From man's too curious and impatient sight,
The future, Heaven involves in thickest night.
Credit gray hairs: though freedom much we boast,
Some least perform, what they determine most.
What sudden changes our resolves betray!
To-morrow is the satire on to-day,
And shows its weakness. Whom shall men believe,
When constantly themselves, themselves deceive?
Long had I bid my once-loved muse adieu;
You warm old age; my passion burns anew.
How sweet your verse! how great your force of mind!
What power of words! what skill in dark mankind!
Polite the conduct; generous the design;
And beauty files, and strength sustains, each line.
Thus Mars and Venus are, once more, beset;
Your wit has caught them in its golden net.
But what strikes home with most exalted grace
Is, haughty genius taught to know its place;
And, where worth shines, its humbled crest to bend,
With zeal devoted to that godlike end.
When we discern so rich a vein of sense,
Through the smooth flow of purest eloquence;
'Tis like the limpid streams of Tagus roll'd
O'er boundless wealth, o'er shining beds of gold.
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