The fun-beam; there, embofs'd and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy feeks in vain
The likeness of fome object feen before.
Thus nature works as if to mock at art,
And in defiance of her rival pow'rs;
By thefe fortuitous and random strokes
Performing fuch inimitable feats

As fhe with all her rules can never reach.
Lefs worthy of applause, though more admir'd,
Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Rufs!
Thy moft magnificent and mighty freak
The wonder of the North. No foreft fell

When thou wouldst build; no quarry fent its stores
T'enrich thy walls: but thou didst hew the floods,
And make thy marble of the glassy wave.

In fuch a palace Aristæus found

Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale

Of his loft bees to her maternal ear:
In fuch a palace poetry might place
The armory of winter; where his troops,

The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy fleet,
Skin-piercing volley, bloffom-bruifing hail,
And fnow that often blinds the trav'ler's course,
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.

Silently as a dream the fabric rofe ;

No found of hammer or of faw was there :
Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts

Were foon conjoin'd; nor other cement ask'd
Than water interfus'd to make them one.
Lamps gracefully difpos'd, and of all hues,
Illumin'd ev'ry fide: a wat'ry light

Gleam'd through the clear transparency, that seem'd Another moon new rifen, or meteor fall'n

From heav'n to earth, of lambent flame ferene.

So ftood the brittle prodigy; though smooth,

And flipp'ry the materials, yet froft-bound
Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within,
That royal refidence might well befit,

For grandeur or for ufe. Long wavy wreaths
Of flow'rs, that fear'd no enemy but warmth,
Blush'd on the pannels. Mirror needed none
Where all was vitreous; but in order due
Convivial table and commodious feat

(What seem'd at least commodious feat) were there; Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august.

The fame lubricity was found in all,

And all was moift to the warm touch; a scene
Of evanefcent glory, once a fiream,

And foon to flide into a ftream again,
Alas! 'twas but a mortifying ftroke

Of undefign'd severity, that glanc'd

(Made by a monarch) on her own eftate,
On human grandeur and the courts of kings.
'Twas tranfient in its nature, as in show

'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seem'd
Intrinfically precious; to the foot

Treach'rous and falfe; it smil'd, and it was cold...

Great princes have great playthings. Some have play'd
At hewing mountains into men, and fome
At building human wonders mountain-high.
Some have amus'd the dull, fad years of life,
(Life fpent in indolence, and therefore fad)
With schemes of monumental fame; and fought
By pyramids and maufolean pomp,

Short-liv'd themselves, t'immortalize their bones.
Some feek diverfion in the tented field,

And make the forrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game, which, were their subjects wife,
Kings would not play at. Nations would do well
T'extort their truncheons from the puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil,
Because men fuffer it, their toy the world.

When Babel was confounded, and the great

Confed'racy of projectors wild and vain
Was fplit into diversity of tongues,
Then, as a fhepherd separates his flock,
These to the upland, to the valley those,
God drave afunder, and affign'd their lot
To all the nations. Ample was the boon
He gave them, in its diftribution fair

And equal; and he bade them dwell in peace.

Peace was awhile their care: they plough'd, and sow'd,

And reap'd their plenty, without grudge or Atrife.

But violence can never longer fleep

Than human paffions pleafe. In ev'ry heart
Are fown the sparks that kindle fi'ry war;
Occafion needs but fan them, and they blaze.
Cain had already shed a brother's blood :
The deluge wath'd it out; but left unquench'd
The feeds of murder in the breaft of man.
Soon by a righteous judgment, in the line
Of his defcending progeny was found
The firft artificer of death; the fhrewd
Contriver who firft fweated at the forge,
And forc'd the blunt and yet unblooded fteel
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.
Him, Tubal nam'd, the Vulcan of old times,
The fword and falchion their inventor claim;

Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks
The world was made in vain, if not for him.
Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, born
To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,
And sweating in his fervice, his caprice
Becomes the foul that animates them all.
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,
Spent in the purchase of renown for him,
An eafy reck'ning and they think the same.
Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings
Were burnish'd into heroes, and became
The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;

Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died.
Strange, that fuch folly as lifts bloated man
To eminence, fit only for a god,

Should ever drivel out of human lips,

Ev'n in the cradled weakness of the world}

Still ftranger much, that, when at length mankind
Had reach'd the finewy firmnefs of their youth,
And could difcriminate and argue well

On fubjects more mysterious, they were yet
Babes in the caufe of freedom, and fhould fear
And quake before the gods themselves had made!
But above measure strange, that neither proof
Of fad experience, nor examples fet
By fome whofe patriot virtue has prevail'd,
Can even now, when they are grown mature