Classic Poem

The Love of Praise

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
O'er globes, and sceptres, now on thrones it swells,
Now, trims the midnight lamp in college cells.
'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades;
Here, to Swift's humour makes a bold pretence,
There, bolder, aims at Pultney's eloquence.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead;
Nor ends with life, but nods in sable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.
What is not proud? The pimp is proud to see
So many like himself in high degree.
The whore is proud her beauties are the dread
Of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed;
And the bribed cuckold, like crowned victims born
To slaughter, glories in his gilded horn.
Some go to church, proud humbly to repent.
And come back much more guilty than they went.
One way they look, another way they steer,
Pray to the gods, but would have mortals hear,
And when their sins they set sincerely down,
They'll find that their religion has been one.