I.

A ND thus doth Jury's sapient King,
Who full felicity enjoy'd,
The dirge of disappointment sing,
And deeply mourn the total void?
With festal roses see him crown'd;
The nymphs of Sion, gather'd round,
Expect delight, and love the theme.
He modulates the harp's soft flow
To numbers of expressive woe,
And proves our dearest joys are but a shadowy dream.

II.

Yet haply, in that distant time,
Long ere the dawn of polish'd taste,
The pageant feasts of Judah's clime
Refin'd enjoyment never grac'd.
Though commerce, at a king's command,
Search'd Tyre and Ophir's distant land
To find the exquisite and rare;
Yet if constraint, a silent guest,
Intruded on the regal feast,
Pleasure would instant fly the ostentatious glare.

III.

Thee, Attica, a name endear'd
By grateful learning to mankind:
In thee voluptuousness appear'd
With elegance and science join'd
Beneath the citron's loaded bough,
The zephyrs' told Anacreon's vow
In whispers to the God of wine:
Menander wooed the Idalian boy:
And the philosopher of joy
Evinc'd, by reasons sage, that pleasure is divine.

IV.

Did not the joys of wine and love,
The luxury of letter'd ease,
The bath, the banquet, and the grove,
Form'd ev'n to extasy to please,
With full delight possess the soul?
Ah! no; fatiety oft stole
On the gay revel's lenghten'd hours;
The Mind perceiv'd an aching void;
And, sensual pleasures unenjoy'd,
Sigh'd for a nobler bliss adapted to her powers.

V.

Did martial Rome, whose genius high
Grasp'd at unlimited controul,
With stately pageantry supply
This good, proportion'd to the soul?
Ah! hear the mighty dcad avow,
That with the laurels on their brow,
Envy, and anxious care enwreath'd.
Let Asricanus, doom'd to shame;
Let Fabius, great, but slander'd name;
Let murder'd Caesar tell, what conqu'rors oft atchiev'd.