The load oppress'd your shoulders. Who shall

speak

Their irksome toil, and suffering? but, in truth, They sprang from blood immortal, and sustain'd, . Thus fate-compell'd, the task of agony.

Cleanthes.

CLEANTHES.

Bef. Ch. 240.

HYMN TO JUPITER.

ENGLISH TRANSLATOR: WEST.

CLEANTHES was born at Vassus, in the Troad, in Lesser Asia. He was originally a wrestler; but conceiving an ardour of knowledge, he provided for his sustenance by drawing water during the night, that he might devote the day to study. He applied himself to the stoical philosophy of Zeno; and, after his death, succeeded him in the portico. It is said that he starved himself at the age of ninety.

Of the hymn of Cleanthes, West justly remarks it as extraordinary, that such correct sentiments of duty should be found in a heathen, and so much poetry in a philosopher.

CLEANTHES.

HYMN TO JUPITER.

Most glorious of th' immortal Powers above!
Oh thou of many names! mysterious Jove!
For evermore Almighty! Nature's source!
That govern'st all things in their order'd course!
All-hail to thee! since, innocent of blame,

E'en mortal creatures may address thy name;
For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth,
Echo thy being with reflected birth;

Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound:
The universe, that rolls this globe around,
Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,
And, ductile, owns the God whose arm presides.
The lightnings are thy ministers of ire;
The double-fork'd, and ever living fire;
In thy unconquerable hands they glow,
And at the flash all nature quakes below.
Thus, thunder-arm'd, thou dost creation draw
To one immense, inevitable law:

And, with the various mass of breathing souls
Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls.
Dread genius of creation! all things bow
To thee; the universal monarch thou!
Nor aught is done without thy wise controul,
On earth, or sea, or round th' ethereal pole,
Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,
Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind.

Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion to thy sight
Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.
Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings
To one apt harmony the strife of things.
One ever-during law still binds the whole,
Though shun'd, resisted, by the sinner's soul.
Wretches! while still they course the glittering

prize,

The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.

Life then were virtue, did they this obey;

But wide from life's chief good they headlong

stray.

Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;

Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;
Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease;
And the sweet pleasures of the body please.