O DE,

TO THE

ATHENIAN SOCIETY.

I.

Moor-Park, Feb. 14, 1691.

AS when the deluge first began to fall,
That mighty ebb, never to flow again,
When this huge body's moisture was fo great,
It quite o'ercame the vital heat ;

That mountain, which was highest first of all,
Appear'd above the univerfal main,

To bless the primitive failor's weary fight!
And 'twas perhaps Parnaffus, if in height
It be as great as 'tis in fame,

And nigh to Heaven as is its name:

So, after th' inundation of a war,

When Learning's little houfhold did embark,

With her world's fruitful fyftem, in her facred ark,

At the firft ebb of noise and fears,

Philofophy's exalted head appears;

And the Dove-Mufe will now no longer stay,

But plumes her filver wings, and flies away; And now a laurel wreath fhe brings from far, To crown the happy conqueror,

To fhew the flood begins to ceafe,

And brings the dear reward of victory and peace.

II. The

II.

The cager Mufe took wing upon the waves' decline; When war her cloudy afpect juft withdrew, When the bright fun of peace began to fhine, And for a while in heavenly contemplation fat, On the high top of peaceful Ararat ;

And pluck'd a laurel branch (for laurel was the first that grew,

The first of plants after the thunder ftorm and rain)
And thence, with joyful nimble wing,
Flew dutifully back again,

And made an humble chaplet for the King*.
And the Dove-Mufe is fled once more,

(Glad of the victory, yet frighten'd at the war)
And now difcovers from afar

A peaceful and a flourishing shore :

No fooner did the land

On the delightful ftrand,

Than ftraight the fees the country all around,

Where fatal Neptune rul'd erewhile,

Scatter'd with flowery vales, with fruitful gardens crown'd,

And many a pleasant wood!

As if the univerfal Nile

Had rather water'd it than drown'd: It feems fome floating piece of paradise, Preferv'd by wonder from the flood, Long wandering through the deep, as we are told Fam'd Delos did of old;

The Ode I writ to the King in Ireland. SWIFT. This cannot now be recovered.

And

And the transported Muse imagin'd it
To be a fitter birth-place for the God of wit,
Or the much-talk'd oracular grove;
When, with amazing joy, the hears
An unknown mufick all around,
Charming her greedy ears,

With many a heavenly fong

Of nature and of art, of deep philofophy and love; While angels tune the voice, and God infpires the tongue.

In vain the catches at the empty found,

In vain purfues the mufick with her longing eye, And courts the wanton echoes as they fly.

III.

Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excurfions of a youthful pen;
Forgive a young, and (almost) Virgin-Muse,
Whom blind and eager curiofity

(Yet curiofity, they say,

Is in her fex a crime needs no excufe)

Has forc'd to grope her uncouth

way,

After a mighty light that leads her wandering eye. No wonder then the quits the narrow path of sense For a dear ramble through impertinence ; Impertinence! the fcurvy of mankind.

And all we fools, who are the greater part of it, Though we be of two different factions ftill, Both the good-natur'd and the ill,

Yet wherefoe'er you look, you'll always find We join, like flies and wafps, in buzzing about wit,

In me, who am of the firft fect of these,
All merit, that tranfcends the humble rules
my own dazzled scanty fenfe,
Begets a kinder folly and impertinence

Of

Of admiration and of praise.

And our good brethren of the furly fect,

Muft e'en all herd us with their kindred fools: For though, poffefs'd of prefent vogue, they've

made

Railing, a rule of wit, and obloquy, a trade;
Yet the fame want of brains produces each effect.
And you, whom Pluto's helm does wifely fhroud
From us, the blind and thoughtless crowd,
Like the fam'd hero in his mother's cloud,
Who both our follies and impertinences fee,
Do laugh perhaps at theirs, and pity mine and me.

IV.

But cenfure's to be understood

Th' authentic mark of the elect,

The public ftamp Heaven fets on all that's great and good,

Our shallow fearch and judgment to direct,
The war, methinks, has made

Our wit and learning narrow as our trade
Instead of boldly failing far, to buy
A stock of wisdom and philosophy,

We fondly ftay at home, in fear
Of every cenfuring privateer;

Forcing a wretched trade by beating down the fale,
And felling bafely by retail.

The

The wits, I mean the atheists of the age, Who fain would rule the pulpit, as they do the stage; Wondrous refiners of philofophy,

Of morals and divinity,

By the new modifh fyftem of reducing all to fenfe,
Against all logick, and concluding laws,

Do own th' effects of Providence,
And yet deny the cause.

V.

This hopeful fect, now it begins to fee
How little, very little, do prevail

Their firft and chiefeft force

To cenfure, to cry down, and rail, Not knowing what, or where, or who Will quickly take another courfe:

you

And, by their never-failing ways

Of folving all appearances they please,

be,

We foon fhall fee them to their ancient methods fall,
And straight deny you to be men, or any thing at all.
I laugh at the grave answer they will make,
Which they have always ready, general, and cheap:
'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet,
And by a fond mistake

Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit,
And think, alas! to be by mortals writ,
Is but a crowd of atoms justling in a heap;
Which from eternal feeds begun,

Juftling fome thousand years till ripen'd by the fun;
They're now, juft now, as naturally born,

As from the womb of earth a field of corn.

VI. But