Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Parnassian Spring.

ODE in Praise of VIRTUE

Beyond the shocks of fate and time,
Virtue hath fix'd her throne sublime,
And wisdom is her guard:
How mean are all sublunar things
How insecure the dome of kings!
Though doubly watch'd and barr'd.
Pitying, she views the restless strife
Of men, misunderstanding life,
Who rove in folly's maze:
She smiles their envy dull to view,
Who see not that they're envied too,
For their offensive blaze.
While pleasure flows from countless rills,
While hope sits smiling on the hills,
The peasant's mad for wealth;
Yet sighing oft midst splendour's store,
Though the toil'd thought can wish no more,
E'en monarchs envy health.
Virtue, disdaining gems and ore,
Boasts her own never-failing store.
Secure from rust and spoil:
She sees with rapture, gratitude,
Joyful she shares in good men's good,
Of ev'ry age and soil.
She wreaths her brow with worthy deeds.
Gay conscience, peace, and hope, are meeds
She holds for those who strive;
Who nobly strive to win her smiles,
Contemning pain and deathful toils,
So faultless fame survive.
'Twas virtue that the heroes old
Among the stars and gods enroll'd.
Virtue with music join'd:
For poets praised where merit shone,
Had not high worthiness been known,
No laurel e'er had twined.
Thus worth could raise to heav'n's bright throng,
And worth sublimed the bard's bold song;
Unlike those tinsel lays,
Which labour at the proud's command,
To spread delusions through a land,
And alienate the bays.
Like the prudent tuneful bee,
Not only on the hills we see,
Collecting liquid sweet:
So they from life's serene low vale,
Would borrow many a moral tale,
Posterity to greet.
For what are all the pompous boasts,
Extended over seas and coasts,
Of knights with honour starr'd?
Beyond the shocks of fate and time,
Virtue hath fix'd her throne sublime,
And wisdom is her guard.