University of Virginia Library

A HYMN TO HYGEIA.

OCCASIONED BY THE ALARMING ILLNESS OF Mr. SHERIDAN.

Daughter of Heaven—roseate Goddess deign,
To list, and dissipate a nation's pain:
Lo, denting Misery's pillow, touch'd by Grief,
Curtius, the point of Glory, claims relief!
Like Jove's own bird, that through Empyrean flew,
He bears his thunder 'mid Guilt's lurking crew;
Shivers the congress knitting human ills,
And gives Oblivion all Britannia wills:
In Wisdom's school, he learn'd the rule of right,
And keeps, unceasingly, that rule in sight:
His lion-like endowments nerve his song,
He's vast and luminous,—benign and strong;
Fierce in the combat, but his foe subdu'd,
He pours upon each sense a tide of good:
Love proudly chronicled his bosom's sigh,
Sweet Virtue's lightning issued from his eye!
Circled by Fashion's flies he wak'd their fears,
His peerless merit dimm'd the garish peers:
Truth, like Jehovah's manna, fraught his tongue,
To glad the aged, and illume the young:
Shall he be torn from all that's great and just?
Shall Vice be jubilant upon his dust?
Shall Superstition's monks again be proud,
Roar the anathema and chill the croud?
Shall Envy's paly cheek be wreath'd with smiles?
Shall Fraud delude the million with his wiles?
Shall Theban monsters belch with patriot gore?
Shall dulcet Hope's dominion be no more?
Shall Phœbus droop and sadden unborn years?
Shall stern Philosophy be bath'd with tears?
Cull the blest herbage—pierce where minerals lie,
Keep his imperial spirit from the sky:
Till that Millenium comes the Seers divin'd;
Till Fate has burst the chains of human kind—
Let not his attic heroism end;
Let Freedom yet cling round him as a friend:
Depute thy minions to establish ease;
Extract the poison from the vagrant breeze:
Soften that force which feeds our system's strife,
Correct the elements that chasten life:
The Muses shriek to stop the ebon dart,
And keep the ice of Ruin from his generous heart.