University of Virginia Library

To flatter thy grand foible, I confess,
These are Ambition's works; and these are great:
But this the least immortal souls can do:
Transcend them all.—“But what can these transcend?”
Dost ask me, what?—One sigh for the distress'd.
“What then for infidels?”—A deeper sigh.
'Tis moral grandeur makes the mighty man:
How little they who think aught great below!
All our ambitions Death defeats, but one;
And that it crowns.—Here cease we; but, ere long,
More powerful proof shall take the field against thee,
Stronger than Death, and smiling at the tomb.