III.
Go, renegado, cast up thy account,
And see to what amount
Thy foolish gains by quitting me:
The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty,
The fruits of thy unlearn’d apostasy.
Thou thought’st, if once the public storm were past,
All thy remaining life should sun-shine be;
Behold, the public storm is spent at last,
The sovereign is tost at sea no more,
And thou, with all the noble company,
Art got at last to shore.
But whilst thy fellow voyagers, I see,
All march’d up to possess the promis’d land,
Thou still alone (alas!) dost gaping stand
Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.