 | The works of the Earl of Roscommon (1749) |  |
39
The SAME imitated.
I
Virtue, dear friend, needs no defence,No arms, but its own innocence;
Quivers and bows, and poison'd darts,
Are only us'd by guilty hearts.
II
An honest mind safely aloneMay travel through the burning zone;
Or thro' the deepest Scythian snows,
Or where the fam'd Hydaspes flows.
III
While rul'd by a resistless fire,Our great Orinda I admire,
The hungry wolves that see me stray,
Unarm'd and single, run away.
IV
Set me in the remotest placeThat ever Neptune did embrace;
When there her image fills my breast,
Helicon is not half so blest.
V
Leave me upon some Lybian plain,So she my fancy entertain,
And when the thirsty monsters meet,
They'll all pay homage to my feet.
VI
The magic of Orinda's nameNot only can their fierceness tame,
But if that mighty word I once rehearse,
They seem submissively to roar in verse.
| The works of the Earl of Roscommon (1749) | |