Classic Poem

W HOE'ER thou art, whose forward years are bent
On state affairs, to guide the government;
Hear, first, what Socrates of old has said
To the lov'd youth, whom he at Athens bred:
" Tell me, thou pupil to great Pericles,
Our second hope, my Alcibiades,
What are the grounds, from whence thou dost prepare
To undertake, so young, so vast a care?
Perhaps thy wit: (a chance not often heard,
That parts and prudence should prevent the beard:)
'T is seldom seen, that senators so young
Know when to speak, and when to hold their tongue.
Sure thou art born to some peculiar fate;
When the mad people rise against the State,
To look them into duty; and command
An awful silence with thy lifted hand.
Then to bespeak 'em thus: Athenians, know
Against right reason all your counsels go;
This is not fair; nor profitable that;
Nor t'other question proper for debate.
But thou, no doubt, canst set the business right,
And give each argument its proper weight;
Know'st, with an equal hand, to hold the scale;
Seest where the reasons pinch, and where they fail,
And where exceptions o'er the general rule prevail;
And, taught by inspiration, in a trice,
Canst punish crimes, and brand offending vice.
" Leave, leave to fathom such high points as these,
Nor be ambitious, ere thy time, to please;
Unseasonably wise, till age and cares
Have form'd thy soul to manage great affairs.
Thy face, thy shape, thy outside, are but vain;
Thou hast not strength such labors to sustain:
Drink hellebore, my boy, drink deep, and purge thy brain.
" What aim'st thou at, and whither tends thy care?
In what thy utmost good? Delicious fare;
And then, to sun thyself in open air.
" Hold, hold; are all thy empty wishes such?
A good old woman would have said as much.
But thou art nobly born: 't is true; go boast
Thy pedigree, the thing thou valu'st most.
Besides, thou art a beau: what's that, my child?
A fop, well-dress'd, extravagant, and wild;
She that cries herbs has less impertinence;
And, in her calling, more of common sense. "
None, none descends into himself, to find
The secret imperfections of his mind:
But ev'ryone is eagle-ey'd, to see
Another's faults and his deformity.
" Say, dost thou know Vectidius? " " Who, the wretch
Whose lands beyond the Sabines largely stretch;
Cover the country, that a sailing kite
Can scarce o'erfly 'em in a day and night?
Him dost thou mean, who, spite of all his store,
Is ever craving, and will still be poor?
Who cheats for halfpence, and who doffs his coat,
To save a farthing in a ferryboat?
Ever a glutton, at another's cost,
But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost?
Who eats and drinks with his domestic slaves;
A verier hind than any of his knaves?
Born with the curse and anger of the gods,
And that indulgent genius he defrauds?
At harvest-home, and on the shearing day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay,
And better Ceres, trembling to approach
The little barrel, which he fears to broach:
He 'says the wimble, often draws it back,
And deals to thirsty servants but a smack.
To a short meal he makes a tedious grace,
Before the barley pudding comes in place:
Then, bids fall on; himself, for saving charges,
A peel'd slic'd onion eats, and tipples verjuice. "
" Thus fares the drudge; but thou, whose life 's a dream
Of lazy pleasures, tak'st a worse extreme.
'T is all thy bus'ness, bus'ness how to shun;
To bask thy naked body in the sun,
Suppling thy stiffen'd joints with fragrant oil;
Then, in thy spacious garden, walk a while,
To suck the moisture up, and soak it in:
And this, thou think'st, but vainly think'st, unseen.
But know, thou art observ'd; and there are those
Who, if they durst, would all thy secret sins expose:
The depilation of thy modest part;
Thy catamite, the darling of thy heart,
His engine-hand, and ev'ry lewder art;
When, prone to bear, and patient to receive,
Thou tak'st the pleasure which thou canst not give.
With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek;
And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek:
Of these thy barbers take a costly care,
While thy salt tail is overgrown with hair.
Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,
Can smooth the roughness of thy shameful parts:
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank soil can root those wicked weeds,
Tho' suppled first with soap, to ease thy pain;
The stubborn fern springs up, and sprouts again.
" Thus others we with defamations wound,
While they stab us; and so the jest goes round.
Vain are thy hopes, to scape censorious eyes;
Truth will appear thro' all the thin disguise:
Thou hast an ulcer which no leech can heal,
Tho' thy broad shoulder belt the wound conceal.
Say thou art sound and hale in ev'ry part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart.
We know thee sullen, impotent, and proud:
Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'st the crowd. "
" But when they praise me, in the neighborhood,
When the pleas'd people take me for a god,
Shall I refuse their incense? Not receive
The loud applauses which the vulgar give? "
" If thou dost wealth with longing eyes behold,
And greedily art gaping after gold;
If some alluring girl, in gliding by,
Shall tip the wink, with a lascivious eye,
And thou with a consenting glance reply;
If thou thy own solicitor become,
And bidd'st arise the lumpish pendulum;
If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform;
If with thy guards thou scour'st the streets by night,
And dost in murthers, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flatt'ring crowd to hear;
'T is fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times;
Give thy base poets back their cobbled rhymes:
Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art, and find the beggar there. "