To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance; No longer steel their indurated hearts To the mild influence of the finer arts; 60 Quick to the secret grotto they retire To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre; By generous Emulation taught to rise, The seats of learning brave the distant skies. Then noble Sandys, inspir’d with great design, 65 Rear’d Hawkshead’s happy roof, and call’d it mine; There have I loved to show the tender age The golden precepts of the classic page; To lead the mind to those Elysian plains Where, throned in gold, immortal Science reigns; 70 Fair to the view is sacred Truth display’d, In all the majesty of light array’d, To teach, on rapid wings, the curious soul To roam from heaven to heaven, from pole to pole, From thence to search the mystic cause of things 75 And follow Nature to her secret springs; Nor less to guide the fluctuating youth Firm in the sacred paths of moral truth, To regulate the mind’s disorder’d frame, And quench the passions kindling into flame; 80 The glimmering fires of Virtue to enlarge, And purge from Vice’s dross my tender charge. Oft have I said, the paths of Fame pursue, And all that virtue dictates, dare to do; Go to the world, peruse the book of man, 85 And learn from thence thy own defects to scan; Severely honest, break no plighted trust, But coldly rest not here--be more than just; Join to the rigours of the sires of Rome The gentler manners of the private dome; 90 When Virtue weeps in agony of woe, Teach from the heart the tender tear to flow; If Pleasure’s soothing song thy soul entice, Or all the gaudy pomp of splendid Vice, Arise superior to the Siren’s power, 95 The wretch, the short-lived vision of an hour; Soon fades her cheek, her blushing beauties fly, As fades the chequer’d bow that paints the sky, So shall thy sire, whilst hope his breast inspires, And wakes anew life’s glimmering trembling fires, 100 Hear Britain’s sons rehearse thy praise with joy, Look up to heaven, and bless his darling boy. If e’er these precepts quell’d the passions’ strife, If e’er they smooth’d the rugged walks of life, If e’er they pointed forth the blissful way 105 That guides the spirit to eternal day, Do thou, if gratitude inspire thy breast, Spurn the soft fetters of lethargic rest. Awake, awake! and snatch the slumbering lyre, Let this bright morn and Sandys the song inspire. 110 I look’d obedience: the celestial Fair Smiled like the morn, and vanished into air. [339] This quotation I am unable to trace--ED. 1792 (or earlier)