Alas, how fleeting and how vain Is even the nobler man, our learning and our wit! I sigh whene'er I think of it: As at the closing an unhappy scene Of some great king and conqueror's death, When the sad melancholy Muse Stays but to catch his utmost breath. I grieve, this nobler work, most happily begun, So quickly and so wonderfully carried on, May fall at last to interest, folly, and abuse. There is a noontide in our lives, Which still the sooner it arrives, Although we boast our winter sun looks bright, And foolishly are glad to see it at its height, Yet so much sooner comes the long and gloomy night. No conquest ever yet begun, And by one mighty hero carried to its height, E'er flourished under a successor or a son; It lost some mighty pieces through all hands it pass'd, And vanish'd to an empty title in the last. For, when the animating mind is fled, (Which nature never can retain, Nor e'er call back again,) The body, though gigantic, lies all cold and dead. XII And thus undoubtedly 'twill fare With what unhappy men shall dare To be successors to these great unknown, On learning's high-establish'd throne. Censure, and Pedantry, and Pride, Numberless nations, stretching far and wide, Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come forth From Ignorance's universal North, And with blind rage break all this peaceful government: Yet shall the traces of your wit remain, Like a just map, to tell the vast extent Of conquest in your short and happy reign: And to all future mankind shew How strange a paradox is true, That men who lived and died without a name Are the chief heroes in the sacred lists of fame. [Footnote 1: "I have been told, that Dryden having perused these verses, said, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet;' and that this denunciation was the motive of Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden."--Johnson in his "Life of Swift."--_W. E. B._ In Malone's "Life of Dryden," p. 241, it is stated that John Dunton, the original projector of the Athenian Society, in his "Life and Errours," 1705, mentions this Ode, "which being an ingenious poem, was prefixed to the fifth Supplement of the Athenian Mercury."--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 2: The Ode I writ to the king in Ireland.--_Swift_.] [Footnote 3: The floating island, which, by order of Neptune, became fixed for the use of Latona, who there brought forth Apollo and Diana. See Ovid, "Metam.," vi, 191, etc.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 4: Gyges, who, thanks to the possession of a golden ring, which made him invisible, put Candaules to death, married his widow, and mounted the throne, 716 B.C. See the story in Cicero, "De Off.," iii, 9.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 5: Proteus. See Ovid, "Fasti," lib. i.--_W. E. B._] TO MR. CONGREVE WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1693