The Master.
I
Would thy Ambition paint thy Story
With Learning's never-fading Glory?
Thy aim is brave and high,
If thou thy Master warily
Dost choose; for such a choice, to thee
Will half the way to Learning be.
II
Looks thy Election now about
To find some Man or other out,
Whom Wisdom's Fame doth crown?
Take heed: for Error's plainly grown
So epidemical, that she
Becomes an human Property.
III
Look higher then; thine Eye advance
Above that Cloud of Ignorance
Which blinds this World below:
Hark how the heav'nly Master now
His Scholars woo's;—Come all, says he,
Who would be learn'd, and Learn of Me.
IV
Who would not learn of Him? and yet
How few Disciples does he get!
All Oracles are dumb
But His; and yet how slow we come
To only Him! how fondly we
Fain would, yet would not learned be!
V
For Knowledge still doth tempt us all,
Nor fell we by our fatal Fall
From that Ambition, which
For the forbidden Fruit did itch:
But now true Knowledge on no Tree
Can grow, but that which once bare Thee.
