Classic Poem

IN THE NINTH BOOK OF LUCAN .

What, Labienus! would thy fond desire
Of horned Jove's prophetick shrine inquire
Whether to seek in arms a glorious doom
Or basely live and be a king in Rome?
If life be nothing more than death's delay,
If impious Force can honest minds dismay,
Or Probity may Fortune's frown disdain,
If well to mean is all that Virtue can,
And right dependant on itself alone
Gains no addition from success — 'Tis known
Fix'd in my heart these constant truths I bear,
And Ammon cannot write them deeper there.
Our souls, ally'd to God, within them feel
The secret dictates of th' Almighty will:
This is his voice, be this our oracle.
When first his breath the seeds of life instill'd
All that we ought to know was then reveal'd.
Nor can we think the Omnipresent Mind
Has Truth to Libya's desert funds confin'd,
There known to few obscur'd and lost to lie. —
Is there a temple of the Deity
Except earth, sea, and air, yon' azure pole,
And chief his holiest shrine the virtuous soul?
Where'er the eye can pierce the feet can move,
This wide this boundless universe, is Jove.
Let abject minds that doubt because they fear
With pious awe to juggling priests repair;
I credit not what lying prophets tell —
Death is the only certain oracle.
Cowards and brave must die one destin'd hour —
This Jove has told; he needs not tell us more.