ODE

TO THE HONOURABLE

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Written at Moor-Park, June, 1689. VIRTUE, the greatest of all monarchies! Till, its first emperor rebellious man Depos'd from off his seat,

It fell, and broke with its own weight Into small states and principalities,

By many a petty lord possess'd,

But ne'er since seated in one single breast!
"Tis you who must this land subdue,
The mighty conquest 's left for you,
The conquest and discovery too;
Search out this Utopian ground,
Virtue's Terra Incognita,
Where none ever led the way,
Nor ever since but in descriptions found,
Like the philosopher's stone,

With rules to search it, yet obtain❜d by none.

We have too long been led astray;

Too long have our misguided souls been taught
With rules from musty morals brought,
"Tis you must put us in the way;
Let us (for shame!) no more be fed
With antique reliques of the dead,
The gleanings of philosophy,
Philosophy, the lumber of the schools,
The roguery of alchemy;

And we, the bubbled fools,

Spend all our présent life in hopes of golden rules.
But what does our proud ignorance learning call?
We oddly Plato's paradox make good,
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;

Remembrance is our treasure and our food,
Nature's fair table-book, our tender souls,
We scrawl o'er all with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the schools:

For Learning's mighty treasures look

In that deep grave a book;

Think that she there does all her treasures hide, And that her troubled ghost still haunts there since she dy'd.

Confine her walks to colleges and schools;

Her priests, her train, and followers shew
As if they all were spectres too!
They purchase knowledge at th' expense
Of common breeding, common sense,
And grow at once scholars and fools;
Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,

Rudeness, ill-nature, incivility,

And, sick with dregs of knowledge grown,
Which greedily they swallow down,

Still cast it up, and nauseate company.

Curst be the wretch! nay doubly curst!
(If it may lawful be

To curse our greatest enemy)
Who learnt himself that heresy first

(Which since has seiz'd on all the rest)
That knowledge forfeits all humanity;
Taught us, like Spaniards to be proud and poor,

And fling our scraps before our door! Thrice happy you have 'scap'd this general pest; Those mighty epithets, learn'd, good, and great, Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances meet, We find in you at last united grown.

You cannot be compar'd to one:

I must, like him that painted Venus' face,
Borrow from every one a grace;
Virgil and Epicurus will not do,

Their courting a retreat like you,
Unless I put in Cæsar's learning too;

Your happy frame at once controls
This great triumvirate of souls.
Let not old Rome boast Fabius' fate;
He sav'd his country by delays,
But you by peace.
You bought it at a cheaper rate;
Nor has it left the usual bloody scar,

To show it cost its price in war;

War! that mad game the world so loves to play,

And for it does so dearly pay;

For, though with loss or victory a while

Fortune the gamesters does beguile, Yet at the last the box sweeps all away.

Only the laurel got by peace

No thunder e'er can blast:
Th' artillery of the skies

Shoots to the Earth, and dies;

Nor ever green and flourishing 'twill last, [cries. Nor dipt in blood, nor widows' tears, nor ophans' About the head crown'd with these bays, Like lambent fire the lightning plays :

Nor, its triumphal cavalcade to grace,

Makes up its solemn train with death;

It me; the sword of war, yet keeps it in the sheath.

ily shifts of state, those jugglers' tricks, ich we call deep designs and politics s in a theatre the ignorant fry,

Because the cords escape their eye,

Wonder to see the motions fly);
Methinks, when you expose the scene,
Down the ill-organ'd engines fall;
Off fly the vizards, and discover all :

How plain I see through the deceit !
How shallow, and how gross, the cheat!
Look where the pully's tied above!
Great God! (said I) what have I seen!

On what poor engines move

The thoughts of monarchs, and designs of states!
What petty motives rule their fates!
How the mouse makes the mighty mountain shake!
The mighty mountain labours with its birth,
Away the frighten'd peasants fly,
Scar'd at th' unheard-of prodigy,
Expect some great gigantic son of Earth;

Lo! it appears!

See how they tremble; how they quake!

Out starts the little beast, and mocks their idle fears.

Then tell, dear favourite Muse !

What serpent's that which still resorts,

Still lurks in palaces and courts?

Take thy unwonted flight,

And on the terrace light.

See where she lies!

See how she rears her head,

And rolls about her dreadful eyes,
To drive all virtue out, or look it dead!
"Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence,
And though as some ('tis said) for their defence

Have worn a casement o'er their skin,
So he wore his within,

Made up of virtue and transparent innocence;
And though he oft renew'd the fight,
And almost got priority of sight,

He ne'er could overcome her quite (In pieces cut, the viper still did re-unite),

Till, at last, tir'd with loss of time and ease, Resolv'd to give himself, as well as country, peace, Sing, belov'd Muse! the pleasures of retreat, And in some untouch'd virgin strain Show the delights thy sister Nature yields; Sing of thy vales, sing of thy woods, sing of thy Go publish o'er the plain [fields;

How mighty a proselyte you gain ! Now noble a reprisal on the great!

How is the Muse luxuriant grown!

Whene'er she takes this flight,
She soars clear out of sight.

These are the paradises of her own:
(The Pegasus, like an unruly horse,
Though ne'er so gently led
To the lov'd pasture where he us'd to feed,
Runs violently o'er his usual course.)
Wake from thy wanton dreams,

Come from thy dear-lov'd streams,
The crooked paths of wandering Thames!
Fain the fair nymph would stay,
Oft' she looks back in vain,
Oft' 'gainst her fountain does complain,

And softly steals in many windings down,
As loth to see the hated court and town,
And murmurs as she glides away.

In this new happy scene
Are nobler subjects for your learned pen;
Here we expect from you

More than your predecessor Adam knew;
Whatever moves our wonder, or our sport,
Whatever serves for innocent emblems of the court;
How that which we a kernel see

(Whose well-compacted forms escape the light, Unpierc'd by the blunt rays of sight)

Shall ere long grow into a tree;

Whence takes it its increase, and whence its birth,
Or from the sun, or from the air, or from the earth,
Where all the fruitful atoms lie;

How some go downward to the root,
Some more ambitious upwards fly,

And form the leaves, the branches, and the fruit,
You strove to cultivate a barren court in vain,
Your garden 's better worth your noble pain,
Here mankind fell, and hence must rise again.

Shall I believe a spirit so divine

Was cast in the same mould with mine?
Why then does Nature so unjustly share
Among ber elder sons the whole estate,

And all her jewels and her plate?

Poor we cadets of Heaven, not worth her care, Take up at best with lumber and the leavings of a

fare:

Some she binds 'prentice to the spade,
Some to the drudgery of a trade.

Some she does to Egyptian bondage draw,

[straw:

Bids us make bricks, yet sends us to look out for
Some she condemns for life to try
To dig the leaden mines of deep philosophy:
Me she has to the Muse's gallies tied,
In vain I strive to cross this spacious main,
In vain I tug and pull the car,
And, when I almost reach the shore,
Straight the Muse turns the helm, and I lanch out
And yet, to feed my pride,
Whene'er I mourn, stops my complaining breath,
With promise of a mad reversion after death.

[again :

Then, sir, accept this worthless verse,
The tribute of an humble Muse,
'Tis all the portion of my niggard stars;
Nature the hidden spark did at my birth infuse,
And kindled first with indolence and ease;

Tis now grown an incurable disease:
And, sinee too oft debauch'd by praise,
In vain to quench this foolish fire I try
In wisdom and philosophy;

In vain all wholesome herbs I sow, Where nought but weeds will grow. Whate'er I plant (like corn on barren earth) By an equivocal birth

Seeds, and runs up to poetry.

France does in vain her feeble arts apply, To interrupt the fortune of your course: Your influence does the vain attacks defy Of secret malice, or of open force.

Boldly we hence the brave commencement date
Of glorious deeds, that must all tongues employ :
William 's the pledge and earnest given by fate
Of England's glory, and her lasting joy.

ODE

TO KING WILLIAM1,

ON HIS SUCCESSES IN IRELAND.

To purchase kingdoms, and to buy renown,
Are arts peculiar to dissembling France;
You, mighty monarch, nobler actions crown,
And solid virtue does your name advance,
Your matchless courage with your prudence joins,
The glorious structure of your fame to raise ;
With its own light your dazzling glory shines,
And into adoration turns our praise.

Had you by dull succession gain'd your crown
(Cowards are monarchs by that title made),
Part of your inerit Chance would call her own,
And half your virtues had been lost in shade.
But now your worth its just reward shall have:
What trophies and what triumphs are your due;
Who could so well a dying nation save,

At once deserve a crown and gain it too!
You saw how near we were to ruin brought,
You saw th' impetuous torrent rolling on
And timely on the coming danger thought,

Which we could neither obviate, nor shun. Britannia stript from her sole guard the laws, Ready to fall Rome's bloody sacrifice; You straight stept in, and from the monster's jaws Did bravely snatch the lovely, helpless prize.

Nor this is all; as glorious is the care

To preserve conquests, as at first to gain: In this your virtue claims a double share, Which what it bravely won, does well maintain. Your arm has now your rightful title show'd,

An arm on which all Europe's hopes depend, To which they look as to some guardian God, That must their doubtful liberty defend. Amaz'd, thy action at the Boyne we see ! When Schomberg started at the vast design: The boundless glory all redounds to thee,

[thine.

1 With much pleasure I here present to the public an ode which had been long sought after without success. That it is Swift's, I have not the least doubt; and it is more curious, as being the second

poem that he wrote. He refers to it in the second

stanza of his Ode to the Athenian Society, and expressly marks it by a marginal note, under the title of The Ode I writ to the King in Ireland. See, also, The Gentleman's Journal, July, 1629. p. 13. N. VOL. XL

ODE

TO THE

ATHENIAN SOCIETY.

Moor-Park, Feb. 14, 1691.

As when the deluge first began to fall,
That mighty ebb never to flow again
(When this huge body's moisture was so great,
It quite o'ercame the vital heat);
That mountain which was highest, first of all
Appear'd above the universal main,
To bless the primitive sailor's weary sight!
And 'twas perhaps Parnassus, if in height
It be as great as 'tis in fame,

And nigh to Heaven as is its name:
So, after th' inundation of a war,

When Learning's little houshold did embark
With her world's fruitful system in her sacred ark,
At the first ebb of noise and fears,
Philosophy's exalted head appears;
And the Dove-Muse will now no longer stay,
But plumes her silver wings and flies away;
And now a laurel wreath she brings from far,
To crown the happy conqueror,
To show the flood begins to cease,

And brings the dear reward of victory and peace.

The eager Muse took wing upon the wave's decline, When War her cloudy aspect just withdrew, When the bright sun of Peace began to shine, And for a while in heavenly contemplation sat

On the high top of peaceful Ararat; [that grew, And, pluck'd a laurel branch (for laurel was the first The first of plants after the thunder, storm, and And thence, with joyful nimble wing, [rain); Flew dutifully back again,

And made an humble chaplet for the king 1.

And the Dove-Muse is fled once more
(Glad of the victory, yet frighten'd at the war);
And now discovers from afar

A peaceful and a flourishing shore:
No sooner did she land

On the delightful strand,

Than straight she sees the country all around,
Where fatal Neptune rul'd erewhile,

Scatter'd with flowery vales, with fruitful gardens
And many a pleasant wood! [crown'd,

As if the universal Nile

Had rather water'd it than drown'd:

It seems some floating piece of paradise,

Preserv'd by wonder from the flood,

Long wandering through the deep, as, we are told, Fam'd Delos did of old,

1 The ode I writ to the king in Ireland. Swift.

B b

And the transported Muse imagin'd it
To be a fitter birth-place for the god of wit,
Or the much-talk'd oracular grove;
When with amazing joy she hears
An unknown music all around

Charming her greedy ears

With many a heavenly song

Of nature and of art, of deep philosophy and love,
Whilst angels tune the voice, and God inspires the
In vain she catches at the empty sound [tongue.
In vain pursues the music with her longing eye,
And courts the wanton echoes as they fly.
Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excursions of a youthful pen 2;
Forgive a young, and (almost) Virgin-Muse,
Whom blind and eager curiosity

(Yet curiosity, they say,

Is in her sex a crime needs no excuse)

Has forc'd to grope her uncouth way After a mighty light that leads her wandering eye. No wonder then she quits the narrow path of sense For a dear ramble through impertinence; Impertinence! the scurvy of mankind. And all we fools, who are the greater part of it, Though we be of two different factions still, Both the good-natur'd and the ill, Yet wheresoe'er you look, you'll always find We join, like flies and wasps, in buzzing about wit. In me, who am of the first sect of these, All merit, that transcends the humble rules Of my own dazzled scanty sense, Begets a kinder folly and impertinence

Of admiration and of praise.

And our good brethren of the surly sect

Must e'en all herd us with their kindred fools: For though, possess'd of present vogue, they 've Railing a rule of wit, and obloquy a trade; [made Yet the same want of brains produces each effect. And you, whom Pluto's helin does wisely shroud From us the blind and thoughtless crowd, Like the fam'd hero in his mother's cloud, Who both our follies and impertinences see, Do laugh perhaps at theirs, and pity mine and me.

But censure 's to be understood

Th' authentic mark of the elect, [and good,
The public stamp Heaven sets on all that's great
Our shallow search and judgment to direct.
The war methinks has made

Our wit and learning narrow as our trade;
Instead of boldly sailing far, to buy
A stock of wisdom and philosophy,

We fondly stay at home, in fear

Of every censuring privateer;

Forcing a wretched trade by beating down the sale, And selling basely by retail.

The wits, I mean the atheists of the age, Who fain would rule the pulpit as they do the stage; Wondrous refiners of philosophy,

Of morals and divinity,

By the new modish system of reducing all to sense,
Against all logic and concluding laws,
Do own th' effects of Providence,
And yet deny the cause.

2 See Swift's very remarkable letter to the Athenian Society, in the Supplement to his Works. N.

This hopeful sect, now it begins to see
How little, very little, do prevail

Their first and chiefest force

To censure, to cry down, and rail,
Not knowing what, or where, or who you be,
Will quickly take another course:

And, by their never-failing ways

Of solving all appearances they please,
We soon shall see them to their ancient methods fall,
And straight deny you to be men, or any thing at
I laugh at the grave answer they will make, [all.
Which they have always ready, general, and cheap:
'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet,

And by a fond mistake
Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit,
And think, alas! to be by mortals writ,
Is but a croud of atoms justling in a heap,
Which from eternal seeds begun,

Justling some thousand years till ripen'd by the Sun;
They're now, just now, as naturally born,
As from the womb of Earth a field of corn.

But as for poor contented me,
Who must my weakness and my ignorance confess,
That I believe in much I ne'er can hope to see;
Methinks I'm satisfy'd to guess,

That this new, noble, and delightful scene Is wonderfully mov'd by some exalted men, Who have well studied in the world's disease (That epidemic errour and depravity,

Or in our judgment or our eye), That what surprises us can only please. We often search contentedly the whole world round, To make some great discovery;

And scorn it when 'tis found.

Just so the mighty Nile has suffer'd in its fame,
We've found a little inconsiderable head,
Because 'tis said (and perhaps only said)

That feeds the huge unequal stream.
Consider human folly, and you 'Il quickly own,
That all the praises it can give,
By which some fondly boast they shall for ever live,
Won't pay th' impertinence of being known:

Else why should the fam'd Lydian king (Whom all the charms of an usurped wife and state, With all that power unfelt courts mankind to be

Did with new unexperienc'd glories wait) [great, Still wear, still doat, on his invisible ring?

Were I to form a regular thought of Fame,
Which is perhaps as hard t' imagine right
As to paint Echo to the sight;

I would not draw th' idea from an empty name:
Because, alas! when we all die,
Careless and ignorant posterity,
Although they praise the learning and the wit,

And though the title seems to show
The name and man by whom the book was writ,
Yet how shall they be brought to know,
Whether that very name was he, or you, or I?
Less should I daub it o'er with transitory praise,
And water-colours of these days:
These days! where e'en th' extravagance of poetry
Is at a loss for figures to express

Men's folly, whimsies, and inconstancy, And by a faint description makes them less. Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit [for it? Enthron'd with heavenly Wit!

The rebel Muse, alas! takes part

rance and night,

The god of learning and of light
Would want a god himself to help him out.

Philosophy, as it before us lies,
Seems to have borrow'd some ungrateful taste
Of doubts, impertinence, and niceties,

From every age through which it pass'd,
But always with a stronger relish of the last.
This beauteous queen, by Heaven design'd
To be the great original

For man to dress and polish his uncourtly mind,
In what mock habits have they put her since the
fall!

More oft in fools' and madmen's hands than sages,
She seems a medley of all ages,

With a huge fardingale to swell her fustian stuff,
A new commode, a top-knot, and a ruff,
Her face patch'd o'er with modern pedantry,
With a long sweeping train

Of comments and disputes, ridiculous and vain,
All of old cut with a new dye:

How soon have you restor'd her charms,
And rid her of her lumber and her books,
Drest her again genteel and neat,
And rather tight than great!
How fond we are to court her to our arms!
How much of Heaven is in her naked looks!

Thus the deluding Muse oft blinds me to her ways,
And ev'n my very thoughts transfers
And changes all to beauty, and the praise
Of that proud tyrant sex of hers.

But with my own rebellious heart,
And you with fatal and immortal wit consire
To fan th' unhappy fire.

Cruel unknown! what is it you intend? [friend!
Ah! could you, could you hope a poet for your
Rather forgive what my first transport said:
May all the blood, which shall by woman's scorn
be shed,

Lie upon you and on your children's head!
For you (ah! did I think I e'er should live to see
The fatal time when that could be!)
Have ev'n increas'd their pride and cruelty.
Woman seems now above all vanity grown,
Still boasting of her great unknown
Platonic champions, gain'd without one female wile,
Or the vast charges of a smile;
Which 'tis a shame to see how much of late
You've taught the covetous wretches to o'er-
rate,

And which they 've now the consciences to weigh
In the same balance with our tears,
And with such scanty wages pay
The bondage and the slavery of years.

[us,

Let the vain sex dream on; the empire comes from And, had they common generosity,

[degree.

They would not use us thus. Well-though you 've rais'd her to this high Ourselves are rais'd as well as she; And, spite of all that they or you can do, Still to be of the same exalted sex with you. 'Tis pride and happiness enough to me

Alas, how fleeting and how vain

Is ev'n the nobler man, our learning and our wit!
I sigh whene'er I think of it:
As at the closing of an unhappy scene

Of some great king and conqueror's death,
When the sad melancholy Muse

Stays but to catch his utmost breath.

I grieve, this nobler work most happily begun,
So quickly and so wonderfully carry'd on,
May fall at last to interest, folly, and abuse.
There is a noon-tide in our lives,

Which still the sooner it arrives,
Although we boast our winter-sun looks bright,
And foolishly are glad to see it at its height,
Yet so much sooner comes the long and gloomy.
No conquest ever yet begun,
[night.

And by one mighty hero carried to its height,
E'er flourish'd under a successor or a son;
It lost some mighty pieces through all hands it past,
And vanish'd to an empty title in the last.

For, when the animating mind is fled
(Which nature never can retain,

Nor e'er call back again),

The body, though gigantic, lies all cold and dead.

And thus undoubtedly 'twill fare,
With what unhappy men shall dare
To be successors to these great unknown,
On Learning's high-establish'd throne.
Censure, and Pedantry, and Pride,
Numberless nations, stretching far and wide, [forth
Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come
From Ignorance's universal North, [ment:

And with blad rage break all this peaceful govern-
Yet shall these traces of your wit remain,
Like a just map, to tell the vast extent
Of conquest in your short and happy reign;