Can we forget thy guardian care,
Slow to punish, prone to spare!
Thou break'ft the haughty Perfian's pride,
That dar'd old Ocean's power deride;
Their fhipwrecks ftrew'd th' Eubean wave,
At Marathon they found a grave.
O ye bleft Greeks who there expir'd,
For Greece with pious ardor fir'd,
What fhrines or altars fhall we raise
To fecure your endless praise ?
Or need we monuments fupply,
To rescue what can never die?
And yet
* a greater hero far
(Unless great Socrates could err)
Shall rife to bless fome future day,
And teach to live, and teach to pray.
Come, unknown instructor, come!
Our leaping hearts shall make thee room:
Thou with Jove our vows shall share,
Of Jove and thee we are the care.
O father, king, whose heavenly face
Shines ferene on all thy race,
We thy magnificence adore,
And thy well-known aid implore:
Nor vainly for thy help we call;
Nor can we want: for thou art all!
*The Meffiah, foretold by Socrates.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK,
Reat father of the skies, whose boundless fway,
Both gods above, and worlds below obey. Thy laws fuftain the universal frame,
Various thy titles, but thy power the fame.
Hail, fovereign Jove! all nations fhall addrefs
Their fongs to thee, who gave them tongues to bless.
Behold thy image groveling on the earth,
Faint echoes of thy voice, which gave us birth:
Then back will I reflect thy praises still,
And fing the wonders of almighty skill.
The wide expanfe of yon etherial plain,
And all below, is fubject to thy reign.
* Cleanthes, the author of this hymn, was a ftoic philfopher, a difciple of Zeno. He wrote many pieces, none of which are come down to us, but this and a few fragments, which are printed by H. Stephens, in a collection of philofophical poems. This hymn muft give every fenfible man pleasure, to find fuch juft fentiments of the deity in a hea then, and fo much poetry in a philofopher.
The forked lightenings, which, with double glare,
Sublimely wave, and linger in the air,
From thy dread arm with pointed fury fly,
And, ting'd with ruddy vengeance, sweep the sky.
The ray divine, o'er all the frame prefides,
Glows in the fun, and in the ocean glides.
From thee each atom of creation springs;
Hail! great fupport of all inferior things!
The orbs above, and floating feas below,
Move by thy laws, and by thy influence flow:
All, rang'd in order, know their deftin'd place,
All but the mad, degenerate human race :
But thou canft order from confufion bring,
Bid peace from difcord, good from evil spring:
And when all nature frowns, and nations jar,
Set calms in ftorms, and harmony in war...
Great Jove fo juftly fram'd the earthly ball,
That univerfal good refults from all;
While common fenfe ftill fhines with certain ray,
And thro' the feeming maze points out the way;
Yet thoughtless men, to this bleft convoy blind,
Court the wild dictates of a restless mind;
Perversely fly the univerfal light,
And the sweet voice of heavenly reafon flight.
Unhappy men! who toil and hunt for blifs,
But the plain road of facred wisdom mifs:
Led by this conftant, this unerring guide,
Thro' flowery paths, man's life would smoothly glide:
But urg'd by paffion, heedlefs we pursue
The first mad pleasures that invite the view.
Some avarice and fordid taste inspire,
Ambition fome, and fame's ungovern'd fire;
Soft luxury fome, and Cyprian charms delight,
While all rush forward to the heaven in fight.
But thou, who thundereft in the vault above,
Correct these vain defires, O bounteous Jove!
Let god-like reafon in our bofoms dwell,
And from weak minds this lunacy expel;
ray of wisdom on our fouls beftow,
By which thou rul'ft all nature's scene below:
Then with devotion fir'd, we'll hail thee king,
And in eternal fongs, thy wonders fing.
No greater good can men or gods attend,
Than at thy throne with proftrate hearts to bend.
NOD of my health! whose bounteous care
First gave me power to move,
How fhall my thankful heart declare
The wonders of thy love?
While void of thought and fenfe I lay,
Duft of my parent earth,
Thy breath inform'd the fleeping clay,
And call'd me into birth.
From thee my parts their fashion took,
And ere my life begun,
Within the volume of thy book
Were written one by one.
beheld in open view
The yet unfinish'd plan;
The shadowy lines thy pencil drew,
And form'd the future man.
O may this frame that rifing grew,
Beneath thy plaftic hands,
Be ftudious ever to pursue
Whate'er thy will commands.
The foul that moves this earthly load,
Thy femblance let it bear,
Nor lofe the traces of the God
That ftamp'd his image there.
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