rings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since forrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?

Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

AUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,

Thou tamer of the human breast, Whofe iron fcourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the beft!

Bound in thy adamantine chain,

The proud are taught to taste of pain,

And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

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When first thy fire to send on earth

Virtue, his darling child, design'd,

To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind.

Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore

With patience many a year fhe bore :

What forrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own fhe learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleafing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noife, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leifure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The fummer friend, the flatt'ring foe;

By vain Profperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in fable garb array'd,

Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound,

And Melancholy, filent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy folemn steps attend:

Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend,

With Juftice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh! gently on thy fuppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chaft'ning hand!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,

With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghaftly Poverty: