If such the round we run, what hope, my friend, To see our madness and our miseries end?-- Here paused the Patriarch: mild the Saint return'd, And as he spoke, fresh glories round him burn'd: My son, I blame not but applaud thy grief; Inquiries deep should lead to slow belief. So small the portion of the range of man His written stories reach or views can span, That wild confusion seems to clog his march, And the dull progress made illudes thy search. But broad beyond compare, with steadier hand Traced o'er his earth, his present paths expand. In sober majesty and matron grace Sage Science now conducts her filial race; And if, while all their arts around them shine, They culture more the solid than the fine, Tis to correct their fatal faults of old, When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold; When their strong brilliant imitative lines Traced nature only in her gay designs, Rear'd the proud column, toned her chanting lyre, Warm'd the full senate with her words of fire, Pour'd on the canvass every pulse of life, And bade the marble rage with human strife. These were the arts that nursed unequal sway, That priests would pamper and that kings would pay, That spoke to vulgar sense, and often stole The sense of right and freedom from the soul. While, circumscribed in some concentred clime, They reach'd but one small nation at a time, Dazzled that nation, pufft her local pride, Proclaim'd her hatred to the world beside, Drew back returning hatred from afar, And sunk themselves beneath the storms of war. As, when the sun moves o'er the flaming zone, Collecting clouds attend his fervid throne, Superior splendors, in his morn display'd, Prepare for noontide but a heavier shade; Thus where the brilliant arts alone prevail'd, Their shining course succeeding storms assail'd; Pride, wrong and insult hemm'd their scanty reign, A Nile their stream, a Hellespont their main, Content with Tiber's narrow shores to wind, They fledged their Eagle but to fang mankind; Ere great inventions found a tardy birth, And with their new creations blest the earth. Now sober'd man a steadier gait assumes, Broad is the beam that breaks the Gothic glooms. At once consenting nations lift their eyes, And hail the holy dawn that streaks the skies; Arabian caliphs rear the spires of Spain, The Lombards keel their Adriatic main, Great Charles, invading and reviving all, Plants o'er with schools his numerous states of Gaul; And Alfred opes the mines whence Albion draws The ore of all her wealth,--her liberty and laws.