English

What then should man pray for? what is't that he
Can beg of Heaven, without Impiety?
Take my advice: first to the Gods commit
All cares; for they things competent, and fit
For us foresee; besides man is more deare
To them, than to himselfe: we blindly here
Led by the world, and lust, in vaine assay
To get us portions, wives, and sonnes; but they
Already know all that we can intend,
And of our Childrens Children see the end.
Yet that thou may'st have something to commend
With thankes unto the Gods for what they send;

When the last Flavius, drunk with fury, tore
The prostrate world, that bled at every pore,
And Rome beheld, in body as in mind,
A bald-pate Nero rise, to curse mankind;
It chanced, that where the fane of Venus stands,
Rear'd on Ancona's coast by Grecian hands,
A turbot, rushing from the Illyrian main,
Fill'd the wide bosom of the bursting seine.
Monsters so bulky, from its frozen stream,
Mæotis renders to the solar beam,
And pours them, fat with a whole winter's ease,
Through the dull Euxine's mouth, to warmer seas.

What conscience has Venus drunk? Our inebriated beauties
Can't tell head from tail at those midnight oyster suppers
When the best wine's laced with perfume, and tossed down neat
From a foaming conch-shell, while the dizzy ceiling
Spins round, and the tables dance, and each light shows double.
Why, you may ask yourself, does the notorious Maura
Sniff at the air in that knowing, derisive way
As she and her dear friend Tullia pass by the ancient altar
Of Chastity? and what is Tullia whispering to her?

"Life! length of life!' for this, with earnest cries,
Or sick or well, we supplicate the skies.
Pernicious prayer! for mark, what ills attend
Still on the old, as to the grave they bend:
A ghastly visage to themselves unknown,
For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown,
And such a flabby cheek as an old ape,
In Tabraca's thick woods, might haply scrape.
In youth a thousand different features strike;
All have their charms, but have not charms alike:
While age presents one universal face--

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains:
And is this all! Yet THIS was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold,
Afric, outstretch'd from where the Atlantic roars,
To Nilus; from the Line, to Lybia's shores!
Spain conquer'd, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds;
Nature oppos'd her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps, and snows: through these he bursts his way,
And Italy already owns his sway--
Still thundering on,--"think nothing done,' he cries,

Give store of days, good Jove, give length of years,
Are the next vows; these with religious fears,
And constancy we pay; but what's so bad,
As a long, sinful age? what cross more sad
Than misery of years? how great an ill
Is that, which doth but nurse more sorrow still?
It blacks the face, corrupts, and dulls the blood,
Benights the quickest eye, distates the food,
And such deep furrows cuts i'the chequered skin
As in the old oaks of Tabraca are seen.
Youth varies in most things; strength, beauty, wit,

Must hapless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?
Inquirer, cease: petitions yet remain,
Which Heaven may hear: nor deem religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Safe in his power, whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer,
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest,
Secure, whate'er he gives, he gives the best.

But of all plagues, the greatest is untold,
The book-learned wife in Greek and Latin bold,
The critic-dame, who at her table sits,
Homer and Virgil quotes, and weights their wits;
And pities Dido's agonizing fits.
She has so far th'ascendant of the board,
The prating pedant puts not in one word,
The man of law is nonplussed, in his suit;
Nay every other female tongue is mute.
Hammers, and beating anvils, you would swear,
And Vulcan with his whole militia there.
Tabours and trumpets cease; for she alone

Give ear my children to my words
whom God has dearly bought.
Lay up his laws within your heart,
and print them in your thoughts.
I leave you here a little book
for you to look upon
That you may see your father's face
when he is dead and gone,
Who for the hope of heavenly things,
while he did here remain,
Gave over all his golden years
to prison and to pain.
Where I among my iron bands,
enclosed in the dark,
Not many days before my death,
I did compose this work,
And for example to your youth,

In Adam's Fall
We sinned all.

Thy life to mend,
This Book attend.

The Cat doth play,
And after slay.

A Dog will bite
A thief at night.

An Eagle's flight
Is out of sight.

The idle Fool
Is whipt at school.

As runs the Glass,
Man's life doth pass.

My book and Heart
Shall never part.

Job feels the rod,
Yet blesses God.

Kings should be good,
No men of blood.

The Lion bold
The Lamb doth hold.

The Moon gives light