Oh, frail estate of human things, And slippery hopes below! Now to our cost your emptiness we know, For 'tis a lesson dearly bought, Assurance here is never to be sought. The best, and best beloved of kings, And best deserving to be so, When scarce he had escaped the fatal blow Of faction and conspiracy, Death did his promised hopes destroy: He toil'd, he gain'd, but lived not to enjoy. What mists of Providence are these, Through which we cannot see! So saints, by supernatural power set free, Are left at last in martyrdom to die; Such is the end of oft-repeated miracles. Forgive me, Heaven, that impious thought! 'Twas grief for Charles, to madness wrought, That question'd thy supreme decree. Thou didst his gracious reign prolong, Even in thy saints' and angels' wrong, His fellow-citizens of immortality: For twelve long years of exile borne, Twice twelve we number'd since his blest return: So strictly wert thou just to pay, Even to the driblet of a day. Yet still we murmur and complain, The quails and manna should no longer rain; Those miracles 'twas needless to renew; The chosen stock has now the promised land in view. XV. A warlike prince ascends the regal state, A prince long exercised by fate: Long may he keep, though he obtains it late! Heroes in Heaven's peculiar mould are cast, They and their poets are not form'd in haste; Man was the first in God's design, and man was made the last. False heroes, made by flattery so, Heaven can strike out, like sparkles, at a blow; But ere a prince is to perfection brought, He costs Omnipotence a second thought. With toil and sweat, With hardening cold, and forming heat, The Cyclops did their strokes repeat, Before the impenetrable shield was wrought. It looks as if the Maker would not own The noble work for His, Before 'twas tried and found a masterpiece. XVI. View, then, a monarch ripen'd for a throne! Alcides thus his race began, O'er infancy he swiftly ran; The future god at first was more than man: Dangers and toils, and Juno's hate, Even o'er his cradle lay in wait; And there he grappled first with fate: In his young hands the hissing snakes he press'd, So early was the deity confess'd. Thus by degrees he rose to Jove's imperial seat; Thus difficulties prove a soul legitimately great. Like his, our hero's infancy was tried; Betimes the Furies did their snakes provide; And to his infant arms oppose His father's rebels, and his brother's foes; The more oppress'd, the higher still he rose: Those were the preludes of his fate, That form'd his manhood, to subdue The Hydra of the many-headed hissing crew. XVII.