Of smiling victory that moment won, And Chatham heart-fick of his country's shame! They made us many foldiers. Chatham, still Consulting England's happiness at home, Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown, If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought, Put so much of his heart into his act, That his example had a magnet's force, And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd. Those suns are fet. Oh, rise some other fuch! Now hoist the fail, and let the streamers float Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore! 1 'Tis gen'rous to communicate your skill To those that need it. Folly is foon learn'd: And, under fuch preceptors, who can fail! There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, Th' expedients and inventions, multiform, To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to winT' arrest the fleeting images that fill The mirror of the mind, and hold them faft, And force them fit till he has pencil'd off A faithful likeness of the forms he views; Then to dispose his copies with fuch art, That each may find its most propitious light, And shine by situation, hardly less Than by the labour and the skill it cost; Are occupations of the poet's mind So pleasing, and that steal away the thought With fuch address from themes of fad import, That, loft in his own musings, happy man! He feels th' anxieties of life, denied Their wonted entertainment, all retire. Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such, Or feldom fuch, the hearers of his fong. Faftidious, or else listless, or perhaps By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform? Alas! Leviathan is not fo tam'd: Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard, Turns to the stroke his adamantine fcales, That fear no difcipline of human hands. The pulpit, therefore (and I name it fill'd With folemn awe, that bids me well beware With what intent I touch that holy thing)The pulpit (when the fat'rift has at last, Strutting and vap'ring in an empty school, Spent all his force and made no proselyte) I fay the pulpit (in the fober use Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs) Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand, The most important and effectual guard, Support, and ornament, of virtue's cause. There stands the messenger of truth: there stands The legate of the skies!--His theme divine, His office facred, his credentials clear. |