Succeeding ages saw their wealth increase,
While self-denying poverty they feign'd;
Secure they liv'd in luxury and ease,
Nor kept those vigils which themselves ordain'd.
Now the eighth Henry rul'd our rising isle,
He saw their treasure, and he burnt t' enjoy;
Destruction rag'd o'er each devoted pile,
And wealth, that rais'd them, serv'd but to destroy.
Thus burst one link of superstition's chain,
The mind unfetter'd dar'd a nobler flight;
Fair truth and reason reassum'd their reign,
And pour'd a flood of intellectual light.
How blest were man, had this diffusive beam
Spread o'er the general world its lambent ray;
Illum'd the shores where Volga pours its stream,
And where the classic Tiber rolls its way.
For there no gleam shot through th' impervious night,
And there their seat the monkish zealots made;
As the dull earth-worm shuns the realms of light,
And courts in gloom obscure its native shade.
Still in those regions superstition sways,
In cloister'd shades see youth and beauty shrin'd;
There unexcited energy decays,
And genius dies that might have blest mankind.
But soon ev'n here the illusive shade shall fail,
And truth omnipotent assert its power;
How joys the muse the coming dawn to hail,
Oh! might her line facilitate the hour.
Say, what is virtue, sages? Is it this?
To quit the public weal, and guard our own:
Is life's sole object individual bliss?
Does man exist to bless himself alone?
Have we no duties of a social kind?
Is self-regard creation's noblest end?
How then shall age its wonted succour find;
The blind a leader, and the poor a friend?
Say, ye recluse, who shun life's public road,
Have ye not powers to mitigate distress;
To ease affliction's bosom of its load,
And make the sum of human misery less?