Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham by Edmund Waller; John Denham

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OF JUSTICE.

'Tis the first sanction Nature gave to man,
Each other to assist in what they can;
Just or unjust, this law for ever stands;
All things are good by law which she commands;
The first step, man t'wards Christ must justly live,
Who t'us himself, and all we have, did give;
In vain doth man the name of just expect,
If his devotions he to God neglect;
So must we rev'rence God, as first to know 9
Justice from Him, not from ourselves, doth flow;
God those accepts who to mankind are friends,
Whose justice far as their own power extends;
In that they imitate the power Divine;
The sun alike on good and bad doth shine;
And he that doth no good, although no ill,
Does not the office of the just fulfil.
Virtue doth man to virtuous actions steer,
'Tis not enough that he should vice forbear;
We live not only for ourselves to care,
Whilst they that want it are denied their share. 20
Wise Plato said, the world with men was stored,
That succour each to other might afford;
Nor are those succours to one sort confined,
But sev'ral parts to sev'ral men consign'd;
He that of his own stores no part can give,
May with his counsel or his hands relieve.
If Fortune make thee powerful, give defence
'Gainst fraud and force, to naked innocence:
And when our Justice doth her tributes pay,
Method and order must direct the way. 30
First to our God we must with rev'rence bow;
The second honour to our prince we owe;
Next to wives, parents, children, fit respect,
And to our friends and kindred, we direct;
Then we must those who groan beneath the weight
Of age, disease, or want, commiserate.
'Mongst those whom honest lives can recommend,
Our Justice more compassion should extend;
To such, who thee in some distress did aid,
Thy debt of thanks with int'rest should be paid: 40
As Hesiod sings, spread waters o'er thy field,
And a most just and glad increase 'twill yield.
But yet take heed, lest doing good to one,
Mischief and wrong be to another done;
Such moderation with thy bounty join,
That thou may'st nothing give that is not thine;
That liberality's but cast away,
Which makes us borrow what we cannot pay.
And no access to wealth let rapine bring;
Do nothing that's unjust to be a king. 50
Justice must be from violence exempt,
But fraud's her only object of contempt.
Fraud in the fox, force in the lion dwells;
But Justice both from human hearts expels;
But he's the greatest monster (without doubt)
Who is a wolf within, a sheep without.
Nor only ill injurious actions are,
But evil words and slanders bear their share.
Truth Justice loves, and truth injustice fears,
Truth above all things a just man reveres. 60
Though not by oaths we God to witness call,
He sees and hears, and still remembers all;
And yet our attestations we may wrest
Sometimes to make the truth more manifest;
If by a lie a man preserve his faith,
He pardon, leave, and absolution hath;
Or if I break my promise, which to thee
Would bring no good, but prejudice to me.
All things committed to thy trust conceal,
Nor what's forbid by any means reveal. 70
Express thyself in plain, not doubtful words,
That ground for quarrels or disputes affords:
Unless thou find occasion, hold thy tongue;
Thyself or others careless talk may wrong.
When thou art called into public power,
And when a crowd of suitors throng thy door,
Be sure no great offenders 'scape their dooms; 77
Small praise from lenity and remissness comes;
Crimes pardon'd, others to those crimes invite,
Whilst lookers-on severe examples fright.
When by a pardon'd murd'rer blood is spilt,
The judge that pardon'd hath the greatest guilt;
Who accuse rigour, make a gross mistake;
One criminal pardon'd may an hundred make;
When justice on offenders is not done,
Law, government, and commerce, are o'erthrown;
As besieged traitors with the foe conspire,
T' unlock the gates, and set the town on fire.
Yet lest the punishment th'offence exceed,
Justice with weight and measure must proceed: 90
Yet when pronouncing sentence, seem not glad,
Such spectacles, though they are just, are sad;
Though what thou dost thou ought'st not to repent,
Yet human bowels cannot but relent:
Rather than all must suffer, some must die;
Yet Nature must condole their misery.
And yet, if many equal guilt involve,
Thou may'st not these condemn, and those absolve.
Justice, when equal scales she holds, is blind;
Nor cruelty, nor mercy, change her mind. 100
When some escape for that which others die,
Mercy to those, to these is cruelty.
A fine and slender net the spider weaves,
Which little and light animals receives;
And if she catch a common bee or fly,
They with a piteous groan and murmur die;
But if a wasp or hornet she entrap,
They tear her cords like Samson, and escape;
So like a fly the poor offender dies,
But like the wasp, the rich escapes and flies. 110
Do not, if one but lightly thee offend,
The punishment beyond the crime extend;
Or after warning the offence forget;
So God himself our failings doth remit.
Expect not more from servants than is just,
Reward them well, if they observe their trust;
Nor them with cruelty or pride invade,
Since God and Nature them our brothers made;
If his offence be great, let that suffice;
If light, forgive, for no man's always wise. 120

THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING.

PREFACE.

My early mistress, now my ancient Muse,
That strong Circaean liquor cease t'infuse,
Wherewith thou didst intoxicate my youth,
Now stoop with disenchanted wings to truth;
As the dove's flight did guide Aeneas, now
May thine conduct me to the golden bough:
Tell (like a tall old oak) how learning shoots
To heaven her branches, and to hell her roots.

When God from earth form'd Adam in the East,
He his own image on the clay impress'd;
As subjects then the whole creation came,
And from their natures Adam them did name,
Not from experience (for the world was new),
He only from their cause their natures knew.
Had memory been lost with innocence,
We had not known the sentence nor th'offence;
'Twas his chief punishment to keep in store
The sad remembrance what he was before; 10
And though th'offending part felt mortal pain,
Th' immortal part its knowledge did retain.
After the flood, arts to Chaldea fell;
The father of the faithful there did dwell,
Who both their parent and instructor was;
From thence did learning into Egypt pass:
Moses in all the Egyptian arts was skill'd,
When heavenly power that chosen vessel fill'd;
And we to his high inspiration owe,
That what was done before the flood we know. 20
Prom Egypt, arts their progress made to Greece,
Wrapp'd in the fable of the golden fleece.
Musaeus first, then Orpheus, civilise
Mankind, and gave the world their deities;
To many gods they taught devotion,
Which were the distinct faculties of one;
Th' Eternal Cause, in their immortal lines
Was taught, and poets were the first divines:
God Moses first, then David, did inspire,
To compose anthems, for his heavenly choir; 30
To th'one the style of friend he did impart,
On th'other stamp the likeness of his heart:
And Moses, in the old original,
Even God the poet of the world doth call.
Next those old Greeks Pythagoras did rise,
Then Socrates, whom th'oracle call'd Wise;
The divine Plato moral virtue shows,
Then his disciple Aristotle rose,
Who Nature's secrets to the world did teach,
Yet that great soul our novelists impeach; 40
Too much manuring fill'd that field with weeds,
While sects, like locusts, did destroy the seeds;
The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes,
Produces sapless leaves instead of fruits;
Proud Greece all nations else barbarians held,
Boasting her learning all the world excell'd.
Flying from thence[1] to Italy it came, 47
And to the realm of Naples gave the name,
Till both their nation and their arts did come
A welcome trophy to triumphant Rome;
Then whereso'er her conqu'ring eagles fled,
Arts, learning, and civility were spread;
And as in this our microcosm, the heart
Heat, spirit, motion gives to every part,
So Rome's victorious influence did disperse
All her own virtues through the universe.
Here some digression I must make, t'accuse
Thee, my forgetful, and ingrateful Muse:
Couldst thou from Greece to Latium take thy flight,
And not to thy great ancestor do right? 60
I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shined;
The age wherein he lived was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see:
They who Minerva from Jove's head derive,
Might make old Homer's skull the Muses' hive;
And from his brain that Helicon distil
Whose racy liquor did his offspring fill.
Nor old Anacreon, Hesiod, Theocrite,
Must we forget, nor Pindar's lofty flight. 70
Old Homer's soul, at last from Greece retired,
In Italy the Mantuan swain inspired.
When great Augustus made war's tempest cease,
His halcyon days brought forth the arts of peace;
He still in his triumphant chariot shines,
By Horace drawn, and Virgil's mighty lines.
'Twas certainly mysterious that the name [2]
Of prophets and of poets is the same;
What the tragedian[3]--wrote, the late success 79
Declares was inspiration, and not guess:
As dark a truth that author did unfold,
As oracles or prophets e'er foretold:
'At last the ocean shall unlock the bound
Of things, and a new world by Tiphys found,
Then ages far remote shall understand
The Isle of Thule is not the farthest land.'
Sure God, by these discov'ries, did design
That his clear light through all the world should shine,
But the obstruction from that discord springs
The prince of darkness made 'twixt Christian kings; 90
That peaceful age with happiness to crown,
From heaven the Prince of Peace himself came down,
Then the true sun of knowledge first appear'd,
And the old dark mysterious clouds were clear'd,
The heavy cause of th'old accursed flood
Sunk in the sacred deluge of his blood.
His passion man from his first fall redeem'd;
Once more to paradise restored we seem'd;
Satan himself was bound, till th'iron chain
Our pride did break, and let him loose again. 100
Still the old sting remain'd, and man began
To tempt the serpent, as he tempted man;
Then Hell sends forth her furies, Av'rice, Pride,
Fraud, Discord, Force, Hypocrisy their guide;
Though the foundation on a rock were laid,
The church was undermined, and then betray'd:
Though the Apostles these events foretold,
Yet even the shepherd did devour the fold:
The fisher to convert the world began,
The pride convincing of vain-glorious man; 110
But soon his followers grew a sovereign lord,
And Peter's keys exchanged for Peter's sword,
Which still maintains for his adopted son
Vast patrimonies, though himself had none;
Wresting the text to the old giant's sense,
That heaven, once more, must suffer violence.
Then subtle doctors Scriptures made their prize;
Casuists, like cocks, struck out each others eyes;
Then dark distinctions reason's light disguised,
And into atoms truth anatomised. 120
Then Mah'met's crescent, by our feuds increased,
Blasted the learn'd remainders of the East;
That project, when from Greece to Rome it came,
Made Mother Ignorance Devotion's dame;
Then he whom Lucifer's own pride did swell,
His faithful emissary, rose from hell
To possess Peter's chair, that Hildebrand
Whose foot on mitres, then on crowns, did stand;
And before that exalted idol all
(Whom we call gods on earth) did prostrate fall. 130
Then darkness Europe's face did overspread
From lazy cells where superstition bred,
Which, link'd with blind obedience, so increased,
That the whole world some ages they oppress'd;
Till through these clouds the sun of knowledge brake,
And Europe from her lethargy did wake:
Then first our monarchs were acknowledged here,
That they their churches' nursing fathers were.
When Lucifer no longer could advance
His works on the false grounds of ignorance, 140
New arts he tries, and new designs he lays,
Then his well-studied masterpiece he plays;
Loyola, Luther, Calvin he inspires,
And kindles with infernal flames their fires,
Sends their forerunner (conscious of th'event)
Printing, his most pernicious instrument!
Wild controversy then, which long had slept,
Into the press from ruin'd cloisters leap'd;
No longer by implicit faith we err,
Whilst every man's his own interpreter; 150
No more conducted now by Aaron's rod,
Lay-elders from their ends create their god.
But seven wise men the ancient world did know,
We scarce know seven who think themselves not so.
When man learn'd undefiled religion,
We were commanded to be all as one;
Fiery disputes that union have calcined;
Almost as many minds as men we find,
And when that flame finds combustible earth,
Thence _fatuus_ fires, and meteors take their birth; 160
Legions of sects and insects come in throngs;
To name them all would tire a hundred tongues.
So were the Centaurs of Ixion's race,
Who a bright cloud for Juno did embrace;
And such the monsters of Chimaera's kind,
Lions before, and dragons were behind.
Then from the clashes between popes and kings,
Debate, like sparks from flints' collision, springs:
As Jove's loud thunderbolts were forged by heat,
The like our Cyclops on their anvils beat; 170
All the rich mines of learning ransack'd are,
To furnish ammunition for this war:
Uncharitable zeal our reason whets,
And double edges on our passion sets;
'Tis the most certain sign the world's accursed,
That the best things corrupted are the worst;
'Twas the corrupted light of knowledge hurl'd
Sin, death, and ignorance o'er all the world;
That sun like this (from which our sight we have), 179
Gazed on too long, resumes the light he gave;
And when thick mists of doubts obscure his beams,
Our guide is error, and our visions, dreams;
'Twas no false heraldry when madness drew
Her pedigree from those who too much knew;
Who in deep mines for hidden knowledge toils,
Like guns o'ercharged, breaks, misses, or recoils;
When subtle wits have spun their thread too fine,
'Tis weak and fragile, like Arachne's line:
True piety, without cessation toss'd
By theories, the practic part is lost, 190
And like a ball bandied 'twixt pride and wit,
Rather than yield, both sides the prize will quit:
Then whilst his foe each gladiator foils,
The atheist looking on enjoys the spoils.
Through seas of knowledge we our course advance,
Discov'ring still new worlds of ignorance;
And these discov'ries make us all confess
That sublunary science is but guess;
Matters of fact to man are only known,
And what seems more is mere opinion; 200
The standers-by see clearly this event;
All parties say they're sure, yet all dissent;
With their new light our bold inspectors press,
Like Cham, to show their fathers' nakedness,
By whose example after ages may
Discover we more naked are than they;
All human wisdom to divine is folly;
This truth the wisest man made melancholy;
Hope, or belief, or guess, gives some relief,
But to be sure we are deceived brings grief: 210
Who thinks his wife is virtuous, though not so,
Is pleased and patient till the truth he know.
Our God, when heaven and earth he did create,
Form'd man who should of both participate;
If our lives' motions theirs must imitate,
Our knowledge, like our blood, must circulate.
When like a bridegroom from the east, the sun
Sets forth, he thither, whence he came, doth run;
Into earth's spongy veins the ocean sinks,
Those rivers to replenish which he drinks; 220
So learning, which from reason's fountain springs,
Back to the source some secret channel brings.
'Tis happy when our streams of knowledge flow
To fill their banks, but not to overthrow.

Ut metit Autumnus fruges quas parturit Aestas,
Sic ortum Natura, dedit Deus his quoque finem.

[1]'From thence': Gracia Major.
[2] 'The name': Vates.
[3] 'The tragedian': Seneca.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF HENRY LORD HASTINGS, 1650.

Reader, preserve thy peace: those busy eyes
Will weep at their own sad discoveries,
When every line they add improves thy loss,
Till, having view'd the whole, they seem a cross,
Such as derides thy passions' best relief,
And scorns the succours of thy easy grief;
Yet lest thy ignorance betray thy name
Of man and pious, read and mourn; the shame
Of an exemption from just sense doth show
Irrational, beyond excess of woe. 10
Since reason, then, can privilege a tear,
Manhood, uncensured, pay that tribute here
Upon this noble urn. Here, here remains
Dust far more precious than in India's veins;
Within those cold embraces, ravish'd, lies
That which completes the age's tyrannies;
Who weak to such another ill appear,
For what destroys our hope secures our fear.
What sin, unexpiated in this land
Of groans, hath guided so severe a hand? 20
The late great victim[1] that your altars knew,
Ye angry gods! might have excused this new
Oblation, and have spared one lofty light
Of virtue, to inform our steps aright;
By whose example good, condemned, we
Might have run on to kinder destiny.
But as the leader of the herd fell first
A sacrifice, to quench the raging thirst
Of inflamed vengeance for past crimes, so none
But this white, fatted youngling could atone, 30
By his untimely fate, that impious smoke,
That sullied earth, and did Heaven's pity choke.
Let it suffice for us that we have lost
In him more than the widow'd world can boast
In any lump of her remaining clay.
Fair as the gray-eyed morn he was; the day,
Youthful, and climbing upwards still, imparts
No haste like that of his increasing parts.
Like the meridian beam, his virtue's light
Was seen as full of comfort, and as bright. 40
Had his noon been as fixed, as clear--but he,
That only wanted immortality
To make him perfect, now submits to night,
In the black bosom of whose sable spite
He leaves a cloud of flesh behind, and flies,
Refined, all ray and glory, to the skies.
Great saint! shine there in an eternal sphere, 47
And tell those powers to whom thou now draw'st near,
That by our trembling sense, in Hastings dead,
Their anger and our ugly faults are read,
The short lines of whose life did to our eyes
Their love and majesty epitomise;
Tell them, whose stern decrees impose our laws;
The feasted grave may close her hollow jaws.
Though Sin search Nature, to provide her here
A second entertainment half so dear,
She'll never meet a plenty like this hearse,
Till Time present her with the universe!

[1] 'Great victim': Charles I.

OF OLD AGE.[1]

CATO, SCIPIO, LAELIUS.
SCIPIO TO CATO.

Though all the actions of your life are crown'd
With wisdom, nothing makes them more renown'd,
Than that those years, which others think extreme,
Nor to yourself nor us uneasy seem;
Under which weight most, like th'old giants, groan.
When Aetna on their backs by Jove was thrown.

CATO. What you urge, Scipio, from right reason flows:
All parts of age seem burthensome to those
Who virtue's and true wisdom's happiness
Cannot discern; but they who those possess, 10
In what's impos'd by Nature find no grief,
Of which our age is (next our death) the chief,
Which though all equally desire t'obtain,
Yet when they have obtain'd it, they complain;
Such our inconstancies and follies are,
We say it steals upon us unaware:
Our want of reas'ning these false measures makes,
Youth runs to age, as childhood youth o'ertakes.
How much more grievous would our lives appear,
To reach th'eighth hundred, than the eightieth year? 20
Of what in that long space of time hath pass'd,
To foolish age will no remembrance last.
My age's conduct when you seem t'admire
(Which that it may deserve, I much desire),
'Tis my first rule, on Nature, as my guide
Appointed by the gods, I have relied;
And Nature (which all acts of life designs),
Not, like ill poets, in the last declines:
But some one part must be the last of all,
Which like ripe fruits, must either rot or fall. 30
And this from Nature must be gently borne,
Else her (as giants did the gods) we scorn.

LAELIUS. But, Sir, 'tis Scipio's and my desire,
Since to long life we gladly would aspire,
That from your grave instructions we might hear,
How we, like you, may this great burthen bear.

CAT. This I resolved before, but now shall do
With great delight, since 'tis required by you.

LAEL. If to yourself it will not tedious prove,
Nothing in us a greater joy can move, 40
That as old travellers the young instruct,
Your long, our short experience may conduct.

CAT. 'Tis true (as the old proverb doth relate),
Equals with equals often congregate.
Two consuls[2] (who in years my equals were)
When senators, lamenting I did hear
That age from them had all their pleasures torn, 47
And them their former suppliants now scorn:
They what is not to be accused accuse,
Not others, but themselves their age abuse;
Else this might me concern, and all my friends,
Whose cheerful age with honour youth attends,
Joy'd that from pleasure's slav'ry they are free,
And all respects due to their age they see.
In its true colours, this complaint appears
The ill effect of manners, not of years;
For on their life no grievous burthen lies,
Who are well natured, temperate, and wise;
But an inhuman and ill-temper'd mind,
Not any easy part in life can find. 60

LAEL. This I believe; yet others may dispute,
Their age (as yours) can never bear such fruit
Of honour, wealth, and power to make them sweet;
Not every one such happiness can meet.

CAT. Some weight your argument, my Laelius, bears,
But not so much as at first sight appears.
This answer by Themistocles was made,
(When a Seriphian thus did him upbraid,
'You those great honours to your country owe,
Not to yourself')-'Had I at Seripho[3] 70
Been born, such honour I had never seen,
Nor you, if an Athenian you had been;'
So age, clothed in indecent poverty,
To the most prudent cannot easy be;
But to a fool, the greater his estate,
The more uneasy is his age's weight.
Age's chief arts and arms are to grow wise,
Virtue to know, and known, to exercise;
All just returns to age then virtue makes, 79
Nor her in her extremity forsakes;
The sweetest cordial we receive at last,
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past.
I (when a youth) with reverence did look
On Quintus Fabius, who Tarentum took;
Yet in his age such cheerfulness was seen,
As if his years and mine had equal been;
His gravity was mix'd with gentleness,
Nor had his age made his good humour less;
Then was he well in years (the same that he
Was Consul that of my nativity), 90
(A stripling then), in his fourth consulate
On him at Capua I in arms did wait.
I five years after at Tarentum wan
The quaestorship, and then our love began;
And four years after, when I praetor was,
He pleaded, and the Cincian law[4] did pass.
With useful diligence he used t'engage,
Yet with the temperate arts of patient age
He breaks fierce Hannibal's insulting heats;
Of which exploit thus our friend Ennius treats: 100
He by delay restored the commonwealth,
Nor preferr'd rumour before public health.

[1] This piece is adapted from Cicero, 'De Seucctute.'
[2] 'Two consuls': Caius Salinator, Spurius Albinus.
[3] 'Seripho': an isle to which condemned men were banished.
[4] 'Cincian law': against bribes.

THE ARGUMENT.

When I reflect on age, I find there are
Four causes, which its misery declare.
1. Because our body's strength it much impairs:
2. That it takes off our minds from great affairs:
3. Next, that our sense of pleasure it deprives:
4. Last, that approaching death attends our lives.

Of all these sev'ral causes I'll discourse, 109
And then of each, in order, weigh the force.

THE FIRST PART.

The old from such affairs is only freed,
Which vig'rous youth and strength of body need;
But to more high affairs our age is lent,
Most properly when heats of youth are spent.
Did Fabius and your father Scipio
(Whose daughter my son married) nothing do?
Fabricii, Coruncani, Curii;
Whose courage, counsel, and authority,
The Roman commonwealth restored did boast,
Nor Appius, with whose strength his sight was lost, 120
Who when the Senate was to peace inclined
With Pyrrhus, shew'd his reason was not blind,
Whither's our courage and our wisdom come
When Rome itself conspires the fate of Rome?
The rest with ancient gravity and skill
He spake (for his oration's extant still).
'Tis seventeen years since he had Consul been
The second time, and there were ten between;
Therefore their argument's of little force,
Who age from great employments would divorce. 130
As in a ship some climb the shrouds, t'unfold
The sail, some sweep the deck, some pump the hold;
Whilst he that guides the helm employs his skill,
And gives the law to them by sitting still.
Great actions less from courage, strength, and speed,
Than from wise counsels and commands proceed;
Those arts age wants not, which to age belong,
Not heat but cold experience make us strong.
A Consul, Tribune, General, I have been,
All sorts of war I have pass'd through and seen; 140
And now grown old, I seem t'abandon it,
Yet to the Senate I prescribe what's fit.
I every day 'gainst Carthage war proclaim,
(For Rome's destruction hath been long her aim)
Nor shall I cease till I her ruin see,
Which triumph may the gods design for thee;
That Scipio may revenge his grandsire's ghost,
Whose life at Cannae with great honour lost
Is on record; nor had he wearied been
With age, if he an hundred years had seen; 150
He had not used excursions, spears, or darts,
But counsel, order, and such aged arts,
Which, if our ancestors had not retain'd,
The Senate's name our council had not gain'd.
The Spartans to their highest magistrate
The name of Elder did appropriate:
Therefore his fame for ever shall remain,
How gallantly Tarentum he did gain,
With vig'lant conduct; when that sharp reply
He gave to Salinator, I stood by, 160
Who to the castle fled, the town being lost,
Yet he to Maximus did vainly boast,
'Twas by my means Tarentum you obtain'd;--
'Tis true, had you not lost, I had not gain'd.
And as much honour on his gown did wait,
As on his arms, in his fifth consulate.
When his colleague Carvilius stepp'd aside,
The Tribune of the people would divide
To them the Gallic and the Picene field;
Against the Senate's will he will not yield; 170
When, being angry, boldly he declares
Those things were acted under happy stars,
From which the commonwealth found good effects,
But otherwise they came from bad aspects.
Many great things of Fabius I could tell,
But his son's death did all the rest excel;
(His gallant son, though young, had Consul been)
His funeral oration I have seen
Often; and when on that I turn my eyes,
I all the old philosophers despise. 180
Though he in all the people's eyes seem'd great,
Yet greater he appear'd in his retreat;
When feasting with his private friends at home,
Such counsel, such discourse from him did come,
Such science in his art of augury,
No Roman ever was more learn'd than he;
Knowledge of all things present and to come,
Rememb'ring all the wars of ancient Rome,
Nor only there, but all the world's beside;
Dying in extreme age, I prophesied 190
That which is come to pass, and did discern
From his survivors I could nothing learn.
This long discourse was but to let you see
That his long life could not uneasy be.
Few like the Fabii or the Scipios are
Takers of cities, conquerors in war.
Yet others to like happy age arrive,
Who modest, quiet, and with virtue live:
Thus Plato writing his philosophy,
With honour after ninety years did die. 200
Th' Athenian story writ at ninety-four
By Isocrates, who yet lived five years more;
His master Gorgias at the hundredth year
And seventh, not his studies did forbear:
And, ask'd why he no sooner left the stage?
Said he saw nothing to accuse old age.
None but the foolish, who their lives abuse,
Age of their own mistakes and crimes accuse.
All commonwealths (as by records is seen) 209
As by age preserved, by youth destroy'd have been.
When the tragedian Naevius did demand,
Why did your commonwealth no longer stand?
'Twas answer'd, that their senators were new,
Foolish, and young, and such as nothing knew;
Nature to youth hot rashness doth dispense,
But with cold prudence age doth recompense.
But age, 'tis said, will memory decay,
So (if it be not exercised) it may;
Or, if by nature it be dull and slow.
Themistocles (when aged) the names did know 220
Of all th'Athenians; and none grow so old,
Not to remember where they hid their gold.
From age such art of memory we learn,
To forget nothing which is our concern;
Their interest no priest nor sorcerer
Forgets, nor lawyer, nor philosopher;
No understanding memory can want,
Where wisdom studious industry doth plant.
Nor does it only in the active live,
But in the quiet and contemplative; 230
When Sophocles (who plays when aged wrote)
Was by his sons before the judges brought,
Because he paid the Muses such respect,
His fortune, wife, and children to neglect;
Almost condemn'd, he moved the judges thus,
'Hear, but instead of me, my Oedipus.'
The judges hearing with applause, at th'end
Freed him, and said, 'No fool such lines had penn'd'.
What poets and what orators can I
Recount, what princes in philosophy, 240
Whose constant studies with their age did strive?
Nor did they those, though those did them survive.
Old husbandmen I at Sabinum know,
Who for another year dig, plough, and sow.
For never any man was yet so old,
But hoped his life one winter more might hold.
Caecilius vainly said, 'Each day we spend
Discovers something, which must needs offend;'
But sometimes age may pleasant things behold,
And nothing that offends. He should have told 250
This not to age, but youth, who oft'ner see
What not alone offends, but hurts, than we.
That, I in him, which he in age condemn'd,
That us it renders odious, and contemn'd.
He knew not virtue, if he thought this truth;
For youth delights in age, and age in youth.
What to the old can greater pleasure be,
Than hopeful and ingenious youth to see,
When they with rev'rence follow where we lead,
And in straight paths by our directions tread? 260
And e'en my conversation here I see,
As well received by you, as yours by me.
'Tis disingenuous to accuse our age
Of idleness, who all our powers engage
In the same studies, the same course to hold;
Nor think our reason for new arts too old.
Solon the sage his progress never ceased,
But still his learning with his days increased;
And I with the same greediness did seek,
As water when I thirst, to swallow Greek; 270
Which I did only learn, that I might know
Those great examples which I follow now:
And I have heard that Socrates the wise,
Learn'd on the lute for his last exercise.
Though many of the ancients did the same,
To improve knowledge was my only aim.

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