Nor durst it in Philippi's field appear, But unseen attack'd thee there: Had it presumed in any shape thee to oppose, Thou shouldst have forced it back upon thy foes: Or slain 't, like Cæsar, though it be A conqueror and a monarch mightier far than he. What joy can human things to us afford, The best cause and best man that ever drew a sword? The false Octavius and wild Antony, What can we say, but thine own tragic word- Too deep for all thy judgment and thy wit. Which these great secrets shall unseal, A few years more, so soon hadst thou not died, TO DR. SCARBOROUGH. How long, alas! has our mad nation been Seem'd like its sea, embracing round the isle, Would now untill'd, desert, and naked stand, At the same time let loose Diseases' rage But thou by Heaven wert sent A medicine, and a counter-poison, to the age. By wondrous art, and by successful care, The inundations of all liquid Pain, And deluge Dropsy, thou dost drain. The subtle Ague, that for sureness' sake Takes its own times the' assault to make, And at each battery the whole fort does shake, When thy strong guards, and works, it spies, The cruel Stone, that restless pain, That's sometimes roll'd away in vain, But still, like Sysiphus's stone, returns again, Thou break'st and meltest by learn'd juices' force (A greater work, though short the way appear, Than Hannibal's by vinegar!) Oppressed Nature's necessary course It stops in vain; like Moses, thou [flow. Strikest but the rock, and straight the waters freely The Indian son of Lust (that foul disease Which did on this his new-found world but lately Yet since a tyranny has planted here, As wide and cruel as the Spaniard there) Is so quite rooted-out by thee, That thy patients seem to be [seize, Restored not to health only, but virginity. Than Aaron's incense, or than Phineas' dart. Of man's infirmity? At thy strong charms it must be gone [Legion. Though a disease, as well as devil, were called From creeping moss to soaring cedar thou Dost all the powers and several portions know, Which father-Sun, and mother-Earth below, On their green infants here bestow: Canst all those magic virtues from them draw, That keep Disease and Death in awe; As the great artist in his sphere of glass Nor does this science make thy crown alone, There are who all their patients' chagrin have, they gave. And this great race of learning thou hast run, Thou see'st thyself still fresh and strong, The first famed aphorism thy great master spoke, And better things of man report; For thou dost make Life long, and Art but short. Ah, learned friend! it grieves me, when I think That thou with all thy art must die, As certainly as I; And all thy noble reparations sink Into the sure-wrought mine of treacherous mor tality. Like Archimedes, honourably in vain, Thou hold'st out towns that must at last be ta'en, To' enjoy at once their health and thee: Some hours, at least, to thine own pleasures spare: Since the whole stock may soon exhausted be, Bestow 't not all in charity. Let Nature and let Art do what they please, LIFE AND FAME. OH, Life! thou Nothing's younger brother! In all the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade, As 'tis "to be," or "not to be." From the false glories of the gay reflected bow Is a more solid thing than thou. Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up betwixt two eternities! Yet canst nor wave nor wind sustain, But, broken and o'erwhelm'd, the endless oceans meet again. |