Virtue with firm quaternian band
His eager steps precedes;
A flambeau grasping in her hand,
To light to glorious deeds:
The fifter-train his toils with glory crown,
And point the arduous paths to fair renown,
By these inspired, young Scipio trod
To fame th' adventurous way ;
“ By love, he cry'd, let Paphos' god
• The softer soul betray;
“ A nobler quarry lures the hero's eye:".
He spoke, and bade th' unconquered eagle fly.
Hence then, ye flaves, whom ease delights,
To yon lone cloyster stray,
Where monkish apathy invites
To doze tame life away :
True worth, that spurns the hermit's sluggard cell,
In glory's active courts delights to dwell.
He com Elencia de Balequética of intemperance bred;
Nursed in the sluggard bed,
And folded in the arms of pamper'd ease:
Hence to Baotian bogs;
Whence humid Aufter on his dropping wings
Grofs exhalations brings,
Where rank effluvia from the marshy brake,
Or murky ftagnate lake,
Pregnant with ills arise in mifty fogs.
And come, Hygeia, bland and fair,
Flushed with the glow of morning air;
With coral lip and sparkling eye,
Complexion of enfanguined dye;
With chearful fmile, and open brow,
Where care could ne'er one furrow plow:
With steady step, and afpect fleek,
The rofe that glows on Stella's cheek,
And fnowy bofom, whence exhales
The fweetnefs of Etefian gales.
In fylvan fcenes is thy delight,
To climb the towering mountain's height,
Or blithely on thy native plain,
To gambol with the Dryad train.
Those plains, where in unguarded hour,
Far from the ken of her chafte bower,
As o'er the dew-befpangled glade
Roved Temperance the mountain maid;
She stopped, in fixt attention viewing
Lufty exercise pursuing,
With miffive shaft and beechen spear,
Thro' opening lawns the trembling deer.
The god furveys the mufing dame,
The lover quits his flying game:
His treffes dropped with morning dew,
While to the wood-nymph's arms he flew;
And from their hale embraces fprung
Hygeia, ever fair and young.
Long, virgin, may thy genial fire
Each late exhausted vein inspire,
The crimson tide of life renew,
And give to glide in channels blue.
Thee wit and mirth fpontaneous ferve,
That give a tone to every nerve,
Invoke thee, harmony's bright queen,
To tune the difarranged machine.
The glow of Titan's orient ray
Thy happy pencil fhall portray
With grace more exquifite, than lies
In Guido's air, or Titian's dyes;
Hence the pale hue of fickness chase,
And call up each reviving grace.
O'er which as late with haggard hand
Confumption fhook her magic wand;
Nature's last debt prepar❜d to pay
Youth's drooping flowers 'gan fade away.
No crimson hue was feen to glow,
The stagnate blood forgot to flow;
Their luftre fled, the languid eyes
Stood fixt in motionless furprize;
Each fense seemed loft in endless night,
The trembling foul was winged for flight:
Which death's rude fhaft had half fet free
In unconceived eternity.
Then, Varus, was the power displayed
Of medicine's heaven-directed aid.
Verfed in each drug's balfamic ufe
The Dædal foils of earth produce,
In every flower of every hue,
And herb that drinks the morning dew;
Thy lenient hand allayed each throw,
And gave a milder face to woe:
Bade the bold pulfe elaftic play,
The emit its vivid ray,
Called back the flitting life again,
And health inspired thro' every vein.
Again thrills with her genial zest
Each nerve; again my languid breast
Vifits the cherub joy. For this
May thy aufpicious heart ne'er miss,
Oft as the fair for charms decayed
Implores thy falutary aid,
To fmooth the lovely mourner's brow
And bid reviving beauties glow;
To footh the tender parent's cries,
And wipe the tears from infant eyes..
But chief, my mufe, with reverent aw
To him, whofe will is nature's law,
Thy hymns of gratulation pay,
To him direct the tribute lay,
From whom derives the baliny pill
Its virtues, the phyfician skill:
That o'er each act and thought prefides,
Directs his hand, his counsel guides.
Elle medicine's unavailing store
Shall vainly glide thro' every pore,
Thro' every pore the mineral rill
In vain its gifted powers inftil.
Father divine, eternal king,
To thee I wake the trembling string :
If mad ambition ne'er misled,,
In paths' where virtue dares not tread,
My vagrant step; if fordid views
Ne'er won the prostitute muse;
For others let Pactolus flow,
Let honour wreathe another's brow:
Health I intreat ; whose jocund throng
Wantons each laughing grace among;
With health the dancing minutes crown’d,
The field of all my wishes bound,
HANKS, Nicè, to thy treacherous art,
At length I breathe again ; The pitying gods have ta’en my part,
And eas'd a wretch's pain
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