Miscellaneous Poems | Page 9

as just, those counsels they embrace,
And spurn, the next, as
pitiful and base.
Thee, too, my child, those fools as Cunning fly,

Who on thy counsel and thy craft rely;
That worthy craft in others
they condemn,
But 'tis their prudence, while conducting them.

"Be FLATTERY, then, thy happy infant's name,
Let Honour scorn
her and let Wit defame;
Let all be true that Envy dooms, yet all,
Not
on herself, but on her name, shall fall;
While she thy fortune and her
own shall raise,
And decent Truth be call'd, and loved as, modest
Praise.
"O happy child! the glorious day shall shine,
When every ear shall to
thy speech incline,
Thy words alluring and thy voice divine:
The
sullen pedant and the sprightly wit,
To hear thy soothing eloquence
shall sit;
And both, abjuring Flattery, will agree
That Truth inspires,
and they must honour thee.
"Envy himself shall to thy accents bend,
Force a faint smile, and
sullenly attend,
When thou shalt call him Virtue's jealous friend,

Whose bosom glows with generous rage to find
How fools and
knaves are flatter'd by mankind.
"The sage retired, who spends alone his days,
And flies th'
obstreperous voice of public praise;
The vain, the vulgar cry,--shall
gladly meet,
And bid thee welcome to his still retreat;
Much will he
wonder, how thou cam'st to find
A man to glory dead, to peace
consign'd.
O Fame! he'll cry (for he will call thee Fame),
From thee
I fly, from thee conceal my name;
But thou shalt say, though Genius
takes his night,
He leaves behind a glorious train of light,
And hides
in vain: --yet prudent he that flies
The flatterer's art, and for himself is
wise.
"Yes, happy child! I mark th'approaching day,
When warring natures
will confess thy sway;
When thou shalt Saturn's golden reign restore,

And vice and folly shall be known no more.
"Pride shall not then in human-kind have place,
Changed by thy skill,
to Dignity and Grace;
While Shame, who now betrays the inward
sense
Of secret ill, shall be thy Diffidence;
Avarice shall

thenceforth prudent Forecast be,
And bloody Vengeance,
Magnanimity;
The lavish tongue shall honest truths impart,
The
lavish hand shall show the generous heart,
And Indiscretion be,
contempt of art;
Folly and Vice shall then, no longer known,
Be,
this as Virtue, that as Wisdom, shown.
"Then shall the Robber, as the Hero, rise
To seize the good that
churlish law denies;
Throughout the world shall rove the generous
band,
And deal the gifts of Heaven from hand to hand.
In thy blest
days no tyrant shall be seen,
Thy gracious king shall rule contented
men;
In thy blest days shall not a rebel be,
But patriots all and
well-approved of thee.
"Such powers are thine, that man by thee shall wrest
The gainful
secret from the cautious breast;
Nor then, with all his care, the good
retain,
But yield to thee the secret and the gain.
In vain shall much
experience guard the heart
Against the charm of thy prevailing art;

Admitted once, so soothing is thy strain,
It comes the sweeter, when
it comes again;
And when confess'd as thine, what mind so strong

Forbears the pleasure it indulged so long?
"Softener of every ill! of all our woes
The balmy solace! friend of
fiercest foes!
Begin thy reign, and like the morning rise!
Bring joy,
bring beauty, to our eager eyes;
Break on the drowsy world like
opening day,
While grace and gladness join thy flow'ry way;
While
every voice is praise, while every heart is gay.
"From thee all prospects shall new beauties take,
'Tis thine to seek
them and 'tis thine to make;
On the cold fen I see thee turn thine eyes,

Its mists recede, its chilling vapour flies;
Th'enraptured Lord
th'improving ground surveys,
And for his Eden asks the traveller's
praise,
Which yet, unview'd of thee, a bog had been,
Where spungy
rushes hide the plashy green.

"I see thee breathing on the barren moor,
That seems to bloom
although so bleak before;
There, if beneath the gorse the primrose
spring,
Or the pied daisy smile below the ling,
They shall new
charms, at thy command disclose,
And none shall miss the myrtle or
the rose.
The wiry moss, that whitens all the hill,
Shall live a beauty
by thy matchless skill;
Gale from the bog shall yield Arabian balm,

And the gray willow give a golden palm.
"I see thee smiling in the pictured room,
Now breathing beauty, now
reviving bloom;
There, each immortal name 'tis thine to give,
To
graceless forms, and bid the lumber live.
Should'st thou coarse boors
or gloomy martyrs see,
These shall thy Guidos, these thy Teniers be;

There shalt thou Raphael's saints and angels trace,
There make for
Rubens and for Reynolds place,
And all the pride of art shall find, in
her disgrace.
"Delight of either sex? thy reign commence;
With balmy sweetness
soothe the weary sense,
And to the sickening soul thy cheering aid
dispense.
Queen of the mind! thy golden age begin;
In mortal
bosoms varnish shame and sin;
Let all be fair without, let all be calm
within."
The vision fled, the happy mother rose,
Kiss'd the fair infant, smiled
at all her foes,
And FLATTERY made her name: --her reign began.

Her own dear sex she ruled, then vanquished man:
A smiling friend,
to