Heroes and gods make other poems fine;
Plain satire calls for sense in every line:
Then, to what swarms thy faults I dare expose!
All friends to vice and folly are thy foes.
When such the foe, a war eternal wage;
'Tis most ill-nature to repress thy rage:
And if these strains some nobler muse excite,
I'll glory in the verse I did not write.
So weak are human kind by nature made,
Or to such weakness by their vice betray'd,
Almighty vanity! to thee they owe
Their zest of pleasure, and their balm of woe.
Thou, like the sun, all colours dost contain,
Varying, like rays of light, on drops of rain.
For every soul finds reasons to be proud,
Tho' hiss'd and hooted by the pointing crowd.
Warm in pursuit of foxes, and renown,
(9)Hippolitus demands the sylvan crown;
But Florio's fame, the product of a shower,
Grows in his garden, an illustrious flower!
Why teems the earth? Why melt the vernal skies?
Why shines the sun? To make(10) Paul Diack rise.
From morn to night has Florio gazing stood,
And wonder'd how the gods could be so good;
What shape! what hue! was ever nymph so fair!
He dotes! he dies! he too is rooted there.
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