Was but to note the doctrines I could teach;
That mine to speak, and theirs was to obey,
For I in knowledge more than power did
And the astonished world in me beheld
Moses eclipsed, and Jesse's son excelled.
Humble a second bowed, and took the word;
Foresaw my name by future age adored;
O live, said he, thou wisest of the wise!
As none has equalled, none shall ever rise
Excelling thee.
Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious flattery! thy malignant seeds
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand
Sadly diffused o'er virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,
And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.
And now the whole perplexed ignoble crowd,
Mute to my questions, in my praises loud,
Echoed the word: whence things arose, or how
They thus exist, the aptest nothing know;
What yet is not, but is ordained to be,
All veil of doubt apart, the dullest see.
My prophets, and my sophists finished here
Their civil efforts of the verbal war;
Not so my rabbins, and logicians yield;
Retiring still they combat; from the field
Of open arms unwilling they depart,
And sculk behind the subterfuge of art.
To speak one thing, mixed dialects they join;
Divide the simple, and the plain define;
Fix fancied laws, and form imagined rules,
Terms of their art, and jargon of their schools,
Ill-grounded maxims by false gloss enlarged,
And captious science against reason charged.
Soon their crude notions with each other fought:
The adverse sect denied what this had taught;
And he at length the amplest triumph gained,
Who contradicted what the last maintained.
O wretched impotence of human mind!
We erring still excuse for error find;
And darkling grope, not knowing we are blind.
Vain man! since first the blushing sire essayed
His folly with connected leaves to shade;
How does the crime of thy resembling race
With like attempt that pristine error trace!
Too plain thy nakedness of soul espied,
Why dost thou strive the conscious shame to hide
By marks of eloquence and veils of pride?
With outward smiles their flattery I received;
Owned my sick mind by their discourse relieved;
But bent and inward to myself again
Perplexed, these matters I revolved in vain.
My search still tired, my labour still renewed,
At length I ignorance, and knowledge viewed,
Impartial, both in equal balance laid;
Light flew the knowing scale, the doubtful heavy weighed.
Forced by reflective reason, I confess,
That human science is uncertain guess.
Alas! we grasp at clouds, and beat the air,
Vexing that spirit we intend to clear.
Can thought beyond the bounds of matter climb;
Or who shall tell me what is space or time?
In vain we lift up our presumptuous eyes
To what our Maker to their ken denies:
The searcher follows fast: the object faster flies.
The little which imperfectly we find,
Seduces only the bewildered mind
To fruitless search of something yet behind.
Various discussions tear our heated brain;
Opinions often turn, still doubts remain;
And who indulges thought increases pain.
How narrow limits were to wisdom given!
Earth she surveys; she thence would measure Heaven:
Through mists obscure, now wings her tedious way,
Now wanders dazzled with too bright a day;
And from the summit of a pathless coast,
Sees infinite, and in that sight is lost.
Remember, that the cursed desire to know,
Offspring of Adam! was thy source of woe.
Why wilt thou then renew the vain pursuit,
And rashly catch at the forbidden fruit?
With empty labour and eluded strife.
Seeking, by knowledge, to attain to life:
For ever from that fatal tree debarred,
Which flaming swords and angry cherubs guard.
TEXTS CHIEFLY ALLUDED TO IN BOOK II.
I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure. Ecclesiastes, ii. 1.
I made me great works, I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards. Verse 4.
I made me gardens and orchards; and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. Verse 5.
I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. Verse 6.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit; and there was no profit under the sun. Verse 11.
I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. Verse 8.
I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine (yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. Verse 3.
Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. Verse 15.
Therefore I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me. Verse 17.
Dead flies cause the ointment to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. x. Verse 1. The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot. Proverbs, x. 7.
Solomon, again seeking happiness, inquires if wealth and greatness can produce it; begins with the magnificence of gardens and buildings, the luxury of music and feasting; and proceeds to the hopes and desires of love. In two episodes are shown the follies and troubles of that passion. Solomon, still disappointed, falls under the temptations of libertinism and idolatry; recovers his thoughts, reasons aright, and concludes, that as to the pursuit of pleasure, and sensual delight, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
TRY then, O man, the moments to deceive,
That from the womb attend thee to the grave;
For wearied nature find some apter scheme,
Health be thy hope, and pleasure be thy theme;
From the perplexing and unequal ways,
Where study brings thee, from the endless maze,
Which doubt persuades to run, forewarned, recede
To the gay field and flowery path, that lead
To jocund mirth, soft joy, and careless ease:
Forsake what may instruct, for what may please; 10
Essay amusing art, and proud expense,
And make thy reason subject to thy sense.
I communed thus; the power of wealth I tried,
And all the various luxe of costly pride.
Artists and plans relieved my solemn hours;
I founded palaces, and planted bowers.
Birds, fishes, beasts of each exotic kind,
I to the limits of my court confined.
To trees transferred I gave a second birth,
And bid a foreign shade grace Judah's earth.
Fish-ponds were made, where former forests grew,
And hills were levelled to extend the view.
Rivers diverted from their native course,
And bound with chains of artificial force,
From large cascades in pleasing tumult rolled,
Or rose through figured stone, or breathing gold.
From furthest Africa's tormented womb
The marble brought, erects the spacious dome;
Or forms the pillars' long extended rows,
On which the planted grove, and pensile garden grows.
The workmen here obeyed the master's call,
To gild the turret, and to paint the wall;
To mark the pavement there with various stone,
And on the jasper steps to rear the throne.
The spreading cedar that an age had stood,
Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood,
Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns,
And Lebanon his ruined honour mourns.
A thousand artists show their cunning power,
To raise the wonders of the ivory tower.
A thousand maidens ply the purple loom,
To weave the bed, and deck the regal room;
Till Tyre confesses her exhausted store,
That on her coast the Murex1 is no more;
Till from the Parian isle, and Libya's coast,
The mountains grieve their hopes of marble lost;
And India's woods return their just complaint,
Their brood decayed, and want of Elephant.
My full design with vast expense achieved,
1 The Murex is a shell-fish; of whose liquor a purple colour is made.
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