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Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their profelytes for vice
(The only comfort they propofe,
To have companions in their woes):
Grant this the cafe; yet fure 'tis hard
That virtue, ftyl'd its own reward,
And by all fages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind,
Which by remembrance will afswage
"Grief, fick nefs, poverty, and age,
And strongly fhoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.
Say, Stella; feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-fpent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to fave
Defpairing wretches from the grave;
And then fupporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preferving what it firft creates.
Your generous boldnefs to defend
An innocent and abfent friend;

That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the duft;

The deteftation you exprefs

For vice in all its glittering drefs;

That

That patience under tottering pain,
Where stubborn Stoicks would complain;
Muft these like empty fhadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass ?
Or mere chimeras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind ?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supply'd,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reafon can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
*Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reafon can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

fhow

Believe me, Stella, when you
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face;

Looks back with joy where the has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your fickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

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O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.

Me, furely me, you ought to fpare,
Who gladly would your fuffering share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due ;
You, to whofe care fo oft' I owe
That I'm alive to tell you fo.

HORACE, BOOK I. ODE XIV. Paraphrafed, and infcribed to IRELAND. 1726.

THE INSCRIPTION.

Poor floating ifle, toft on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of flaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand:
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and ftale,
Betwixt a state, and veffel under fail;
Let me fuppofe thee for a fhip a-while,
And thus address thee in the failor's style:

UNHAPPY ship, thou art return'd in vain :

New waves fhall drive thee to the deep again.

Look to thyself, and be no more the fport
Of giddy winds, but make fome friendly port.

Loft

Loft are thy cars, that us'd thy courie to guide,
Like faithful couniellors on either fide.

Thy maft, which like fome aged patriot flood
The tingle pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a ftaff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by you rough eaftern wind.
Your cables burit, and you muit quickly feel
The waves impetuous enter at your keel.
Thus commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,
When the ftrong cords of union once are broke.
Torn by a fudden tempeft is thy fail,
Expanded to invite a milder gale.

As when fome writer in a public cause
His pen, to fave a finking nation, draws,
While all is calm, his arguments prevail ;
The people's voice expands his paper-fail;
Till power, difcharging all her ftormy bags,
Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags.
The nation fcar'd, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his trust in popular breath.
A larger facrifice in vain you vow ;

There's not a power above will help you now :
A nation thus, who oft' Heaven's call neglects,
In vain from injur'd Heaven relief expects.
"Twill not avail, when thy ftrong fides are broke,
That thy defcent is from the British oak;
Or, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coaft.
Such was Ierne's claim, as just as thine,
Her fons defcended from the British line;

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Her matchlefs fons, whofe valour ftill remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns
Yet, from an emprefs now a captive grown,
She fav'd Britannia's rights, and lost her own.
In fhips decay'd no mariner confides,
Lur'd by the gilded stern and painted fides;
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight

In the gay trappings of a birth-day night :
They on the gold brocades and fattins-rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enflav’d.
Dear veffel, ftill be to thy fteerage juft,
Nor change thy courfe with every fudden guft;
Like fupple patriots of the modern fort,

Who turn with every gale that blows from court..
Weary and fea-fick when in thee confin'd,

Now for thy fafety cares diftract my mind;
As thofe who long have ftood the storms of state.
Retire, yet ftill bemoan their country's fate.
Beware, and when you hear the furges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry fhore..
They lie, alas too eafy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.

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