To the Reverend Mr. Benoni Rowe.

Tbe

way of the multitude.

1.
Rowe! if we make the crowd our guide
Thro'life's uncertain road
Mean is the chase, and wand'ring wide
We miss th’immortal good;
Yet if my thoughts could be confin'd
To follow any leader mind
I'd mark thy steps and tread the same;
Dress'd in thy notions I'd appear
Not like a foul of mortal frame
Nor with a vulgar air.

II.
Men live at random and by chance;
Bright Reason never leads the dance:
Whilst in the broad and beaten way
O'er dales and hills from truth we stray
To ruin we descend, to ruin we advance.
Wisdom retires; the hates the crowd,
And with a decent scorn
Aloof she climbs her steepy scat,
Where nor the grave nor giddy feet
of the learn’d vulgar or the rude
Ilave e'er a passage worn.

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III.
Mere Hazard first began the track,
Where Custom leads her thousands blind
In willing chains and strong;
There's scarce one bold one noble mind
Dares tread the fatal errour back,
But hand in hand ourselves we bind
And drag the age along.

IV.
Mortals, a savage herd and loud
As billows on a noisy flood
In rapid order roll;
Example makes the mischief good;
With jocund heel we beat the road,
Unheedful of the goal.
Me let Ithuriel's * friendly wing
Snatch from the crowd, and bear sublime
To Wisdom’s lofty tow'r,
Thence to survey that wretched thing
Mankind, and in exalted rhyme
Bless the deliv’ring Pow'r.

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To the Reverend Mr. John Howe, 1704,

1.
Great Man! permit the Muse to climb
And seat her at thy feet,
Bid her attempt a thought sublime
And consecrate her wit.

* Ithuriel is the name of an angel in Milton's Paradise Loft.

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I feel I feel th' attractive force

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Of thy superiour soul,
My chariot flies her upward course,
The wheels divinely roll.
Now let me chide the mean affairs
And nighty toil of men,
How they grow gray in trifling cares
Or waste the motions of the spheres
Upon delights as vain!

II.
A puff of honour fills the mind,
And yellow dust is solid good;
Thus like the ass of savage kind
We snuff the breezes of the wind
Or steal the serpent's food.
Could all the choirs
That charm the poles

20 But strike one dolcful sound 'Twould be enıploy'd to mourn our souls, Sculs that were fram’d of sprightly fires In floods of folly drown'd. Souls made of glory seek a brutal joy;

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How they disclaim their heav'nly birth,
Melt their bright substance down with drofly earth,
And hate to be refin'd from that impure alloy! .

III.
Ofe' has thy genius rous'd us hence
With elevated song,

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Bid us renounce this world of sense,
Bid us divide th' inimortal prize
With the seraphick throng:
“ Knowledge and love inake spirits blest,

Knowledge their food and love their reft;"
But flesh, th' unmanageable beast,
Resists the pity of thine eyes
And musick of thy tongue.
Then let the worms of grov’ling mind
Round the snort joys of earthly kind
In restless windings roamı :
Howe hath an ample orb of soul
Where shining worlds of knowledge roll,
Where love, the centre and the pole,
Completes the heav'n at home.

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The disappointment and relief.

I.
VIRTUE, permit my fancy to impose
Upon my better pow'rs;
She casts sweet fallacies on half cur woes
And gilds the gloomy hours.
How cou'd we bear this tedious round
Of waning moons and rolling years,
Of flaming hopes and chilling fears,
If where no fov'reign cure appears
No opiates could be found?

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11. Love, the most cordial stream that flows, Is a deceitful good: Young Doris, who nor guilt nor danger knows, On the green margin stood, Pleas'd with the golden bubbles as they rose, And with more golden sands her fancy pav'd the flood; Then fond to be entirely blest,

16 And tempted by a faithless youth As void of goodness as of truth, She plunges in with heedless hafte And rears the nether mud:

20 Darkness and nauseous dregs arise O'er thy fair current Love, with large supplies Of pain to tease the heart and sorrow for the eyes. The golden bliss that charm’d her sight Is dash'd, and drown'd, and lost;

25 A spark or glimm'ring streak at most Shines here and there amidst the night, Amidft the turbid waves, and gives a faint delight.

III. Recover'd from the fad surprise Doris awakes at last, Grown by the disappointment wise, And manages with art th’unlucky caft: When the low'ring frown she spies On her haughty tyrant's brow, With humble love she meets his wrathful eyes 35 And makes her sov’reign beauty bow:

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