Classic Poem

AT OXFORD .

Say, dearest Friend! how roll thy hours away,
What pleasing study cheats the tedious day?
Dost thou the sacred volumes oft' explore
Of wife Antiquity's immortal lore,
Where virtue by the charms of wit refin'd
At once exalts and polishes the mind?
How diff'rent from our modern guilty art,
Which pleases only to corrupt the heart,
Whose curs'd refinements odious vice adorn,
And teach to honour what we ought to scorn!
Dost thou in sage historians joy to see
How Roman greatness rose with liberty,
How the same hands that tyrants durst control
Their empire stretch'd from Atlas to the Pole,
Till wealth and conquest into slaves refin'd
The proud luxurious masters of mankind?
Dost thou in letter'd Greece each charm admire,
Each grace each virtue Freedom could inspire,
Yet in her troubled state see all the woes
And all the crimes that giddy Faction knows,
Till rent by parties, by corruption sold,
Or weakly careless or too rashly bold,
She sunk beneath a mitigated doom,
The slave and tut'ress of protecting Rome?
Does calm Philosophy her aid impart
To guide the passions and to mend the heart?
Taught by her precepts, hast thou learn'd the end
To which alone the wise their studies bend,
For which alone by Nature were design'd
The pow'rs of thought — to benefit mankind?
Not like a cloyster'd drone to read and dose
In undeserving undeserv'd repose,
But Reason's influence to diffuse, to clear
Th' enlighten'd world of ev'ry gloomy fear,
Dispel the mists of errour, and unbind
Those pedant chains that clog the freeborn mind.
Happy who thus his leisure can employ!
He knows the purest hours of tranquil joy;
Nor vex'd with pangs that busier bosoms tear,
Nor lost to social virtue's pleasing care,
Safe in the port, yet lab'ring to sustain
Those who still float on the tempestuous main.
So Locke the days of studious quiet spent,
So Boyle in wisdom found divine content,
So Cambray, worthy of a happier doom,
The virtuous slave of Louis and of Rome.
Good Wor'ster thus supports his drooping age,
Far from court-flatt'ry, far from party-rage;
He who in youth a tyrant's frown defy'd,
Firm and intrepid on his country's side,
Her boldest champion then and now her mildest guide!
O gen'rous warmth! O sanctity divine!
To emulate his worth my Friend! be thine:
Learn from his life the duties of the gown,
Learn not to flatter nor insult the crown,
Nor basely servile court the guilty great,
Nor raise the church a rival to the state:
To errour mild, to vice alone severe,
Seek not to spread the law of love by fear:
The priest who plagues the world can never mend;
No foe to man was e'er to God a friend.
Let reason and let virtue faith maintain,
All force but theirs is impious, weak, and vain.
Me other cares in other climes engage,
Cares that become my birth and suit my age,
In various knowledge to improve my youth,
And conquer prejudice, worst foe to truth,
By foreign arts domestick faults to mend,
Enlarge my notions and my views extend,
The useful science of the world to know,
Which books can never teach or pedants show.
A nation here I pity and admire,
Whom noblest sentiments of glory fire,
Yet taught by custom's force and bigot fear
To serve with pride and boast the yoke they bear,
Whose nobles born to cringe and to command,
In courts a mean in camps a gen'rous band,
From each low tool of pow'r content receive
Those laws their dreaded arms to Europe give;
Whose people (vain in want, in bondage blest,
Tho' plunder'd gay, industrious tho' opprest)
With happy follies rise above their sate,
The jest and envy of each wiser state.
Yet here the Muses deign'd a while to sport
In the short sunshine of a fav'ring court;
Here Boileau, strong in sense and sharp in wit,
Who from the Ancients like the Ancients writ,
Permission gain'd inferiour vice to blame,
By flatt'ring incense to his master's fame;
Here Moliere, first of Comick wits, excell'd
Whate'er Athenian theatres beheld,
By keen yet decent satire skill'd to please,
With morals mirth uniting, strength with ease:
Now charm'd I hear the bold Corneille inspire
Heroick thoughts with Shakespeare's force and fire;
Now sweet Racine with milder influence move
The soften'd heart to pity and to love.
With mingled pain and pleasure I survey
The pompous works of arbitrary sway,
Proud palaces that drain'd the subjects' store
Rais'd on the ruins of th' oppress'd and poor,
Where ev'n mute walls are taught to flatter state,
And painted triumphs style Ambition Great.
With more delight those pleasing shades I view
Where Conde from an envious court withdrew,
Where sick of glory, faction, pow'r, and pride,
(Sure judge how empty all who all had try'd!)
Beneath his palms the weary chief repos'd,
And life's great scene in quiet virtue clos'd.
With shame that other fam'd retreat I see
Adorn'd by art, disgrac'd by luxury,
Where Orleans wasted ev'ry vacant hour
In the wild riot of unbounded pow'r,
Where feverish debauch and impious love
Stain'd the mad table and the guilty grove.
With these amusements is thy friend detain'd,
Pleas'd and instructed in a foreign land;
Yet oft' a tender wish recalls my mind
From present joys to dearer left behind.
O native Isle! fair Freedom's happiest seat!
At thought of thee my bounding pulses beat,
At thought of thee my heart impatient burns,
And all my country on my soul returns;
When shall I see thy fields, whose plenteous grain
No pow'r can ravish from th' industrious swain?
When kiss with pious love the sacred earth
That gave a Burleigh or a Russel birth?
When in the shade of laws that long have stood,
Propt by their care or strengthen'd by their blood,
Of fearless independence wisely vain,
The proudest slave of Bourbon's race disdain?
Yet oh! what doubt, what sad presaging voice,
Whispers within, and bids me not rejoice,
Bids me contemplate ev'ry state around
From sultry Spain to Norway's icy bound,
Bids their lost rights their ruin'd glories see,
And tells me these like England once were free!