"Not fhall that change, but thro' death gates
"This meed be thine, ore her and hers to reign!
"Already Nature puts her horrors on :
"Away!-I to my bow'r of blifs again!
"Thou to thy task of love, and voluntary pain.”
She went; and like a fhifted flage, the scene
Vanish'd at once; th' ambrofial plants were loft;
The jarring seasons brought on various teen;
Each fought, each feeking, each by other croft."
Young spring to fummer flies from winter's froft;
While fweltry fummer thirsts for autumn's bowl,
Which autumn holds to winter; winter toft
With scorn away, young spring inflames his foul;
Still craving, never pleas'd, thus round and round they roll.
Th' inclement airs bind up the fluggish foil;
The fluggish foil the toilfome hand requires:
Yet thanklefs pays with four harfh fruits the toil;
Ne willing yields, but ragged thorns and briers.
Birds, birds purfue; as hunger's rage inspires :
Their sweetest fongs are now but fongs of woe,
Here from th' encroaching fhore the wave retires;
There hoarfe floods roar; impetuous torrents flow;
Invade the land, and the scárce harvests overthrow.
Stretcht on the bank eftfoons th' inviting form
Of Pfyche faded; brac'd up lank and slim,
Her dwindled body shrunk into a worm :
Her make new-moulded, chang'd in ev'ry limb;
Her colours only left, all pale and dim:
Doom'd in a caterpillar's fhape to lout.
Her paffions ill fuch worthless thing befeem;
Pride, rage, and vanity to banish out,
She creeping crawls, and drags a foathsome length about.
How Cupid wash'd her noifome filth away;
What arts he tried to win her love again;
By what wiles guileful Ant'ros did assay,
By leafing, ftill her recreant to maintain,
And render Cupid's kindly labours vain :
Their combat, Cupid's conqueft, Pfyche's crown,
(My day's fet tafk here ended) muft remain"
Unfung; far nobler verse mote they renown :
Unyoke the toiled fteers, the weary fun goes down.
Quifnam igitur liber? Sapiens, fibique imperiofus ;
Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent :
Refponfare cupidinibus, contemnere honores
Fertis; et in feipfo totus teres atque rotundus.
HOR. Serm. Lib. II. Sat. 7.
AIL LIBERTY! whofe prefence glads th' abode
Of heav'n itself, great attribute of God!
By thee fuftain'd, th' unbounded spirit runs,
Moulds orbs on orbs, and lights up funs on funs;
By thee fuflain'd, in love unwearied lives,
And uncontroul'd creates, fupports, forgives:
No pow'r, or time, or space his will withstood;
Almighty! endless! infinite in good!
"If fo, why not communicate the blifs, "And let man know what this great bleffing is?" Say what proportion, creature, wouldst thou claim; As thy Creator's, in extent, the fame!
Unless his other attributes were join'd
To poise the will, and regulate the mind,
Goodness to aim, and wisdom to direct,
What mighty mischiefs must we thence expect?
The maker knows his work; nor judg'd it fit
To truft the rash refolves of human wit:
Which prone to hurt, too blind to help, is still
Alike pernicious, mean it good or ill.
A whim, t'improvements making fond pretence,
Would burft a fyftem in experiments;
Sparrows and Cats indeed no more should fear,
But Saturn tremble in his distant sphere:
Give thee but footing in another world,
Say, Archimedes, where fhould we be hurl'd?
A fprightly wit, with liquor in his head,
Would burn a globe to light him drunk to bed:
Th' Ephefian temple had escap'd the flame,
And heav'n's high dome had built the madman's fame.
The fullen might (when malice boil'd within)
Strike out the stars to intimate his spleen :
Not poppy-heads had spoke a Tarquin croft;
Nature's chief spring had broke, and all been loft.
Nor lefs deftructive would this license prove,
Tho' thy breaft flam'd with universal love.
In vain were thy benevolence of foul;
Soon would thy folly difconcert the whole.
No rains, or fnows, should difcompose the air;
But flow'rs and fun-fhine drain the weary year:
No clouds fhould fully the clear face of day
No tempefts rife,-to blow a plague away.
Mercy should reign untir'd, unftain'd with blood
Spare the frail guilty,-to eat up the good:
In their defence, rife, facred Juftice, rife!
Awake the thunder fleeping in the skies,
Sink a corrupted city in a minute:
-Wo! to the righteous ten who may be in it.
Pick out the bad, and sweep them all away!
So leave their babes, to cats and dogs a prey.
Such pow'r without God's wifdom and his will,"
Were only an omnipotence of ill.
Suited to man can we fuch pow'r esteem!
Fiends would be harmlefs, if compar'd with him.
Say then, fhall all his attributes be given?
His effence follows, and his throne of heav'n;
His very unity. Proud wretch! fhall he
Un-god himself, to make a god of thee?
How wide, fuch luft of liberty confounds!
Would lefs content thee, prudent mark the bounds!
"Those which th' almighty Monarch first defign'd,
"When his great image feal'd the human mind;
"When to the beasts the fruitful earth was given; √
"To fish the ocean, and to birds their heaven;
"And all to man: whom full creation, ftor'd, w
"Receiv'd as its proprietor, and lord.
"Ere earth, whose spacious tract unmeafur'd spreads, "Was flic'd by acres and by roods to shreds :
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