 | Poems |  |
69
The modest Wish.
Reach
Incense Boy! Thou pious Flamen pray
To genial Deities these Rites we pay.
Fly far from hence such as are only taught
To fear the Gods by guilt of Crime or Thought.
This is my Suit, grant it Celestial Powers,
If what my will Affects oppose not yours.
To genial Deities these Rites we pay.
Fly far from hence such as are only taught
To fear the Gods by guilt of Crime or Thought.
This is my Suit, grant it Celestial Powers,
If what my will Affects oppose not yours.
First, pure before your Altars may I stand,
And practise studiously what you command.
My Parents Faith devoutly let me prize,
Nor what my Ancestors esteem'd despise.
Let me not vext enquire, (when thriving Ill
Depresseth good) why thunder is so still?
No such ambitious knowledge trouble Me;
Those curious Thoughts advance not Piety:
Peaceful my House, in Wife and Children blest,
Nor these beyond my Fortunes be increast.
None couzen me with Friendships specious Glosse.
None dearly buy my Friendship with their Losse.
To Suits nor wars my quiet be betray'd;
My quiet, to the Muses justly pay'd:
Want never force me court the rich with Lies,
And intermix my suit with Flatteries:
Let my sure friends deceive the tedious Light,
And my sound sleeps, with Debts not broke, the Night.
Cheerfull my Board, my Smiles shar'd by my Wife,
O Gods! yet mindful still of humane Life,
To die nor let me wish nor fear; among
My Joyes mix Griefs, Griefs that not last too long.
My Age be happy, and when Fate shall claim
My thread of Life, let me survive in Fame.
Enough: the Gods are pleas'd; the Flames aspire,
And crackling Laurel triumphs in the Fire.
And practise studiously what you command.
My Parents Faith devoutly let me prize,
Nor what my Ancestors esteem'd despise.
Let me not vext enquire, (when thriving Ill
Depresseth good) why thunder is so still?
No such ambitious knowledge trouble Me;
Those curious Thoughts advance not Piety:
Peaceful my House, in Wife and Children blest,
Nor these beyond my Fortunes be increast.
None couzen me with Friendships specious Glosse.
None dearly buy my Friendship with their Losse.
To Suits nor wars my quiet be betray'd;
My quiet, to the Muses justly pay'd:
Want never force me court the rich with Lies,
And intermix my suit with Flatteries:
Let my sure friends deceive the tedious Light,
And my sound sleeps, with Debts not broke, the Night.
70
O Gods! yet mindful still of humane Life,
To die nor let me wish nor fear; among
My Joyes mix Griefs, Griefs that not last too long.
My Age be happy, and when Fate shall claim
My thread of Life, let me survive in Fame.
Enough: the Gods are pleas'd; the Flames aspire,
And crackling Laurel triumphs in the Fire.
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